Beginning Russian student here. Your course only accepts “спасибо, нет” not “нет, спасибо.” My Russian native speaker friend couldn’t figure out why. Google says “нет, спасибо” is used 40 times more than the alternative. One website (Russian Stack Exchange) stated, “Спасибо, нет” typically shows that the speaker is actually not too grateful for the suggestion. The version “Нет, спасибо” is a neutral to polite refusal.
So okay, you are teaching the version with more sass. But maybe tell us that? And maybe don’t mark the alternative wrong? I’m more likely to say the polite one than the sassy one most of the time!
Hi @ElizabethLilly10. Thank you for the comment. You made a valuable point - both versions can be used depending on the context, although the app format does not allow us to teach you every possible variation of a phrase (no matter how much we would like to do it). But you are absolutely right, the alternative answer should be accepted as correct. This has been adjusted and you may see it if you log out and log in back into the app. Hope you are enjoing the course and please feel free to contact us with any further comments or suggestions. Best regards, Pavel.
Thank you so much for your reply, Pavel!
I didn’t actually expect I would get an answer. I really appreciate your incorporating my feedback.
I love the course. I have lots of experience learning languages, and Memrise has many features that I love.
Ещё раз спасибо!
Елизавета
I think it would be more helpful when reviewing words and phrases to have the basic translations and literal translations always visible together. Right now, when learning a new word or phrase it shows the translation and the literal translation, but when the review shows the English version and I’m supposed to recall the Russian phrase or word it’s difficult to recall the right words because I’m trying to memorize the phrase and its literal and basic translation. It seems to me, it would be beneficial to always include the literal translation when the basic translation is being displayed. That way I can learn and memorize the literal meanings of each word.
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Hello all!
I finished Russian 1 and Russian 2.
Russian 3 surprises me. A lot of words are repeated from Russian 1 and Russian 2. Also the speakers are speaking way slower, as if I would be a new Russian learner. Any clue why this is?
Earlier this year, Memrise began renewing its official courses. They started with course 1 & 2 for the courses mentioned in the announcement of the beginning of the year (link here), and are gradually renewing for others. They also reported that courses 3 onwards will be renewed in the future, but they did not give a date.
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Dear @chrispaans97, thank you for the review. We have started the process of updating our courses, for now we have course 1 & 2 updated, and the rest are to come. Indeed, some items may be repeated on this stage but as they are used in a different context we decided to keep them in the course. As for the native speakers - all they are real people recorded on the streets of Moscow, they haven’e been instructed to speak slower or in any other particular way. That’s just the way they speak 
Hope you are enjoying the course. Best regards, Pavel.
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translation mistake: Course Russ. 3 German Level 7 In geheimem Auftrag
блондин blond (not adjektiv) - but blond male
Dear @wbuerst, thank you for the comment. We have amended the translation. Best of luck with your studies. Pavel.
@pavel70: There doesn’t seem to be a separate thread for the German-Russian course, so I’ll post this here.
Level 4:
- говорите помедленнее, пожалуйста - “können Sie bitte ein bisschen langsamer sprechen?”
I’d wager that there is also a more polite version in Russian (i. e. можно ли …). The Russian here I’d rather translate with “Sprechen Sie bitte langsamer.” instead. Any insight appreciated.
Level 10:
- никогда в жизни! - nie und nimmer!
You might want to add “nie im Leben”. I would claim that the latter is being used far more widely.
Level 11:
- он между кухней и гостиной - sie ist zwischen der Küche und dem Wohnzimmer
This should be either “es ist …” or “она́” instead of “он”.
Level 12:
- обними меня - nimm mich mal in die Arme
I’ve recently made the first-hand experience that this is nothing you’d say between casual friends (such as man-man) - I’ve had a few guys laughing when I said that.
I’ve then been told that you really only use this between lovers. I’d appreciate any insight.
(EN: ~ give me a hug.)
Level 13:
- килограмм - Kilo
Better: “Kilogramm”
Level 24:
- июнь - Juni
The speaker is definitely saying июль instead.
