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#Post#: 18508--------------------------------------------------
Has anyone tried MEMRISE?
By: Nikola Date: July 24, 2019, 12:36 pm
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It's a website and an app, one of my students recommended it to
me so I'm just trying it out. It's free. They offer various
courses in many different languages (some were created by
Memrise and some by other users). When I tried the app, it only
let me do Level 1 in any given language, unlike the website,
where you can select any course. It remembers the words and
phrases you've learned (or at which stage of learning them you
are, according to them). They use a flower analogy so new words
have a little seed next to them, then there's a drop of water,
then a pot... until you get a full flower. That means you've
memorised it. You can always check your word list and tick
"ignore" if you don't want to learn certain words.
Give it a try and let me know what you think. It's not just for
learning languages, there are other subjects there, too, such as
Arts and Literature, Maths and Science etc. I haven't tried
those yet.
#Post#: 18548--------------------------------------------------
Re: Has anyone tried MEMRISE?
By: Allie Date: July 24, 2019, 7:18 pm
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It rings a bell. Weirdly enough, I can't remember much about
this memorisation tool.
I did use it for a short period of time, but didn't like it
enough to keep using it (which, considering how much of a hippie
I am when it comes to language learning, tells a lot in favour
of it)
#Post#: 18553--------------------------------------------------
Re: Has anyone tried MEMRISE?
By: Aliph Date: July 25, 2019, 1:40 am
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I subscribed ages ago but didn’t stay longer on it then 30
minutes.
It’s not my way of learning. I do not use flash cards and
memorise single words out of context. I prefer to stroll from
one dictionary to another and write down manually new words on a
small book.
But surely it is useful for people who believe in it.
Placebo always works.
#Post#: 18557--------------------------------------------------
Re: Has anyone tried MEMRISE?
By: Nikola Date: July 25, 2019, 3:08 am
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Day two. I am mightily annoyed with the app because it wants me
to pay in order to continue. Using the website instead and after
yesterday's experience ticking "ignore" next to every word I
know because the "it won't hurt to revise" idea did not work. I
was making mistakes out of boredom. This is the effect Duolingo
has on me sometimes. I like that you get to hear the same word
or sentence said by different people and that they make sure you
know how to spell it but it does feel like it's all happening
between the website and my brain, without my involvement as a
person. It makes me wonder if this is the reason why the
cognitive approach never made it to classrooms :)
#Post#: 18559--------------------------------------------------
Re: Has anyone tried MEMRISE?
By: Aliph Date: July 25, 2019, 3:26 am
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Duolinguo launched a Beta version for Arabic. I played roughly
10 days, got bored to death and gave up.
#Post#: 18561--------------------------------------------------
Re: Has anyone tried MEMRISE?
By: Alharacas Date: July 25, 2019, 3:40 am
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Its quality varies a lot from language to language, and also
from deck to deck. I remember finding an okay vocabulary deck
for Polish, where people had added lots of mems, some of which
were really helpful.
For Farsi, so far, I've only found 2 decks which are not
designed for Farsi speakers learning English. That matters a
lot, and not only because you need transliteration, as you can't
deduce pronunciation from the way words are written in Farsi.
Just imagine the uselessness of a card with "get" on one side,
and with miles and miles of Farsi on the other...
Still, I didn't much like those 2 decks, either, because a) I'd
very much prefer to also see the word written in Farsi, b) there
are almost no mems, c) verbs have two stems in Farsi which
sometimes look very unlike each other, so, just learning the
infinitive is of limited use.
Unfortunately, the only way for this to be effective for me
would be to make up my own deck of cards, using words I'd
already come across in my lessons. However, by the time I'd have
decided which words I needed to learn, had gone through the
laborious process of checking their spelling in Farsi, writing
and copying/pasting in the Farsi, and trying to come up with a
mem, I'd be sure to remember the word and its meaning. ;D
#Post#: 18567--------------------------------------------------
Re: Has anyone tried MEMRISE?
By: Allie Date: July 25, 2019, 7:35 am
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@Nikola
Glad you mentioned Duolingo. I have my doubts about it too.
I really want to like it, though.
I love the fact they offer many languages, not only the obvious
ones (including con langs such as Klingon and High Valerian),
the grammar tips and conjugation charts, the fact that it is
free and and easy to access and, consequently, the utopic idea
of propitiating free language learning all over the world.
I used it more in the past and even finished the Italian and
Spanish trees.
Having said that, reading an article about the Duolingo this
week, I found out it is supposed to get users to an advanced
begginer/early intermediate level, but I don't think I could say
I reached either of them in my target languages with the tool.
Neither has its own founder.
There's a long way to go for it to be more functional (did you
guys know they didn't even have linguists at first?)
The article in questions:
HTML https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2019/07/16/game-of-tongues-how-duolingo-built-a-700-million-business-with-its-addictive-language-learning-app/#14d8b4923463
#Post#: 18647--------------------------------------------------
Re: Has anyone tried MEMRISE?
By: Alharacas Date: July 25, 2019, 7:20 pm
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Phew! Glad to hear that. I kept thinking something was wrong
with me - how come millions of people seem to find these sites
both entertaining and useful, while I'm just bored to death?
Erik, there was a wonderful sentence in that article: “A
significant portion of our users use it [Duolingo] because it’s
fun and it’s not a complete waste of time”.
Thank you for this. Yes, it probably is minimally more useful
than playing solitaire. :D
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