Memrise Review: A Helpful Tool For Beginners

Languages Available on Memrise:

Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Japanese (no script), Korean, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Russian, Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Mexico), Swahili, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Yoruba

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Memrise Overview

Memrise is a flashcard app that uses spaced repetition to help you remember words and phrases more effectively. But, unlike other flashcard apps, Memrise uses videos to expose you to different accents and pronunciations. Memrise has also introduced new features with its last update, including a Membot (an AI chatbot) you can talk or write to practice interacting in different scenarios.

Overall, it’s effective if you’re just starting to learn a new language but may not be helpful for advanced learners. While Memrise is good for learning vocabulary, it doesn’t teach much else. It’s a good idea to use a more comprehensive app in addition to Memrise. 

Memrise is one of the most popular language learning apps. It’s mainly a flashcard app, and it stands out from its competitors because of the science behind it. The creators of Memrise are a Princeton-educated neuroscientist and an Oxford-educated Grand Master of Memory. I think it’s safe to say they know how the brain works.

While the focus of Memrise is vocabulary, you can also learn basic grammar in some of the content. These lessons aren’t very extensive though. They’re a decent place to start learning about difficult topics in your target language, but they won’t get you very far. For this reason, it’s possible to learn languages with Memrise, but only at a beginner level.

Memrise Price & Subscriptions

A lot of content is free on Memrise, and it’s good quality. Without paying, you can learn a lot of vocabulary, listen to and watch native speakers pronounce different words, have a daily chat with the Membot, and learn basic grammar in your target language.

For unlimited access to all the scenarios and features available in Memrise, a Pro subscription costs $59.99 per month. A yearly subscription costs $117.99 ($9.83 per month), or you can get a lifetime subscription for $324.99. Any subscription gives you access to all languages and content available on Memrise.

Overall, I think the premium features add some value to Memrise, but I don’t think they justify the monthly price of $59.99. The longer subscriptions are heavily discounted though, so a longer subscription may be worth it if you really like the app.

Memrise Free Trial

There isn’t a free trial on Memrise, but a lot of their content is available for free. You can learn as many languages as you want, complete as many lessons as you like per day, and try some of the premium features in a limited way. This way, you can get a good feel for the app before buying a subscription.

Memrise Discount

If you like Memrise and plan to use it for a while, the annual subscription is worth it. Memrise also runs several discounts throughout the year on annual subscriptions that can be as cheap as $4.92 per month.

Memrise Review: Getting Started

You can sign up for Memrise on the website or app. Both are connected, so once you sign up for your account, you can use either device. The first step is to choose the language you speak and what language you want to learn.

A lot of apps tend to focus on English as the most common starting language of their users, but Memrise has a lot of different language pairs. For example, you can choose French, German, Portuguese, and many other languages. This makes learning much easier for speakers of that language so they don’t have to translate to English and the language they are trying to learn.

After you select what language you speak and what language you want to learn, Memrise asks what level you’re at in your target language. Then you jump right into learning! Instead of walking you through a tutorial, you can go directly to your first lesson.

Memrise Review: Features

Memrise offers an app and a web version and you can connect to both. Once you have logged in to your account, you can start studying on one device and pick up where you left off on another. Both versions offer the same features, which makes studying with Memrise easy and convenient. Let’s take a look at some of the most important features:

Memrise Courses

The courses are the main activity. After you choose your language, you choose what course you want to take. There isn’t a level test, so you have to gauge where you think you should start based on how much you already know. Try to choose the level that best fits your knowledge because, once you start your course, you won’t be able to switch to a different level.

Now, Memrise language courses don’t really go by levels. Instead, they’re broken down into “Scenarios.” Each scenario includes hundreds of vocabulary lists, videos, and conversations. There are two tabs in each course: Learn and Review. Memrise gives you a recommended path, but you can also choose which vocabulary lists or scenarios you want to study.

Learn 

This section is exactly what it sounds like. This includes flashcards with video and audio that teach new words and phrases. You cycle through these new flashcards and complete interactive activities to learn them. Most activities include multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank questions, but there are also writing exercises.

While Memrise has some grammar lessons, they are only available for specific language pairs and in the app. To find them, use the search bar in the “Scenarios” tab in your app.

Review 

The Review tab helps you practice words you’ve already learned by showing you short video clips, asking multiple-choice questions, and having you write the words. Each word or phrase appears multiple times until you’ve successfully committed it to your long-term memory.

Scenarios

Scenarios are vocabulary lists that divide words and phrases by topic and level. You can browse the scenarios available at your level, choose whichever you like, and see which words and phrases are included before you start studying. There are scenarios for topics like activities, relationships, basics, and education.

If you already know all the words in a specific scenario, you can select, “Mark as all known” to focus on completely new content. Every time you complete a scenario, you’ll win points that will help you move on to the next level.

Videos

Every lesson comes with videos to introduce you to new words and phrases. But, you can also find short videos to practice listening under the “Videos” tab. These are videos created by native speakers, so you can listen to authentic language. You can listen to different accents, but also to people of different ages. If you’re struggling to understand what’s being said, each video also comes with a script.

