The original creator of this course abandoned it, but it was obvious that they had originally put a whole lot of effort into it. It had some typo errors and since I was using it at the time I asked for access to make some simple corrections. I don’t know how to fix the more complicated multi-media things if there happen to be any problems in that area. If anyone else wants the job it’s fine with me.
This isn’t really a reply but I just do not know where or how to ask a question in this community and I assume from seeing posts by you that you can answer my question. I began Memrise a few days ago in Spanish level 4 and have been surprised by the rigidity of the program that marks my responses correct or incorrect. Is it really incorrect to place the words “anoche” and “ya” at the end of the sentence whereas the course programmer inserts them at the beginning of a sentence?
I realize the answer to my question is sometimes if not often dependent on the sentence. However, with the two Spanish words I included above I believe in each instance the words “last night” and “already” where at the end of the English translation sentence. Thank you for your anticipated attention to this “reply” of mine.
There are many options that can work, however to do that, the creator of the course would have to enter each of these possibilities as individual answers. Given the variables with language and the number words in the course, this would be a never ending task. Just learn with the option they want, realizing there are other possibilities.
Thank you.
Sorry, I was on vacation so am just back to Memrise now. As another reply mentioned it is really hard for the course creator to cover every possibility. Even so, some phrasing is more correct than others. It’s true that people will understand what you are saying in most cases, but English to Spanish doesn’t translate literally. So the word placement is frequently not exactly the same. If you look at two of the same magazines, one English, one Spanish, and read them side by side you will see what I’m talking about. Some times it is translated totally different to convey the same thoughts or ideas. If you are doing a course where the creator actually IS Spanish (one by Olivia, for example) then by all means learn the sentence the way she has written it. Many times I think of Spanish as backwards from English. A translator will change a sentence all around to make it flow in Spanish - sometimes the end of the sentence ends up at the beginning.
Thank you for your reply. I understand what you and the other individual who replied to my post mean but it is inexplicable that memrise cannot program some flexibility, after all Duolingo does it. And the extent of rigidity on memrise is to me a serious deficiency. For example, I just answered “I knew you didn’t eat enough” by typing “Yo sabía que no comiste suficiente” which was rejected because I included “Yo.” How can my answer have been wrong?
The two sentences do have subtly different meanings.
With the yo in front, you are talking about yourself; you aren’t just the grammatical subject of the sentence, but also the topic - my, aren’t you smart. Appropriate in an “I told you so” conversation, or used to emphasize the contrast between what you knew and what someone else believed.
But if the topic is actually the other person’s food intake, you would leave off the yo. You are still the grammatical subject of the sentence, but not the discussion topic.
Hi Cord88,
I haven’t used Duolingo in the last year or two, so I can’t compare as far as flexibility. Also I’m no ‘techie’ and don’t know a thing about the Memrise programming. 
Perhaps Memrise is more rigid, but I think that is mostly because of the course creator. I think that a large majority of the Memrise courses are created by average people or novices, present company included. A course creator can add a lot of alternative acceptable answers but it requires a great deal of time. A lot of people (like me, for example) are still learning ourselves and make courses on Memrise for our own purposes, perhaps to help us retain words that we learn, or as personal practice sessions and then set them as public so anyone can use them if they want. So the quality of courses does vary. Some course creators are very open to adding alternatives, when needed, if someone makes a specific request. Personally, on my own courses I appreciate input from others to help make things better and others have caught typos and missed accents, etc. for me. I’m guessing that Duolingo courses are done by a collaboration of people who probably have more experience in a language and.more time to do it? I didn’t care for Duolingo all that much when I tried it, but that’s because what I wanted was to learn and practice words that were more relevant for me. So I was so very happy that I could create my own on Memrise. You could start your own course as part of your learning, but if you find that Duolingo suits you better, than I’d just stay with that. Different things work for each of us. I tried Rosetta Stone too, and although it got me started, it just wasn’t a good fit for me.
Best wishes in learning Spanish,
Karen
1 Like
Yes, that is frustrating. I adjusted it so that either answer should be accepted, however I think el bombón is probably used more in the sense of chocolate candy than chocolate in general.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
Karen
coould you change this to " chocolate (candy)" or smth like that
Thanks! =)
Yes, I already did.
1 Like