Software:Memrise
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Type of site | Privately held company |
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Available in | Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese |
Founded | 2010 |
Area served | Worldwide |
Founder(s) | Greg Detre Ed Cooke Ben Whately [1] |
CEO | Steve Toy |
Website | memrise.com |
Registration | Yes |
Launched | September 2010 |
Current status | Active |
![](/wiki/images/5/5d/Memrise_iOS_app_chat.png)
Memrise is a British language platform that uses spaced repetition of flashcards to increase the rate of learning,[2] combined with a GPT3-powered "AI Language partner" that allows learners to practice human-like conversations,[3] which Memrise believes can help learners to overcome the "confidence gap" in language acquisition. [4] 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.[5] As of 2018, the app had 35 million registered users.[6] Memrise has been profitable since late 2016, having a turnover of $4 million monthly.[7]
History
Memrise was founded by Ed Cooke, a Grand Master of Memory, 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 Entrepreneurship Club 2009 TigerLaunch competition.[8]
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 App Store (iOS)[9] and Google Play.[10]
As of January 2020, the app received $21.8 million of investments in a total of seven seed rounds.[11]
Spaced repetition
Memrise makes language studying a game, like its competitor Duolingo. Memrise uses spaced repetition to accelerate language acquisition.[2] Spaced repetition is an evidence-based learning technique that incorporates increasing intervals of time between subsequent review of previously learned material to exploit the psychological spacing effect.[12] The use of spaced repetition has been shown to increase the rate of memorization.[13]
Awards
In July 2010, Memrise was named as one of the winners of the London Mini-Seedcamp competition.[14] In November 2010, the site was named as one of the finalists for the 2010 TechCrunch Europas Start-up of the Year.[15] In March 2011, it was selected as one of the Techstars Boston startups.[16] In May 2017, Memrise was named as the winner of the "Best App" award at the second edition of the Google Play awards.[17]
Criticism
Starting in late February 2019, Memrise has been the subject of much criticism[citation needed] due to an announcement that user-created content will be moving to a different web-based platform.[18] It was announced that this new website would not have an app and that users would be unable to access their material offline.[19] In response, the Memrise forums were bombarded with posts criticizing this as a slap in the face to Memrise's users and content-creators.[20] This criticism has followed onto Reddit with many users calling for migration to rival platforms.[21] 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[22]). However, in November 2023, Memrise announced on a forum post that it planned to "sunset" user-created courses, and that although there was no timeline for ending the courses, the end "is likely measured in months."[23]
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.[24]
See also
- Anki
- Computer-assisted language learning
- Fluenz
- Lang-8
- Language education
- Language pedagogy
- List of flashcard software
- List of language self-study programs
- Rosetta Stone
References
- ↑ "Ben Whately - founder's story". https://www.memrise.com/ben-whately-memrise-founders-story.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Shellenbarger, Sue. "Flashcards Get Smarter So You Can, Too". https://www.wsj.com/articles/flashcards-get-smarter-so-you-can-too-1430253560.
- ↑ "Introducing the Membot". Memrise. https://www.figma.com/file/58RoIppGrbys0Wix8WcsZy/Hubspot-Designs?node-id=531%3A14778&t=OuPPd7U06cVWqeC6-0.
- ↑ "How new technology can bridge the "confidence gap" in language education". Medium. 10 January 2023. https://medium.com/edtechx360/how-new-technology-can-bridge-the-confidence-gap-in-language-education-63333050ea28.
- ↑ "Learn Languages, Grammar & Vocabulary with Memrise - Apps on Google Play". 2018-12-27. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.memrise.android.memrisecompanion.
- ↑ "Memrise raises $15.5M as its AI-based language-learning app passes 35M users". 11 June 2018. https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/11/memrise-raises-15-5m-as-its-ai-based-language-learning-app-passes-35m-users/.
- ↑ "The Entrepreneur: Ed Cooke, Memrise" (in en). 15 December 2016. https://startups.co.uk/the-entrepreneur-ed-cooke-memrise/.
- ↑ "TigerLaunch 2009". http://www.princetoneclub.com/programs/tigerlaunch/tigerlaunch-2009/.
- ↑ "Learn Languages with Memrise" (in en-us). https://apps.apple.com/us/app/learn-languages-with-memrise/id635966718.
- ↑ "Learn Languages with Memrise - Spanish, French - Apps on Google Play" (in en). https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.memrise.android.memrisecompanion&hl=en.
- ↑ "Memrise raises $15.5M as its AI-based language-learning app passes 35M users" (in en-US). 11 June 2018. http://social.techcrunch.com/2018/06/11/memrise-raises-15-5m-as-its-ai-based-language-learning-app-passes-35m-users/.
- ↑ "Human Memory: Theory and Practice", Alan D. Baddeley, 1997
- ↑ Smolen, Paul; Zhang, Yili; Byrne, John H. (25 January 2016). "The right time to learn: mechanisms and optimization of spaced learning". Nature Reviews Neuroscience 17 (2): 77–88. doi:10.1038/nrn.2015.18. PMID 26806627. Bibcode: 2016arXiv160608370S.
- ↑ "Mini Seedcamps 2010". http://seedcamp.com/pages/mini_seedcamps10.
- ↑ "The Europas – The Finalists". TechCrunch. AOL. 17 November 2010. https://techcrunch.com/2010/11/17/the-europas-the-finalists/.
- ↑ "TechStars Boston 2011: Who Got In". Boston.com. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/innoeco/2011/03/techstars_boston_2011_who_got.html.
- ↑ Purnima Kochikar (May 19, 2017). "The winners of the 2017 Google Play Awards are ...". Play | Google Blog. https://blog.google/products/google-play/winners-2017-google-play-awards-are.
- ↑ "Important Update: Upcoming changes to Memrise community-created courses" (in en). 2019-02-19. https://community.memrise.com/t/important-update-upcoming-changes-to-memrise-community-created-courses/33461.
- ↑ "The Creation of Decks and the Future of Memrise." (in en-GB). 2019-02-21. https://blog.memrise.com/2019/02/21/decksbymemrise/.
- ↑ "Angry about the Decks update? How to make your voices heard" (in en). 2019-02-20. https://community.memrise.com/t/angry-about-the-decks-update-how-to-make-your-voices-heard/33936.
- ↑ "r/memrise - RIP Memrise" (in en). https://www.reddit.com/r/memrise/comments/asoemo/rip_memrise/.
- ↑ "Important announcement about Decks" (in en). 2020-02-12. https://community.memrise.com/t/important-announcement-about-decks/49470.
- ↑ "Forum absence, outlook" (in en). 2023-11-13. https://community.memrise.com/t/forum-absence-outlook/87919/24.
- ↑ "The irrationality of cheating at gamified learning". Wired UK. https://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-11/12/gamification-of-learning.
External links
![]() | Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memrise.
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