Memrise official course impressions?

[Uncle Roger]

I think the majority of the popular flashcard apps, Anki included, are catering to "'from any language to any language' learning." Also, can you define "proper spaced repetition"?

I have enjoyed a lot of content on Anki for Norwegian which I have reason to believe was developed for English-Norwegian only. It might have been a partially authorised hijack of material created for some kind of online course by a Norwegian university. But it was sheer memorisation and quite advanced vocabulary (which, again, skipped conjugated verbs, adjectives and nouns, as it often happens). I believe that type of content can be developed sensibly for a multi language platform, but grammar and pronunciation can't.

For "proper spaced repetition" I mean the Anki type of stuff. As far as I could see from the little use of Memrise I had done, a word was shown to you in a few ways (your language to target, target to yours, audio, with the picture etc) and that seemed to be it. But I'm not sure, that's why I was asking.

I gotta say I also disliked the gamification aspect etc. It really annoys me in language learning, essentially I don't want to figure out any scoring system, any progression and all. Just make me understand and memorise in the leanest possible way. But that's just my inclination, I guess.

I also agree with saim, I like my own content best, but the language I have been study mostly as of late is very close to English, so that made many things easy.

[aokoye]

I have enjoyed a lot of content on Anki for Norwegian which I have reason to believe was developed for English-Norwegian only. It might have been a partially authorised hijack of material created for some kind of online course by a Norwegian university. But it was sheer memorisation and quite advanced vocabulary (which, again, skipped conjugated verbs, adjectives and nouns, as it often happens). I believe that type of content can be developed sensibly for a multi language platform, but grammar and pronunciation can't.
...
I also agree with saim, I like my own content best, but the language I have been study mostly as of late is very close to English, so that made many things easy.

The all of what I've studied on Memrise has been either content that I have put on there or content that other independent users have put on it. I also primarily used it before the company started creating their own "courses" (I've talked before about how I think calling the lists courses is really misleading - they are word lists). I also didn't play into the gamification bit. I love the UI, but that has little to do with their implementation of gamification. That said there are a lot of people for whom gamification is really useful. Yes it is somewhat new in the context of online learning but it is not at all new in general. I had math and science computer games 20 plus years ago and there are plenty of non-computer ways that people can teach and learn using gamification.

I guess what I'm saying is that a lot of what I'm reading from your posts are critiques of the the official courses and not of the actual platform itself. If and when it becomes only official courses then yeah, that makes sense. However at the moment the bulk of what is on Memrise is the exact same sort of stuff you would find or make on Anki. Yes it seems like Memrise might be breaking the user made stuff but that wasn't the case in 2016 when this thread was first made. Anki is a lot more powerful than any of the other popular apps that I can think of, but that's not what you were speaking to.

[Cavesa]

I knew that was going to happen eventually and have talked about it off and on for years as a potential con of Memrise as compared to something that can work completely offline like Anki. They're going down the path of smart.fm, now known as iKnow. That said, at least iKnow's "courses" are actually good, though there's a paywall there.

Yes, it is sad but true. The only problem is downloading the courses for putting them to another platform. I would like to get at least the course I made, which has over 3000 items.

And the new visual changes (that childish ugly kitsch meduse-alien hybrid, removal of the original levels, and so on) let us know the new public are probably toddlers, not adult learners. This is too childish even for school kids, I doubt they'll be excited to use this. And I personally wouldn't recommend Memrise to people I know in real life now, in fear they'll just leave after five minutes and think bad things about me

For "proper spaced repetition" I mean the Anki type of stuff. As far as I could see from the little use of Memrise I had done, a word was shown to you in a few ways (your language to target, target to yours, audio, with the picture etc) and that seemed to be it. But I'm not sure, that's why I was asking.

I gotta say I also disliked the gamification aspect etc. It really annoys me in language learning, essentially I don't want to figure out any scoring system, any progression and all. Just make me understand and memorise in the leanest possible way. But that's just my inclination, I guess.

No, that is not it. It does include SRS and will show you the word again and again, usually the typing question first, the easier ones after a mistake. The SRS is not bad, except for the maximum interval, which is only half a year. That is much shorter than in Anki and it can be an issue in the very long courses.

I rather agree about the gamification, there is too much of it, and growing. I liked the general score list, as it was motivating for me to get a few spots above, or to get among the first 2000 and stay there for a while. The initial simple flower design of the Beta was good, a little bit of gamification serving the purpose, not the other way around.

I haven't found a way to opt out of typing tests, short of choosing a "no typing" course. Is there something I've missed?

You are right, my bad, sorry. You can make a no typing course but cannot just opt out, true.

[leosmith]

The Korean course uses 당신 to say "you"

hahaha, isn't that amazing? I wonder how many foreigners say 당신 for "you" when they visit Korea. I also wonder if anyone will call me 당신 thinking it will help me understand.

[Tillumadoguenirurm]

If people don't like gamification they can just not use it, no? Not that difficult.

[Cavesa]

If people don't like gamification they can just not use it, no? Not that difficult.

Not exactly. Some of it is optional. For example the leaderboard was great. I did use it for motivation, but those who didn't could simply ignore the link. That is ideal. But the new design with the ugly childish picture that changes, that is not optional. For me, it is slightly annoying, but not a huge problem for practical use. But it already is an issue, as I don't feel like recommending Memrise to other people anymore, especially adults. First impressions are extremely important. And if this kitsch gamification object is a huge part of it, I don't think some people will give it a real chance. And I wouldn't want my real life friends to judge my personal tastes by this recommendation.

[tarvos]

I think he means Memrise in its entirety.

[lingua]

I liked Memrise a lot when I first started using it but after creating several of my own private courses and seeing the direction they're going I've become disillusioned and am reluctant to add to my existing base. I have paid for the last two years but will probably not continue if they go too far in a direction that doesn't suit me. Gamification holds no interest for me. I've glanced at some of their courses out of curiosity but didn't see any worth using. In general, I prefer creating my own content so I can use them in conjunction with whatever it is I'm currently studying.

I have tried Anki but it's not intuitive and is too much work. I would like an offline app that is similar to Memrise but haven't found anything better in spite of trying several flashcard apps. I want to be able to add sound as correct pronunciation is important to me. I'm not sure what the solution is.