Memrise: If I can learn Korean, anyone can learn a second language (app review)

I’m the type of person who always likes to learn. I find learning to be fun and challenging and there’s nothing more mentally stimulating than trying something new. I’ve always wanted to learn a second language and finally downloaded Memrise to give myself a new challenge. I’ve had opportunities to learn a second language in the past, but never could grasp the way I was taught. Maybe I’m slow, or maybe I’m just not capable of learning from a text-book and a teacher, but that never changed my desire to learn another language. Now at 37 years old, I almost gave up on believing I could learn another language but decided to give it another shot.

I chose Korean as my first language to learn. Even though I live in San Diego and should learn Spanish, which I know some anyway, Korean seemed like a good choice for me since I have several Korean American friends that I would love to impress with knowing their native language. I’m also friends with their parents and it would be nice to communicate with them in their first language. I chose to go with Memrise since it was the only major language app that offered Korean.

How Memrise teaches new languages

Memrise used science and analytics to develop new ways of teaching. It looked at the most common way people try to learn facts, concepts, vocabulary and so on, and concluded most read material in hopes our brains will automatically register what we are studying. Decades of memory research has proven that method of learning is slow and ineffective because it doesn’t relate what we’re trying to learn to what we already know.

“A simple illustration of this is that a random list of words like diamondhorseorangerabbitpurpleemerald… is harder to remember than a list comprising the same words grouped into taxonomic categories diamondemerald… horserabbit… orangepurple… Organizing words into common groups allow us to see connections between them and to use simple cues (‘animals’) to help us recall them later.”

Memrise uses what it calls “elaborate encoding” to connect words and definitions using the information you can relate to which enables faster learning. Memrise also uses choreographed testing to challenge memories as it has found testing is more effective than restudying material you’ve already gone through.

“Why is testing so beneficial for memory? Despite the huge amount of research on this question, there is no agreed answer, and indeed there may be several explanatory factors which are not mutually exclusive. One way to think about testing as a learning event is from the perspective of what Robert Bjork calls ‘desirable difficulty’, the principle that factors that make learning harder are often paradoxically beneficial for long-term retention. Recalling an answer in a test is often effortful, and it may be that this effort is necessary and desirable to strengthen what has been learned. Consistent with this idea, evidence suggests that greater benefits accrue from harder tests, for instance from a recall test with no clues as to the answer (casa = ?) compared with a recall test with part of the answer supplied (casa = h___?).

Another possible explanation is that repeated tests enable the key information to become separated from any specific contexts and instead to be associated with a wider range of retrieval cues. Jeffrey Karpicke and his colleagues have recently provided strong support for this idea.”

Memrise also uses scheduled reminders to retest your knowledge of words just before they fade. It claims that research suggests this is the best way to cement words into your memory for the long-term.

Does Memrise’s teaching methods work?

I downloaded Memrise on to my Android smartphones and iPad and went through each daily set of lessons for three months. I didn’t quite know what I was getting into, but I did go into it with an open mind. I tried the free version since I didn’t want to commit to the $4.90 per month fee, or annual subscription fee of $60 without knowing if I’d learn anything or not. Luckily, Memrise does give plenty of basic lessons for free and allowed me to make an educated decision before I splurged on the course fee.

Lessons started off rather easily. I learned basic words in short and quick lessons with no more than 10 new phrases, letters or words in one session. Each short course took less than two minutes of my time and was followed with videos of natives speaking what I just learned, or followed by reviews that help me build a memory of what I was learning. The methods that Memrise employ to teach actually enabled me to learn the basics of Korean without forcing me to tell myself to memorize what I learned. Within two weeks of following the free lessons, I purchased the full version.

I didn’t question the teaching methods. Memrise threw me right into the mix and after completing each day’s courses, I came away with a little more knowledge than the day before. After a few weeks with the premium version of Memrise, I was already practicing phrases and words with my Korean friends. Even though I have an accent, according to Luke a terrible accent, my friends were able to understand what I was saying. Luke was a little mean to me at first and made fun of me, but I got my revenge last week when I had him take a Memrise test and he failed where I succeeded.

The teaching methods that Memrise uses works really well. I’ve never been able to grasp languages using traditional methods, it’s just not my kind of learning style. I’m now on to phrases like “How was your day?” or “what’s up?” and am learning how to spell them in Korean, pronunciation properly and use them with my friends. I’m by no means fluent, but I’m also still on the first level of learning.

Memrise doesn’t need a lot of time dedicated to learning too. I’ll spend 10 minutes a day before bed, at my most tired, going through lessons and it sticks with me. If you want to spend more time learning, I’m sure you’ll advance faster than I am, but it’s completely discretionary. What’s a little surprising is when I took a month hiatus from Memrise (work and social responsibilities) and came back to it with just about all of my knowledge retained from previous lessons.

I’m fully confident with more time and effort, I will learn enough Korean to impress my friends and their families. More importantly, though, I’m impressing myself because I never thought I would learn a second language.

What other languages are taught by Memrise?

Memrise has quite the selection of languages to learn. It has the popular choices: English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese, Italian and Russian but also offers dozens of other courses and dialects within specific languages like Chinese. You can even learn constructed languages like Klingon (Star Trek) and Morse code.

If I can learn a second language, so can you.

I honestly never thought I’d be able to learn another language. Traditional teaching methods just never worked for me. It’s not that I’m dumb either since I graduated from college with a chemistry degree. Some methods of teaching just don’t work for some people and if you’re one of those who wants to learn another language, I highly recommend you try Memrise out for yourself. Have an open mind, get through the free lessons and decide for yourself if you like it. It’s available for both Android and iOS devices. Your personal account can be synced across all devices so you’re always on the same lesson plan no matter which device you happen to be using too. I couldn’t be happier with my premium subscription and look forward to learning French next.

Learn more at Memrise.com. 

Memrise: Learn a Foreign Language & New Vocabulary
Memrise: Learn a Foreign Language & New Vocabulary
Memrise: Learn a Foreign Language & New Vocabulary
Developer: Memrise
Price: Free+
Memrise: Language Learning App
Memrise: Language Learning App
Developer: Memrise
Price: Free+
Memrise App review
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