Words from Level 1 of Japanese 1 can only be answered in romaji.
I am generally answering using Japanese IME, so I have to remember which words have to be answered in romaji, and switch my input back to direct english. Unfortunately, there are some words that appear in Level 1 that show up again (e.g. iie/いいえ), so sometimes when I am asked to provide the Japanese for the English “no” I will enter いいえ and get it wrong.
Aren’t all those words (from lesson 1) repeated in a later lessons (3 & 6) with hiragana?
You could use the ignore feature on these words from lesson 1, so that you are not asked for the romaji, and are only asked for the hiragana (from 3 & 6).
Most (maybe all) of the Level 1 words are repeated later with the Japanese answer in hiragana, so during a Review session the English “goodbye” may be the Level 1 entry with Japanese answer in romaji or the Level 3 entry with Japanese answer in hiragana.
@jimnicholson suggested “Ignoring” the Level 1 words. This should still test me on the Level 3 and Level 6 versions of those same words, without the risk of a hiragana answer causing a fail.
UPDATE: After some review sessions, I haven’t had a problem with hiragana answers causing a fail.
I wish I had thought of that before I gave up on the memrise Japanese course. It would have been nice if they turned off the romaji or had a romaji-free course.
@WildSage I think they are just supposed to work like training wheels, for while you are getting started… to be removed once you get going. It would help if they explained this though, in the course description, or with a multimedia level, or something.
However, If they have added hiragana (as alternatives) then I guess it is much less of a problem now. If you don’t ignore them, then you will practice those words nearly twice as much as you need to, but they are not that many really, so no big deal.
Edit: To anyone reading this… I realised afterwards that I can’t back-up my claim, that you would be doing nearly twice the reviews. I have no idea what the learning data is recorded against. If it is recorded against the the item in the course then this would be true. If it is recorded against the dictionary, and both items reference the same dictionary entry, then it may not be true. In the early days (back in the beta) you could revise something in one course and it would be watered in all your other causes. This design was removed, but it makes me wonder where the learning data is currently recorded.
