Memrise

What is Memrise?

Memrise’s developers have built this language learning platform around the principle that becoming immersed in a language is the best way to learn it. This method rejects the traditional textbook approach. Memrise is the free English learning app and it is available online and for mobile. Memrise is available for free to download on iOS and Android devices.

The older methods get learners to build up a memory of words and phrases ready for the time when they can use them.

The immersive approach recommended by Memrise is best illustrated by what would happen if you moved to a country where your target language is spoken. Surrounded by culture and people, accents and idioms, customs and habits, you’d absorb the language as you learned it. It would be enriched with a deeper understanding as you see the life it accompanies.

Memrise can’t put you in the country of your choice, but the app’s developers have travelled the world, capturing real native speakers in their home country, living the culture they are a part of. 

This rich audio and video content complement well-designed practice exercises that use quizzes, speech recognition, and more to help you remember and build fluency.

Each language in Memrise is delivered as a series of scenarios based on the users level.

Any Memrise user can create courses and make them available for others to access on the web. User-generated content adds to the breadth and depth of Memrise’s coverage, but it is of varying quality and usefulness. The feature of adding new content to the app is a plus for Memrise, but the community content does not form part of this review. Everything considered in this Memrise review is based on the official courses.

Try the free version, as it's one of the best free language-learning apps currently on the market.

What we love about Memrise app.

Even if used in conjunction with real-life language lessons, a language-learning app needs to replicate the skills of a teacher to keep students interested and progressing. If the app is the only source of language education for a learner, then it must be especially good at this.

In this review of Memrise, we found it to be a responsive and informative teacher. 

A skilled language teacher will direct students’ practice to areas they find difficult.

The spaced repetition of encountering words and phrases is a well-known and effective means of teaching languages. Memrise introduces words, gets learners to recall them soon after and continues to do this over the longer term in subsequent sessions.

Memrise does a great job of replicating, guiding and supporting students. It adjusts the lessons to reflect their progress and difficulties.

The app will tag words that it detects you find difficult to give you extra practice and support with using them. Other apps do this too, but Memrise also has a handy way to do this manually. 

If, for example, you always answer a question correctly but you know you have to think long and hard about it or use a mental trick, the app won’t see that you find it a problem. A conscientious learner can recognise that a word or phrase requires more effort than others and ensure that the app keeps it in their practice material.

A creative language teacher will remember that students learn languages to use them and produce resources to support this.

Memrise provides excellent videos and audio featuring native speakers in the kinds of scenarios that learners want to be able to participate in. Listening to the pronunciation and cadence of native speakers will help avoid learning poor practices.

A successful language teacher will give students achievable goals to raise motivation and measure progress.

Memrise sets students daily tasks that feel manageable in complexity and time demands. If you need to end a course early, you won’t forfeit your progress but can pick it up later. Each session feels like it has taught something new or provided valuable practice.

What skills does it teach?

Memrise helps its user learn a new language. It covers many target languages, including Spanish (Latin American and Spanish), French, German, Chinese, and Korean. Users have a wide variety of native languages that they can set in the app.

Is Memrise for free?

Memrise is available for free to download on iOS and Android devices. The free account gives you access to a good amount of content both in the web app and mobile apps.

How much does Memrise cost?

Memrise subscription costs  $8.49 per month or $59.99 per year, or you can get a lifetime subscription for $119.99.

The subscription increases in value the longer the duration you choose. A lifetime option gives learners permanent full access and would be the best value for dedicated learners of more than one language.

What age is it appropriate for?

Memrise is for a general audience aged 12 and above.

Parents and teachers should test this app before buying it for kids to see if the content is relevant and accessible for their kids. Motivated secondary and high school-aged kids could do well using Memrise.

Is Memrise app easy to use?

There is so much video and audio content in Memrise that it was impossible to access all of it during this review. However, everything we did see was appropriate for kids aged 12+. The app shows native speakers in social situations which can involve drinking alcohol or smoking.

It is unclear whether the user-generated courses go through an approval process before becoming publicly available. This could potentially result in unsuitable content if not.

The app does not display third-party advertisements. It has in-app adverts on Android version. There is an option, off by default, to connect the app to Facebook.

Will Memrise make me fluent?

Yes. Learners can work at their own pace by choosing their learning style and pace of learning. Learners can choose from a wide range of topics in courses already created on Memrise. They can learn and practise reading, listening, pronunciation and writing.

How will students benefit?

Memrise’s design perfectly suits phone-sized devices, allowing language learners to practice whenever possible. The variety of question types develops various language-learning skills. As well as recognising written and spoken words and phrases, users learn to translate between their native language and the target language and practise spelling words in the target language.

The app uses some gamification elements to encourage students to keep playing. This does not mean that it plays like a game but uses some of the methods of reward that computer games often have. For example, students can build up streaks they won’t want to break by missing a day.

Unless students are lucky enough to have a personal language teacher or friends fluent in their target language, they won’t be able to practice speaking. In a classroom, their teacher won’t be able to spend long listening to each student speak, but Memrise uses speech recognition to let them get feedback on their pronunciation as often as they need.

This feature isn’t a replacement for actual conversational practice, but it should help students avoid developing poor pronunciation. It also feels less awkward responding to an app than speaking to an empty room.

How will teachers benefit?

Teachers can only provide so much support to students, and Memrise would work well as a support to an existing course. The app’s scenarios will work well as homework assignments to provide a more practical use for what students have covered in class. 

Seeing the culture and locations relevant to their target language in the app’s videos will also help to remind learners why they are studying. This ongoing motivation will help teachers keep their students engaged and progressing.

Clear labelling helps teachers understand the purpose of Memrise’s courses at a glance. Basics are the foundations, but other course tags show that they concentrate on expressing opinions, travel, social life and more.

Good to know

The user experience and features available vary across platforms, particularly between web and native apps. There are also differences between the experiences of learning different languages.

What can Memrise app improve on?

The supporting website to Memrise states that the app’s approach is rooted in science and gives a detailed description of how it works. While for many users this is enough, and they won’t want to go into the technicalities, a claim of scientific basis should be accompanied by some references for those who want to look deeper.

The variety of quiz types ensures learners develop all of their language skills and is a definite plus. However, some users might have learning needs that make some of them less appropriate, and we’d like a setting to deactivate some quiz types. For example, the questions where users must spell the words could be a demotivating sticking point for some as they might struggle with this in their native language too.

Overall rating of the app.

Learning a new language requires effort and motivation, especially at the start. No app or teacher can change that. A poor app or teacher could demotivate or make it all seem too difficult. 

Fortunately, Memrise greatly complements real-life lessons and is an effective learning resource for independent learners. You have to want to learn a language, but Memrise will make that learning the satisfying and interesting experience you hoped it would be. 

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