I think this thread (& my reading of 3/4 of it) has proven more effective in destroying more brain cells than all of the drinking I have done last 10 years. Who could have thunk it, that commas versus semicolons (and any other basic symbols) could be so complicated.
Who would have likewise thought that for a language related teaching aid, being able to have “phrases”, “strings of words”, “multiple words containing spaces as a single unit”, would be impossible to make use of, without them being jumbled up in tapping tests.
Who would have thought database columns (after the 3rd for audio) would have been for almost every circumstance, completely useless, and when they default to “Plurals & Inflected Forms” one couldn’t just as easily test that against the first column value without having to create an entirely different level, effectively repeated? When do I want to learn a gender of a noun & its plural form, or the past participle of a verb & its associated helping verb? Right then, on first or second exposure… at the time its “translation” is being drilled into my head through repetition & delayed reviewed.
Who would have likewise thought, a course creator would be unable to provide close but wrong answers, in contrast to a random “wrong answer” generator… which seems to only provide some learning value when a level has two similar words (but has not clarified which is intended) and it enrages users getting a “right, but wrong” answer.
What I have learned, over the past 3-4 months on Memrise… other than vocabulary, Memrise is very ill suited for teaching German; declensions, tenses, cases, conjugations, word order, parts of speech, grammar rules, etc. Maybe it is better for less complicated languages???
Something as simple, however extremely important in German such as testing for the Dativ case of a masculine noun with an adjective & an article is simply impossible. There is no way to ensure der, den & dem are possible articles, -er, -es, -en, -em are available for the adjective endings or that even “der blauer Ball”, “dem blaues Ball” or “dem blaue Ball” are possible correct answers… and to be honest, I don’t even know if one of those is actually correct, as the best Memrise was able to test me was on what word order was correct or obviously different word types, not learning the rule itself.
It’s pretty clear why I have been unable to find courses here that can teach me what I’m looking to learn, going so far as attempting to create them myself… it is not possible to do these basic, necessary functions to learn German.
Memrise has become of a bit of an addiction for me, an easier substitute to other forms of learning (as it takes away, or provides a source of motivation thinking one is learning something), when in reality it has been little more than empty calories, a junk food drive up fast food restaurant of language learning. What I think it has best prepared me for is a German Spelling Bee, I don’t need to know its meaning or uses, but I can spell it pretty damn right every time whatever it is. 