Japanese 1 Feedback; ex; Hiragana vs katakana words, etc

Community-Created Courses Japanese
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I’m currently at lvl 8 in Japanese 1. There are several katakana words that are introduced, but
typing it in as katakana is registered as wrong. Examples.
Orange (fruit) = オレンジ, but only おれんじ is registered as a valid response.
Same with several other katakana words. If anything writing it in hiragana should be the mistake.
So pick one, either use exclusively katakana on katakana words, or allow both.

Problem is that it compounds, the vocab is then used in phrases so it enforces errors. Please fix.

edit: sorry about chaning the title so often. Trying to find a way to get their attention. The course has potential, and if they keep it going to level 7, like they do with some of the other languages, then it can be an excellent resource.

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I agree that this is a problem. I’ve commented on this in the Japanese 1 thread. It is wrong to teach people that these words should be written in hiragana. New students who are not aware of all three character systems will learn an incorrect writing of these words. The course should either introduce katakana with the other two systems (perhaps have a slideshow at the beginning of the course to introduce the three systems and how each is used), or not teach words that require katakana.

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I imagine they did it because you need to scroll down with most IMEs to reach the katakana whereas hiragana is the default, but this could be fixed by official courses having an IME tutorial included in the lesson which would not only help with using katakana for foreign words but help with confusion related to needing to use a different IME.

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That’s a fair point. I have separate IMEs for hiragana and katakana, which helps.

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Thats a good idea, I usually just type hiragana and press “space”, it then changes it into katakana. But having a seperate ime would save me a lot of headache when trying write more difficult katakana words.

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@MichelleCruickshank1 Btw, I saw that other thread, but I assumed that it would be dismissed out of hand because of the title and the first “complaint”.

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Well, no response yet, so they may not care. But the original poster did say the comment title has been changed, so maybe you’re right and it is Memrise staff! The problems would confuse new students whose first experience of Japanese is the Memrise course.

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I completely agree, this needs to be fixed as it’s incorrect to teach these words in hiragana. Surely a large number of users only use the app anyway, so I don’t see the issue with the input.

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Hi, If you post reports about our official Japanese courses in the relevant thread, my Japanese colleague @MarikoMizutani will look into it.
@MarikoMizutani, can you please have a look at the reports above?
I will then close this topic so the conversation can be continued in Japanese 1- 7 by Memrise:[Course Forum] Japanese 1-7 by Memrise

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