I’d like to hear others’ feelings about whether the Pronunciation section of the European Portuguese course is too exacting. I know the language is difficult to get just right, but this has typically not been a problem for me, and I’ve learned to pronounce other languages, like German and Czech, that are every bit as difficult to get the hang of. Maybe this is just a weakness of computer listening, as if a machine were listening for perfect pitch in teaching singing. If this is the case, though, I find the whole feature too touchy to be valuable.
4 Likes
I completely agree, I play back my efforts and they don’t sound THAT far off, though I am a new learner. Maybe the voice recognition needs to be tweaked, otherwise I agree it isn’t too helpful and I just end up passing on half the words after four or five tries.
I have to say that, despite this, i am absolutely thrilled with the app and I’m finding it amazingly fun and effective, as finding EU Portuguese, which is my focus, resources is challenging and this one is terrific. Keep up the good work.
I agree it’s a great app. They need to completely remove the Pronunciaton section, though.
1 Like
Totally agree that it’s way too picky on some words (especially short ones, vs phrases). I have a friend who speaks Portuguese and I played back the “correct” recording and mine, which was marked as wrong, for her and even she couldn’t tell the difference.
There are definitely times when I don’t pronounce things correctly and the feature catches it, which I find helpful. I think an “override - I was right” option would be nice for the edge cases where it doesn’t seem to work. Maybe Memrise could even use the data from that to improve the feature.
2 Likes
I agree. This feature was working properly before but not anymore. I’m back learning Portuguese after a few month break and i’m really surprised it’s not working anymore. My girlfriend is native Portuguese and the app keeps telling her the pronunciation is not good enough. That’s a pity.
Please come back to last year version which was working properly!