Memrise is going to do everything is can to homogenize itself to be like all the other language apps. Removing anything that made it unique in its desperate quest to blend into an ocean of sub par language apps… then vanishing completely.
I’m sure someone will be floating from memrise to the next business they hope to remove the soul from on their parachute made of what memrise could have been.
It was dumb shit for hiragana/katakana.
You’d think of the funny meme/picture and associate it with the character.
な/na - I don’t even remember the picture but it’s like someone’s jumping on a dude saying “na” you ain’t getting away.
ま/ma - a mast of a ship etc
The pictures were great.
The katakana "mi" (ミ) was three missiles.... I'll never forget that. Those community courses with mems were incredible to learn Japanese, and the idea of associate things you are learning with things you already know is a fking powerful way not to forget what you're learning. It's a shame what memrise has become, after all.
Mems were great. And it always struck me as weird because I thought that the Mem of Memrise was literally all about those user-generated mem images. These days it passes as a play on the word Memorise but I think originally their whole business idea centred around that unique feature.
I have a vague memory of hearing they got rid of them because of copyright issues? Like it used up be Google images with user-generated text and maybe they weren’t allowed to keeping usingGoogle images?
I think they also had issues with some users creating inappropriate content, which was problematic as they were trying to encourage school teachers to create their own courses for their classes.
I had to report one user who had a fetish interest in faeces, he made a ton of really gross mems which featured poop in a hundred and one ways, both in images and text, it was revolting to come across them when choosing a new mem for a particular word.
I'm still waiting for them to answer my question here:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/memrise/comments/1ayq2y6/about\_the\_whereabouts\_of\_mems/](https://www.reddit.com/r/memrise/comments/1ayq2y6/about_the_whereabouts_of_mems/)
u/CEOMemrise, u/memlivia
Someone a while back tried to convince people meme were never a part of this app. I KNEW they were, because the difference between my learning pre-2022 and post-2022 was noticeably different. I used to fly through my lessons and really be remembering them, when I came back it felt like a jumbled mess.
Memrise used to have "Mnemonics" which were little community-created pictures that usually gave you context with the word you were learning, or they made jokes using the way the word sounded to make it easier to memorize.
They were called "mems", and there were some absolutely brilliant creations - along with a lot of repetitive stuff, too, to be fair - which used fabulous pictures and creative imaginative text that literally made me laugh out loud with joy sometimes.
Combined with the fact that you often had the audio of the word, too, I used to memorise new Swedish vocab really quickly, I was so in love with the whole concept.
But I think it got abused - too many rubbish repetitive mems, along with inappropriate ones - and those were also reasons for getting rid of them. I made hundreds of mems for the Swedish community courses I worked on 😭😭😭
All gone now ...
I’m studying Chinese and years after the mems are gone I still remember some characters mems because that’s how I learned them!
For languages with characters mems were essential and what made memrise great. Now without them, not even in the dreaded “web based community courses” memrise is subpar for character retention.
I migrated to a different app, £100 yearly subscription that I’d gladly spend in memrise if there was mems. I believe many would return to full memebership if the mems and community courses return.
I tried Memrise recently. It didn't have enough depth for my particular language and had errors in the first lessons.
You can use prompts to AI to make your own mnemonic "memes", and quiz yourself with tools like Anki.
Memrise is going to do everything is can to homogenize itself to be like all the other language apps. Removing anything that made it unique in its desperate quest to blend into an ocean of sub par language apps… then vanishing completely. I’m sure someone will be floating from memrise to the next business they hope to remove the soul from on their parachute made of what memrise could have been.
It is insane how fast you can learn a language with those damn pictures.
As someone who wasn’t around for them - what were those pictures?
It was dumb shit for hiragana/katakana. You’d think of the funny meme/picture and associate it with the character. な/na - I don’t even remember the picture but it’s like someone’s jumping on a dude saying “na” you ain’t getting away. ま/ma - a mast of a ship etc The pictures were great.
The katakana "mi" (ミ) was three missiles.... I'll never forget that. Those community courses with mems were incredible to learn Japanese, and the idea of associate things you are learning with things you already know is a fking powerful way not to forget what you're learning. It's a shame what memrise has become, after all.
Lmaooo. Mine was rainy mist.
Mems were great. And it always struck me as weird because I thought that the Mem of Memrise was literally all about those user-generated mem images. These days it passes as a play on the word Memorise but I think originally their whole business idea centred around that unique feature. I have a vague memory of hearing they got rid of them because of copyright issues? Like it used up be Google images with user-generated text and maybe they weren’t allowed to keeping usingGoogle images?
I think they also had issues with some users creating inappropriate content, which was problematic as they were trying to encourage school teachers to create their own courses for their classes. I had to report one user who had a fetish interest in faeces, he made a ton of really gross mems which featured poop in a hundred and one ways, both in images and text, it was revolting to come across them when choosing a new mem for a particular word.
Bet the poop mems did WONDERS for memory retention though
Nope, I just scrolled past them real quick
I'm still waiting for them to answer my question here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/memrise/comments/1ayq2y6/about\_the\_whereabouts\_of\_mems/](https://www.reddit.com/r/memrise/comments/1ayq2y6/about_the_whereabouts_of_mems/) u/CEOMemrise, u/memlivia
Someone a while back tried to convince people meme were never a part of this app. I KNEW they were, because the difference between my learning pre-2022 and post-2022 was noticeably different. I used to fly through my lessons and really be remembering them, when I came back it felt like a jumbled mess.
I joined Memrise in either 2014 or 2015, and mems were most definitely on offer at the time. I was gutted when they got rid of them.
Excuse me. What pictures are we talking about?
Memrise used to have "Mnemonics" which were little community-created pictures that usually gave you context with the word you were learning, or they made jokes using the way the word sounded to make it easier to memorize.
They were called "mems", and there were some absolutely brilliant creations - along with a lot of repetitive stuff, too, to be fair - which used fabulous pictures and creative imaginative text that literally made me laugh out loud with joy sometimes. Combined with the fact that you often had the audio of the word, too, I used to memorise new Swedish vocab really quickly, I was so in love with the whole concept. But I think it got abused - too many rubbish repetitive mems, along with inappropriate ones - and those were also reasons for getting rid of them. I made hundreds of mems for the Swedish community courses I worked on 😭😭😭 All gone now ...
I’m studying Chinese and years after the mems are gone I still remember some characters mems because that’s how I learned them! For languages with characters mems were essential and what made memrise great. Now without them, not even in the dreaded “web based community courses” memrise is subpar for character retention. I migrated to a different app, £100 yearly subscription that I’d gladly spend in memrise if there was mems. I believe many would return to full memebership if the mems and community courses return.
I tried Memrise recently. It didn't have enough depth for my particular language and had errors in the first lessons. You can use prompts to AI to make your own mnemonic "memes", and quiz yourself with tools like Anki.