I’ve been using Memrise (a nifty SRSish iOS app) primarily as an aide to help learn the vocabulary in Genki 1, and up until today it’s been ok.
I found a user created module that covers all of the vocab in Genki 1. It has some quirks, probably because it’s user made - like repeating the same listening exercise session over and over and over (but just once a day), but I’ve been learning vocabulary.
But today it just started throwing new vocabulary words at me and hasn’t stopped. I think today’s sessions have thrown 15 to 20 new words at me, nearly all of them verbs, so they all rhyme and with so many, it’s impossible to even START to try to really memorize them.
Usually, it just gives me maybe 5 or 6 new words a day, and sometimes not even that many.
I always try to go for what Memrise considers to be a “daily dose” - it tells you when you’ve done a full day’s worth - but I’m only about halfway there today and I’m about ready to just quit.
I have Anki, and I bet I can find a Genki 1 vocab deck, so maybe I should just do that.
I added this entire “pack” or module or whatever, and then Memrise itself has been taking me through it. I’m currently learning vocabulary from Genki 1, Chapter 6 (while studying Chapter 4). I do decide when I go through each session, and I usually rely on Memrise itself to tell me when I’ve done enough sessions for the day.
Memrise itself has, up to now, always decided when to throw new words at me, and today has just been a doozy.
I use it on my phone, and I guess I always just choose “Next Up” and just do whatever it suggests. Each little session maybe takes a minute or so to complete, and then I just choose “Next up” again.
It generally just goes through vocab, with some new words and a bunch of reviews and types of reviews all mixed together.
Interesting, I haven’t seen Memrise do that either. I used it on desktop, and simply selected X number of lessons I would complete on a daily basis (a number that often varied depending on my workload). If you can just manually select your lessons, that should be a lot better for you.
Also, the experience on mobile is really different for Memrise. They’re like completely different applications, the mobile and desktop. I remember trying the phone app and not liking it.
Yeah, but the type of things it asks you is completely different.
Like, IIRC, the mobile app has you just choose from a small selection of kana for inputting the Japanese, whereas on the desktop you have to input everything from memory using your actual keyboard.
Yeah, the mobile app isn’t the most intuitive at times. But it does function differently from the desktop version, as Leebo said. On desktop, I’m asked to manually input my answers from scratch. But given that you’re doing it for basic Genki vocab, I’m sure it’s still helpful in learning them to some extent. Especially when pairing it with the Genki lessons + reading passages.
I just played with the desktop app and did a “listening exercise”. It presented me with a similar kana keyboard to what the app has and I was only able to enter text via that keyboard. Maybe it’s different per course.
Well, I have no audio items active, because I don’t have any interest in doing them, so maybe that’s different, but my guess is that since it’s Genki 1, the people who made the set can choose to add “easier” input methods.
Weird. No matter which course I choose, it never lets me type in kana. It always presents those kana buttons like in the mobile app. If I switch my keyboard to kana it’s the same.
I even chose the newspaper Japanese course in your image above. I wonder if I have some weird setting or something…