Level 25:
- на себя - ziehen (auf Türen)
- от себя - drücken (auf Türen)
I was pretty stumped when I saw these first. But after some research I noticed that it’s rather meant to illustrate what’s being printed on doors, i. e. “pull/push (to open)”, so this really is an imperative which always omits the exclamation mark. I’d thus replace “(auf Türen)” with “(Beschriftung auf Türen)” to make this clearer. It would also help to add the literal translations “zu dir” (“to you”) and “von dir (weg)” (“from you”).
Hi @Olaf.Rabbachin,
Thanks for your feedback! I’ve checked back with @pavel70 and we agree with most of your suggestions, so most of them have been implemented now.
Regarding the items in level 12 and 24:
- обними меня - You are right, the Russian
обними меняis for romantic situations. It’s not the same as a “casual”nimm mich mal in die Arme/give me a hug, which a Russian man would probably express asдай я тебя обниму(let me hug you) - still depending on the context and/or the amount of vodka you’ve had together
What we could do is add “(romantische Beziehung)” in the German translation, or do you have a suggestion for the translation that conveys a romantic setting? - They definitely say
июнь(Juni), but the two words sound so similar that Russians often mix them up
Thanks again for flagging these 
Happy learning!
Linh
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Love that about the Vodka! Why don’t you add the “дай я тебя обниму” (let me hug you)" to the course - I do think it’d be a nice addition! I’d translate that to German with the same words and an additional “(unter Freunden)”.
I think that’s a pretty good addition!
Oh, OK. Have you compared the male speaker for June/July? It does sound exactly the same to me (subjectively - haven’t compared the wave diagrams). But maybe it’s just me and my untrained ears.
Thanks for reacting so quickly! 
… блять, брат! 
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Awesome, I’ll add the explanation for the existing item (“romantische Beziehung”) and then we’ll think about adding a more casual version for later.
About июнь/июль: I’ve just had a listen and although I’m neither a Russian speaker nor learner, I think that I can hear the difference in the ending. Similar to Juni and Juli, if I listen carefully, I can hear the differences with июнь ending with an ‘n’ sound and июль with an ‘l’ sound. It’s subtle, but I think the difference is there 
Linh
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If you want us to translate: »does your friend (male) like comedies?» then you should provide the following sentence as a correct results:
«твоему друге нравятся комедии?»
Подруга = Freundin = female friend in German
Title says it all - ‘expload’ is used as a verb, this should be ‘explode’ of course.
Yeah, I also noticed that problem but just dismissed it
девушка, вы не могли бы мне помочь?
excuse me, could you please help me?
I am really having a hard time being confident with the system when i find things like this.
In order for us to be able to put together our own phrases in everyday life, we have to know exactly what we are saying. The little fine-print, italicized literal translation that disappears almost immediately isn’t enough. I don’t feel confident that in most situations we should be using девушка for excuse me.
There is no gender for the salesperson implied. I read that this was normal in the past, but I can’t find anything that tells me that male salespeople were called this. Do male salespeople mind being called “girl”? Is this because there weren’t male salespeople? Who knows? I am not Russian, that’s why I am here…
Also, пожалуйста doesn’t appear in the translation either. Perhaps “could you not” equals “would you mind”, etc., but regardless, that isn’t “please”.
I get that some phrases can be perfectly equal between languages despite huge literal-translated differences, but still, this seems to go into an area where the person speaking could be inadvertently offensive and risk conflict.
P.S. In another area привет is suggested as “Hello”, not “Hi”. One of the first things I learned was that здравствуйте/здравствуй was the correct way to say hello when you aren’t on “ты” terms with someone. There’s no mention of that here at all. We aren’t even taught the word, so far, in Russian 1.
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Teaching the Feminine, Neutral and Masculine Word for ‘My’ is great but then trying to have people guess which of the three categories the new words are from Eg; pizza, table or bag match to the three different types of ‘my’ is just confusing. I have not idea and it is not testing my knowledge of моя, моё or мой. Maybe set up three words from each category and then ask someone to match the correct ‘my’ to them.