Thank you very much! I’ve fixed them:)
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Hi, just to clarify: The character 想 (xiang) means to think, or ponder. By extension, it can mean want, as it does when combined with 要 (yao) （想要 to want or desire）.
The character 要 (yao) on the other hand, often has the connotation of something being essential or necessary. It is often combined with other characters to mean need or must. Parents will often say, “不要…” (bu yao) to say, “Don’t do…” or “You must not…”
So, really, both characters CAN mean to want, but it may be better to use the two together (想要 to think of something as needed) as an accurate translation of our English “to want”.
I completely agree with Bergeton. Until very recently, there was a simple rule for spacings in this course: if it was a single word, each syllable was spaced, whereas a sentence was spaced into entities that correspond to English words.
There were some minor inconsistencies that this thread has tried to eliminate, but in the process it has become hellishly confusing as to where spaces are. And it certainly doesn’t help with reviewing vocabulary if the spacings change every week.
I’ll gladly dedicate an afternoon on a weekend to cleaning up the three course if I can get access to it. The most sensible spacing in my opinion (if there has to be one specific way) is simply the way that nobody gets mistakes on reviews because they have to guess where the spaces are. That is, either space each syllable or space according to English words. Finally, if the course content is based on a spreadsheet, it should be simple to generate all possible spacings as acceptable answers until memrise has found a way to ignore spaces altogether.
I think it’s a lot more difficult to define spacing than it seems. There isn’t really a one to one correspondence between english and chinese words. For example, in english “book store” is two words, but in Chinese it’s always going to be pronounced as one word. If you were to split book store into two words but leave all the other stores (grocery, supermarket, pharmacy, etc.) it is going to be very hard to remember it.
Anyway, there’s another inconsistency I missed before.
shì zhōngxīn méi yǒu shūdiàn， dànshì yǒu túshūguǎn
méiyǒu is always written as one word elsewhere.
Also, I’m having terrible difficulty with these sentences:
wǒ měi tiān zuò dìtiě shàngxué
nǐ měi tiān zěnme shàngbān？
nǐ zuò jǐ lù gōngjiāo chē qù shàngbān？
wǒmen zuò yāo líng qī lù chē qù shàngkè
nǐ zěnme qù shàngbān？ kāi chē háishì zuò dìtiě？
Sometimes it’s written shàngbān and sometimes qù shàngbān. If these are identical it would be nice if both were accepted (with or without qù). Also, jǐ lù gōngjiāo chē compared to yāo líng qī lù chē, it’s hard to remember which sentence has gōngjiāo in it. Again if both are acceptable it’d be nice if either way was accepted in both sentences.
If there are good reasons for these differences, it’d probably help a lot for me if someone is able to explain them!
Hi there, I’m not sure if this is the right place to put my query, but here goes*:
In course HSK3, level 29 (and maybe the appropriate level of other courses), for the pinyin for the word 头发 (hair), it only accepts the combination “tou2 fa4; tou2 fa5”. Writing either “tou2 fa4” or “tou2 fa5” is considered wrong, and nets you a red. Would it be possible to fix this?
Edit: The same goes for “一般” (“yi1 ban1; yi4 ban1”) in level 38. I wonder if there’s been some kind of update that has accidentally caused the course to no longer accept alternative answers?
*I honestly don’t know why anyone thought removing the individual course forums was a good idea, but here we are.
@dan.hungerford: no, this in not the right place for this query (the Whately courses are since veery long in the care of some of the users, coz’ memrise does not care about these old courses anymore, in fact it never did). For the right thread, see Courses *suddenly* requiring either hyphens or even strict typing
Thanks for pointing out that thread. Indeed, it seems to be a universal problem now. Clearly this is a major issue that has just cropped up.
Forgive me if there is a really simple answer to this, but I’m using the iOS version of Memrise and don’t know how to input pinyin tone marks into the program. I’ve been trying to use various keyboards bundled with the core program but even when I use tone marks that look the same as Memrise they don’t appear to function correctly and are not registered as correct or almost correct answers.
Are you using the Memrise app? If you’re using it, you don’t need to use the keyboard at all. (which would involve tapping the keyboard icon at the top) Every time it asks you questions, you should be able to just choose from the auto-supplied choices, which should include the correct letters.
That being said, if you are using the regular Apple keyboard (for me that’s the English one), and you long-press the letter in question, you should get a few choices, then you can choose the right one. I just tested this on the app, and it did work for me. (I typed in the pinyin with the tones using the Apple keyboard, and it still said I was correct.)
Hi,
Using the IOS app for Mandarin 1-2, having trouble with pinyin entry - only a few letters are offered (not a full alphabet with time options) and these don’t always include the answer.
I tried copying and pasting from another app but it wasn’t accepted as correct even though it looked identical (xiǎo for small).
Other similar errors on
Woman
Person
Well;good
Thanks 
Hi!
I hope it helps, thanks again for your consideration!
Hi,
On Mandarin Chinese 2, Level 8
“soy source” should be soy sauce
Thank you!
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hello, thank you for your comment!
This error has been corrected a long time ago. Could you re-open the app and try again? Let me know if it’s still wrong 
Just checked it online again, the main word showing there is ‘soy source’ when I look at the details of the level.
Also, just checked, and Mandarin Chinese 3 - Level 8
has this one: 乍 = ‘suddently’ (should be ‘suddenly’)
Thank you!
Have a great day!
Mandarin Chinese 3, Level 18:
The pinyin given is: xǐ shǒu jiān zài zuǒ biān huán shì yòu biān ？
It should be hai2 for 还。
Thank you!
For mandarin 3 the quiz prompt of “second” has two possibilities. miǎo and dì èr and there’s no way to distinguish which one the quiz wants.
Also there’s a spacing inconsistency on level 14:
fùxiànjīn
duìbùqǐ， zhǐ néng fù xiànjīn
and level 18:
guái jiǎo
zhè tiáo lùde guáijiǎo yóu liǎng dòng lóu
lù kǒu
zài dì èr gè lùkǒu wǎng dōng guǎi (also the gè is separate when it usually is attached)
I wonder why xí shǒu jiān is 3 words and not 1 (if this gets changed make sure to fix both times it appears)
In a minor inconvenience
弓 only accepts “a bow” and not “bow” which is strange.
Mandarin Chinese 1, Level 1
xièxiè: according to this dictionary it should be xièxie: https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=0&wdqb=xiexie
Or maybe I’m wrong? I just noticed because many repetitions usually have the second hanzi unpronounced (妈妈, 爸爸).
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No, you’re right. 谢谢 should be pronounced as fourth tone and then neutral tone.
This sentence (Mandarin 3, level 18) definitely has an error
xǐ shǒu jiān zài zuǒ biān huán shì yòu biān ?
The chinese text and both audios say háishì (还是) not huán shì.
I see josephdaniellepalmer also noted this error above, consider this a friendly reminder.
thank you very much! I’ve fixed them