I’ve just started learning Russian using the courses on this website. I like the course overall, but one thing that bugs me is the fact that the on-screen keyboard is fixed, and does not match “canonical” Russian keyboard layouts.
Namely, I’d like to learn to type Cyrillic using an actual keyboard (via the RU layout in the operating system itself). However, the “canonical” layout (that is, not the special phoneme-similar stuff) does not match the on-screen one, which is can get really frustrating. It means that I can know what a letter looks like, but I can’t actually find it on my keyboard.
One way people recommend learning this is having a piece of paper or an on-screen reference up while you type (you look at the reference on-screen while typing on the keyboard).
This is where Memrise comes in: if the website layout matched the typical keyboard layout, it would give people who want to also learn to type Cyrillic an on-screen reference “for free”. I can’t think of many big downsides for other people (who use mouse clicks), either — but you can eliminate even those downsides (if any) if you add an option for switching layouts (“old Memrise style” vs “canonical”).
This issue has honestly stopped me from using Memrise (because it’s really frustrating when you know what to type, but don’t do it in the time limit because you can’t find the damn key!).
I really enjoy using Memrise’s Russian course, but the Keyboard layout is very troublesome. I’ve become acquainted with the standard keyboard layout used on standard keyboard layouts, and the Russian keyboard for the iPhone, so when the Memrise onscreen keyboard displays in alphabetical order, its really distracting, and annoying. I’m having to repeat lessons, to learn an incorrect keyboard layout, and I’m repeating words that I already know well, because I’m hunting with my eyes to find a key, leading to a timer expiry, slowing progress.
you’ll never get an aswer to a “feature suggestion”… if the inbuilt keyboard of your OS does not match, then this should be called a “bug” and you should call in one of the team members…
@JoeAndersond8f5eca36@DarkUranium
Thank you for your comments and sorry for the slow reply. The issue has been reported to the tech support team and soon we will be able to get back to you with a solution.
Thank you.
Pavel
@pasha75 It’s been a year and a half since your last reply. Never got an update. I must say, I’m not sure if I should be amused or sad at how this issue was handled.
For what it’s worth, I don’t recall if it was like this before, but I do notice the keys are in the right order at the moment … but there aren’t the same number of keys in a row as on an actual keyboard, so only the 1st line is correct.