Thoughts/Suggestions on Memrise Language Courses - General

Community-Created Courses German
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Hi all, I am currently learning German, mostly “on my own” with countless resources I find along the way; Duo, Memrise, Coursebooks, online resources, etc.

Putting it simply, while not claiming to be an expert in any forms, there appears to be 3 primary sections of learning that can be accomplished via Memrise, etc.;

  1. Vocabulary,
  2. Grammar/sentence formation/rule learning, &
  3. Conversation

Memrise appears to the first 2 very well, each course I have encountered doing these 2 tends to have a slightly different vocabulary list they deem most important - no big deal.

But what Memrise could do, but to the best of my knowledge does not, is attempt the 3rd area - conversation/discussion, as the goal of the first two is to test “translation” as one builds thier language skills.

As such, has there been any attempts/discussions to create courses that more accurately match the format of actual Sprachschule?

Instead of the answer being the translation or spelling or proper article/declension, the correct answer is the correct phrase that answers the question being asked.

This is largely the goal of Sprachschule, where in Germany they do not want the student to be translating, but instead learning only within & by using German.

Memrise is limited by its 1 question, 1 answer format… but there are plenty of opportunities to prompt for the proper response to the question asked.

Quick example…
Q. Wo ist der(n) Bahnhof?
A. Den Bahnhof ist da druben.

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hm sorry for disagreeing…

“den Bahnhof ist…” is grammatically wrong…

Memrise never claimed to be a “Sprachschule”. Also, that example question is an open one (it can have an endless number of answers), why should someone learn one single possible answer?

also, what do you believe to be a German model is an old model called immersion and it is based on research on how small children learn. US-Americans (and for the last 15-20 years not only them) love it, unfortunatelly leads to children speaking a horrible, simplified language… not to mention the mess in which adults find themselves (for the very simple reason that the brain changes with the age, of course; and because one cannot learn higher level languege simply by immersion)

as you are living for now in Germany, for sure you have met people having lived there for decades, but speaking a very poor language. So much so good for immersion…

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I think the membots are going in that direction.

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As Petr mentioned, the Membots are supposed to help with this. I’m not sure if they’re available for German or not, though, and as far as I know, they’re only available in the app, not on the website.

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I have looked onto it, sure they are present in the official Memrise course from english to german. I did three first grammer lessons - they seemed fun and good enaugh.

However I have no idea how much longer and how much deeper those conversations with robots go.

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How did I know that if I didn’t use the perfect example perfectly constructed, that it would then be turned into the discussion itself???

But to your point about “immersion” and its success or failure…

  1. 20 years ago there was not the Internet, let alone a zillion different resources for learning a language.

  2. 20 years ago, the prevalence of English speakers of all levels in German speaking countries was not there.

  3. 20 years ago there wasn’t a million refugees, plus several million more all coming in at the same time and the government pushing to have all integrated via language.

This last one means that “immersion” courses to fill the demand have teachers that are not teachers by training, let alone language teachers, and the one apparent minimum requirement is that they are native German speakers.

The language skills certifications don’t specify the specific words, only that a set number of “concepts” are achieved for each level, whether it is German, Spanish, French, etc.

So regardless if one wants only High German to be taught and learned, realities today dictate this is highly unlikely and phrases & responses to simple phrases/needs is prioritized.

Personally, I am focused on learning via Grammar, but that is neither where the “system” is going, nor even the countless 50-100 avaiable “courses” available here on Memrise for German alone.

Pick up 9 out of 10 German “immersion” or “course” books and you will see learning basic phrases to get you through a day is what is being taught.

I’m glad to see Membots mentioned, they are not avaialable in German yet, but my point was similar could be achieved under the current Memrise format IMHO as I outlined.

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You are right… I forgot about them, but I would agree… not sure how far that can go.

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You can make the course you describe. Come back and share when you’ve built the first level.

You’ll probably want to cue the response a little bit, so it isn’t memorization, something like: (I don’t know whether this is correct)

Q. Wo ist der Bahnhof? (there)
A. Den Bahnhof ist da druben.

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sorry,
the correct answer to the question is:
Der Bahnhof ist da drüben.

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Though one of my courses is just asking for vocabulary I included clozes via attributes. Maybe you could use a similar structure - namely putting the english clue in the attribute, then answer with the corresponding sentence?

https://www.memrise.com/course/1473456/vokabular-zu-la-verdad-sobre-el-caso-savolta/

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Try Adding Questions Where it shows the question and you have to write the answer