Memrise is a British language platform that uses

spaced repetition Spaced repetition is an evidence-based learning technique that is usually performed with flashcards. Newly introduced and more difficult flashcards are shown more frequently, while older and less difficult flashcards are shown less frequently i ...

of flashcards to increase the rate of learning. It is based in London, UK. Memrise offers user-generated content on a wide range of other subjects. The Memrise app has courses in 16 languages and its combinations, while the website has a great many more languages available. As of 2018, the app had 35 million registered users. Memrise has been profitable since late 2016, having a turnover of $4 million monthly.

History

Memrise was founded by Ed Cooke, a

Grand Master of Memory Grand Master of Memory (GMM) is a title previously awarded by the International Association of Memory to people who are able to successfully negotiate the following three memory feats: *Memorise 1,000 random digits in an hour *Memorise the order of ...

, Ben Whately and Greg Detre, a Princeton neuroscientist specializing in the science of memory and forgetting. The website launched in private beta after winning the

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

Entrepreneurship Club 2009 TigerLaunch competition. On 1 October 2012, 100 users were allowed to sign up to test a non-beta version of the website called Memrise 1.0. As of May 2013, a Memrise app has been available for download on both the

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and

Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android (operating sys ...

. As of January 2020, the app received $21.8 million of investments in a total of seven seed rounds.

Spaced repetition

Memrise makes language studying a

game A game is a structured form of play (activity), play, usually undertaken for enjoyment, entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator s ...

, like its competitor

Duolingo Duolingo ( ) is an American educational technology company which produces learning apps and provides language certification. On its main app, users can practice vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and listening skills using spaced repetition. D ...

. Memrise uses spaced repetition to accelerate language acquisition. Spaced repetition is an

evidence-based learning Evidence-based education (EBE) is the principle that education practices should be based on the best available scientific evidence, rather than tradition, personal judgement, or other influences. Evidence-based education is related to evidence-base ...

technique that incorporates increasing intervals of time between subsequent review of previously learned material to exploit the psychological

spacing effect The spacing effect demonstrates that learning is more effective when study sessions are spaced out. This effect shows that more information is encoded into long-term memory by spaced study sessions, also known as ''spaced repetition'' or ''spac ...

. The use of spaced repetition has been shown to increase the rate of memorization. Although the principle is useful in many contexts, spaced repetition is commonly applied in contexts in which a learner must acquire a large number of items and retain them indefinitely in memory. It is, therefore, well suited for the problem of

vocabulary A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...

acquisition in the course of second language learning, due to the size of the target language's inventory of open-class words.

Awards

In July 2010, Memrise was named as one of the winners of the London Mini-Seedcamp competition. In November 2010, the site was named as one of the finalists for the 2010

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Europas Start-up of the Year. In March 2011, it was selected as one of the Techstars Boston startups. In May 2017, Memrise was named as one of Best App winner of the second edition of the Google Play awards.

Criticism

Starting in late February 2019, Memrise has been the subject of much criticism due to an announcement that user-created content will be moving to a different web-based platform. It was announced that this new website would not have an app and that users would be unable to access their material offline. In response, the Memrise forums were bombarded with posts criticizing this as a slap in the face to Memrise's users and content-creators. This criticism has followed onto Reddit with many users calling for migration to rival platforms. On 25 February 2020, as a response to the criticisms, Memrise decided to undo the split (i.e. closing Decks and merging its content back to the Memrise main site). In late September 2012, the leaderboard on the website was temporarily suspended due to "extensive cheating". Specific users had been using bots and non-intensive mechanisms, such as celebrity photo memory courses, to achieve atypical scores that were not reflective of actual learning. In response, the administrators established a new leaderboard after revising the scoring loopholes.

References

External links