In the screenshot the author has chosen to list several optional particles. Unfortunately the order of said particles is arbitrary and the author often uses variations on them. That means users can’t really enter them without memorizing the author’s particular choices (including order) for each word. Therefore I usually only enter the word and skip the particles.
In this one however entering just the word results in it saying one failed. I think that’s because it has both parentheses and a slash. You can see my entry is correct.
I’m sorry to say, but this problem is not a result of a “bug”.
You are having this problem because the original course creator typed these phrases in this way into the database and didn’t think of offering options without dashes and brackets.
The only way this can be fixed (to my knowledge) is if the original course creator adds these options to the database for this course.
In order for this to happen, you need to try and find out the following:
Is there already a course forum for this course in the Japanese subforum in the Language Quarters forum?
If you find it, then you can ask the course creator directly to make these changes.
You can look for the course creator here by using the search function or writing the person’s name with an @ in front of it.
If you are having problems with a course, always always always add a link to the course you are talking about
If the original course creator is no longer active, maybe @Lien can make you into a course contributor, which would mean you could make the changes yourself.
To get a correct answer, I think you would need to put ALL of the characters in, including the ones in brackets.
Only then would the algorithm recognise that you had written the correct answer. Giving only half of the requested characters wouldn’t be the full answer.
The correct answer is the ENTIRE line of text to the left of the growing flower in your screenshot.
When the original course creator put the correct answer in the database, they obviously put brackets and what looks like a minus sign with the first part of the answer. Presumably, they thought that would be regarded as an optional answer, but that is not how the algorithm works.
Whatever appears in that “box” is what the learner has to put as an answer to the prompt “to treat, to serve (food)”, the computer programme doesn’t “see” that there are brackets or minus signs or whatever, it just wants an identical copy of what is in that box to allow a correct answer.
Does that make any sense to you? I am not a programmer or anything, so I hope I am not talking rubbish, but that is how I understand it. I have also made alterations to some databases (for the 8,000+ Most Common Swedish Words course) and I know how silly typing mistakes can produce very annoying problems because I have received feedback about them via the forum.
Anything in parenthesis is optional in the course. Both when typing in the Android app and on the web. As I stated in the answer I regularly (more often than not) don’t type what’s in the parenthesis (and my answers are marked as correct) Perhaps this is a feature that you’re not aware of yet.
In the above “대접하다” should have been marked correct - just as all the other words with parenthesis are marked correct when the parts in the parenthesis are not used. If you’d like try it for yourself level 8 serves as an excellent example; try the first word “(-을) 녹이다” - but just type the last part (or cut and paste 녹이다). The word will be correctly marked correct. Moments ago I went through the latter third of that level (web version) and never once typed what’s in the parenthesis.
@amanda-norrsken, one of Memrise’s features is that words or phrases that are in parenthesis are automatically optional, unless strict typing has been turned on.
@tmilo What do you mean when you say that it has both parenthesis and a slash. Do you mean a dash? I don’t see any slashes in that word.
Were you able to test on the website and see if the web version has issues with that word, too?
Hi @neoncube - the slash is the fourth character from the left in the screenshot. It might not stand out well if you’re not familiar with the characters. Also I’m only guessing that the slash causes the different behavior with this word. There could be another cause entirely.
Here’s the word with the slash in bold:
(-에 / 에게 -을) 대접하다
(Note: I had to add some extra spacing to get it to work on the forums ~ sorry)
You’re right, of course, but it only appears to be optional if the bracketed word comes AFTER the word in question.
I was reviewing this morning and I noticed straight away that my statement was wrong because I have made a lot of additions to problematic words like this:
en reaktion (loan word)
en verklighet (not a loan word)
and the learner doesn’t have to write the part in brackets.
BUT, I also have an entry for “either … or” and “neither … nor”, which caused problems because I had written the Swedish like this:
varken (…) eller
antingen (…) eller
The algorithm only accepted as correct the exact copy of this entry, until I offered alternatives where the brackets and dots are left out entirely.
If you look closely at the screenshot that tmilo has posted, you will see that the bracketed word is the first word in the sequence. If the algorithm reacts to that like it did to a bracket placed between words, then it will deem it to be part of the word and not an additional piece of information, perhaps? And this is why tmilo has been having problems, I imagine.
I would tag @Lien in the course forum and ask her to contact the course creator. If the course creator is no longer active, she could make you a course contributor and you could remove these annoying dashes and parentheses.
Hmm… I just tested, and it looks like if I have an entry “a (b) c”, then if I enter “a c”, it accepts it as correct (although it doesn’t accept just “a” or just “c”). However, I haven’t tried with something like “(a) b”, so that could be the issue. I think tmilo could be right about it being related to having both a slash and brackets (parentheses).
Just look at the level I referenced above. Almost all the words are of the form “(…) something” and I almost never type the part in parenthesis. Parenthesis first works just fine. I use this feature every day.
The word is in level 7.
I found another example of this behavior that seems to confirm that the slash may be a causative factor.
You can see in this one the word has parenthesis with a slash inside (to indicate that either left or right is valid) and the card was marked wrong even though I typed everything outside the parenthesis.
I really wish that memrise had a button to allow me to tell it “no, I WAS right”. Both quizlet and duolingo’s tinycards have this feature. (Yes memrise product team - you’re slowly pushing me to other products!)
Summary of words affected by this in previously specified course:
lvl 7
(-에/에게 -을) 끼치다
(-에/에게 -을) 대접하다
lvl 9
(-에/에게 -을) 대다
lvl 16
(-에/-에게) 아부하다
lvl 18
(-에/-에게 -을) 늘어놓다
These are now my “most missed” words, since it’s difficult to get them right (especially considering that the author sometimes does or does not use the “-” dash.)
