I have spotted a problem in MEMRISE GERMAN 5 with regard to SPEED REVIEW.
The word SCHLECHT was displayed and I had to choose the correct translation.
Of the four translations shown, the word BAD appeared twice.
I selected the first one but it was marked incorrect (the second BAD was shown to be correct).
I suspect this is because GERMAN 5 teaches both SCHLECHT and SCHLIMM, which may both translate to BAD. Thus, my guess is that I chose the BAD that mapped to SCHLIMM, rather than the BAD that mapped to SCHLECHT.
The platform needs to be smart enough to recognise that two different words may map to the same meaning. Ideally, identical words ought never to be shown; failing that, either word should be marked correct.
Thanks.
Platform: web (though I suspect it might occur on all platforms, given the nature of the problem).
Hi there, thanks a lot for reporting this issue! It is definitely something I will look into right away and I will come up with different English translations for German “schlecht” and “schlimm”, since having the same translation will lead to the mentioned problems…
Thanks @mario2189
The best thing is that I’ve improved my German by heading off to investigate SCHLECHT vs SCHLIMM.
SCHLECHT seems to have a sense of comparison, i.e. good vs bad, or an evaluation of quality (e.g. having a bad day). Whereas SCHLIMM seems to emphasise the negative consequences of the thing in question (e.g. a severe/bad injury).
So perhaps their respective definitions could be:
SCHLECHT - bad (in terms of assessment of quality or performance).
SCHLIMM - bad (in terms of having severe consequences).
If it helps anyone else, here’s a resource I found:
I have now edited the English translation for “schlecht” and it is now “bad; poor” and
the Engl. translation for “schlimm” is now “bad; severe”, this will solve the problem of having the same item
as answers for the German word.
have a great day!
Sorry to start the weekend with bad news but I found another
Speed review again but this time, i was asked to translate “Difficult” and two of the options were “schwer” and “schwierig.” Both are suitable answers but “schwer” was marked wrong.
Not sure how you can handle that without modifying the backend to allow multiple possible correct answers.
Hi again,
for this one, it is a bit different, since we teach “schwierig” to mean “difficult” and “schwer” to mean “heavy; hard (not easy)” this is why the system will say “schwer” is an incorrect translation of “difficult” so there is no complete match. However, I agree that this is confusing since both “schwierig” and “schwer” mean “difficult” and I will try to come up with a solution shortly! Thanks a lot for reporting this!
Have a great day!
Ambiguous words in Māori 110.
There is a similar problem because Memrise gives two words for “I, me”. They are “au” and “ahau”. When asked to translate “I, me” I never know which one they want. Either should be marked correct.