It’s very easy to find videos for your level, though. Memrise has arranged their videos by categories like, “Ready to watch,” “Needs Practice,” or “Watched” and each video tells you how many of its words you already know.

Conversations

Memrise’s new Membot uses AI to help you practice your conversational skills. You can have up to 3 free daily conversations with the Membot and practice speaking in different scenarios. For example, you can try saying where you live, asking about Wi-Fi, talking about your family, and more. The Membot asks related questions to keep the conversation going. It also gives you feedback on your writing or speaking skills. And, if you’re having trouble coming up with an answer, there are hints and translations to help you.

Memrise Review: Overall Learning Experience

I liked using Memrise and think it’s a great tool to help you learn vocabulary and phrases effectively. The technology used to create the courses is top-notch. The content of the official courses is high quality and the videos are a helpful way to become used to natural language.

There are also interesting features included with the free version of Memrise to help you improve your listening, writing, and reading skills. It’s worth a try just to see if you like it. In regards to the paid version, there’s definitely more content available, but I don’t think it justifies the high monthly cost of $59.99 per month. The Pro version extends your ability to practice your target language, but you’ll still need to combine Memrise with other resources.

The one premium feature I liked was the Membot. If you’re a complete beginner and don’t feel confident enough to talk to native speakers, this is a good feature to start testing your language skills. This feature alone could make the annual subscription worth it, which is already a lot cheaper than the monthly subscription.

At the end of the day, Memrise is a flashcard program created to help you learn vocabulary. It does this well, and the free content is enough to keep you busy for a long time. It’s definitely worth giving Memrise a try. 

Memrise Review: Areas of Improvement

I enjoyed using Memrise and appreciate that a lot of the content is free. However, my biggest complaint is how little grammar is included in the courses. To write this review, I tried the Japanese, Italian, and French courses. While the Japanese course teaches you the alphabet (which is something many apps don’t do), I don’t see how it would be possible to learn the language without studying the rules for verb conjugation or sentence structure.

The Pro and free scenarios are mixed together so, even if you’re following the recommended path, you might find that you can’t access the next scenario. I found this distracting and annoying since I would immediately be redirected to the subscriptions page. This interrupts the learning process and forces you to navigate back to what you were doing before. 

Memrise Review: Alternatives & Competitors

Memrise is one of many flashcard apps available. Some of its features are unique and make it stand out, but there are also a lot of other apps that are worth checking out. Drops, MosaLingua, Babble, and Anki are similar options you could take a look at.

Memrise vs Drops

The Drops app is another option that focuses specifically on vocabulary. Drops has the benefit of having a larger selection of vocabulary lists, more languages available, and a fantastic user experience. It doesn’t include video or audio by different native speakers like Memrise, but it’s still a good way to learn new words and phrases in as little as five minutes.

The monthly subscription for Drops is much cheaper, but Memrise offers more free content and more useful features for learners interested in developing all their language skills. You can try them both out with a free trial, or learn more about Drops in this Drops app review.

Memrise vs MosaLingua

MosaLingua offers several flashcard apps for a few common languages, like French, German, Spanish, and Italian. While Memrise has more structured courses and limited features, MosaLingua allows you to learn about whatever subjects you’re most interested in.

The MosaLingua apps are also cheaper than Memrise and also offer a lot of high-quality content. If you subscribe to the web version of MosaLingua, you can unlock a lot of extra features like ebooks and audiobooks, music videos, and resources from around the web. Memrise doesn’t offer anything similar to this. If you want to learn more about MosaLingua, you can read my honest MosaLingua review.

Memrise vs Babbel

While Memrise is great for learning vocabulary, Babbel offers a more well-rounded approach to language learning. In each lesson, you’ll practice all areas needed to learn a language, including grammar, pronunciation, and more. Both apps have short and interactive lessons that have you responding to questions and learning new words and phrases.

Babbel costs less than Memrise, and it’s a better option if you only want to use one app to learn a language. Memrise isn’t a stand-alone app, but the videos and audio make it a good addition to your studies if you use it with another comprehensive resource. If you’re interested in Babbel, read more about it in this comprehensive Babbel review.

Memrise vs Anki

Another popular alternative to Memrise is Anki. Anki is a free and open-source flashcard software and app. It uses a similar spaced-repetition technology like Memrise, but it doesn’t have any official courses. 

The flashcards on Anki are all user-generated, so you can find cards for pretty much any subject. It’s a nice interface, but it can be a hassle to find useful flashcard sets or even create your own. Overall, I’d say Anki and Memrise are pretty equal, but Memrise is a little better because of its official courses.

Memrise Review: FAQ

About This Memrise Review

This is an independent and unbiased Memrise review. Memrise did not sponsor this review. I personally used the web, iOS, and Android versions of Memrise to write this review, and I tested several different language courses to experience all of Memrise’s features.