Memrise Review

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Memrise Pro Subscription Options & Cost

To set the stage for our review, let’s quickly cover Memrise’s pricing and different subscription options. Memrise covers over 34 languages and offers two different subscription options: a free plan, and the Memrise Pro plan.

The free plan isn’t a bad option, but does have some limitations which I’ll cover in more detail below. Alternatively, for those that want to upgrade, the Memrise Pro package unlocks all content and features across the entire platform.

It costs a little over $60 for an annual plan; or about $330 for an unlimited, lifetime pass.

Putting things in perspective, Memrise ends up being a little more affordable than competitors such as Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur.

How The Memrise Language Courses Are Structured

Regardless of which language you’re studying, Memrise uses a “Learn, Immerse, Communicate” model. If you’re studying Spanish, for example, you’ll start out with some work learning new vocab sets. After that, you’ll go through a series of videos that expose you to those same words in real-world contexts, helping you hear it as native speakers use it.

Finally, the AI Chatbot gives you the chance to practice your speaking and conversing skills, which cements everything you’ve learned in your memory. Overall, it’s a very logical learning structure, although it doesn’t provide as much in-depth language exposure as apps like Rocket or Pimsleur.

Finally, the last point I’d like to make is that there is no strict agenda or schedule. You can bounce around from course to course, or level to level as you please. This offers some nice flexibility that other apps don’t (such as Duolingo).

With that said, this can also be a negative for some people, as the program lacks guidance.

What The Memrise Lessons Are Like

Now let’s dive into what the lessons themselves are actually like. To start, each one typically begins with a series of short videos where locals speaking in their native tongue introduce you to new words and phrases.

From there, you then complete a variety of exercises and drills that span listening, speaking, reading, and writing to ensure you understand and retain what you just learned (similar to the Babbel Spanish and Babbel German practice exercises).

These drills include multiple-choice questions, fill-in-the-blanks, speed rounds, selecting correct translations, writing sentences, and more.

The interesting thing here is that you can actually control how long you want each session to be by adjusting your preferences within the settings tab.

So whether you want to pick up 5 new words per session and keep the lesson short (maybe just 5 minutes), or you want to spend a little more time mastering 50 new words per session, you have that ability, which is nice.

What We Like About Memrise

Now let’s get into what our team likes about Memrise.

Videos Of Native Speakers

First of all, I love the videos incorporated into their lessons. This is pretty rare in the language learning space (with Busuu being the exception), and honestly, I’m a huge fan. With most other companies, you typically just get audio lessons, where your computer or phone spits out words and phrases without the visual element.

With Memrise, however, you actually get to see a local speaking your target language. This makes the lessons feel a lot more intimate and personal. You can see their hand gestures and gauge their inflection when they pronounce certain words.

This is super valuable in my opinion as visuals can really help you advance quicker. Overall, it’s genuinely one of Memrise’s strongest differentiators.

Great Tool For Learning Vocabulary

Memrise is a useful tool for memorizing new words. They use a spaced repetition system, which is a classic and proven teaching method used by a handful of other language courses as well.

Essentially, this means that as you complete lessons, you’ll be introduced to a word or phrase for the first time, and then seconds later, you’ll be asked to recall it. Then minutes later, then days later.

This ensures the words transfer from your short term memory to your long term memory, and it’s your long term memory that allows you to use what you’ve learned in real conversations.

Additionally, one other valuable feature is that they use adaptive tech in the background to personalize your sessions, and readjust your lessons to your level as you grow.

For example, if you’re having trouble with a particular phrase or a specific word, Memrise will prompt you to review those more often until they graduate to your long term memory.

In fact, they even offer this cool visual of a flower blooming as a specific phrase starts to stick in your mind.

Customizable Lesson Length

I know I touched on this above, but it’s also worth noting that you can customize the length of sessions. I’ve tested quite a few language programs at this point, and Memrise is the first that I’ve seen that gives you this option.

This is great because it means Memrise will likely work for pretty much everyone out there.

Whether you have all the time in the world and want to absorb 100 new words and phrases per day, or you have a full-time job and can only dedicate a few minutes per day to your language learning journey, the flexibility is just nice.

Memrise Encourages Users to Engage

I also like the gamified user experience. As you complete lessons, you earn points, which allow you to compare your progress and performance against other users.

In my opinion, being able to check the leaderboard after your sessions and see your progress can help keep you motivated and energized.

There’s also an entire statistics section, where you can dig in to your streaks, which days you’re learning the most, and even which times of day you focus best. It’s a cool data set, and Memrise gives you a ton of detail and insight.

What We Don’t Like About Memrise

Now that all the good stuff is out of the way, let’s talk about the things we don’t like about Memrise.

Free Account Is Limited

Although I do appreciate the free version, there are some notable limitations. For example, with the free account, you don’t have full access to all program materials and content.

You can’t download lessons to practice offline; you don’t get access to all the different video clips and review exercises; there’s no speech recognition tool; and there’s no adaptive technology working in the background to optimize your sessions.

For people that are only having a little fun and memorizing a few phrases to impress their partner’s relatives, this will likely be fine.

However, for people that are serious about speaking a new language, you’ll likely want to upgrade to the Pro account. And if you’re considering upgrading, you may find more robust and effective options on the market, such as Rocket Languages and Pimsleur.

No Real Opportunity For Conversational Practice

Because the Memrise language courses seem so heavily focused on vocabulary, they’re not the best for developing your speaking and conversational skills (unlike Rocket Italian and Rocket Japanese).

True, there is a pronunciation mode where the speech recognition technology will grade your pronunciation; however, the reality is that this exercise is just listening to and repeating words and phrases in a vacuum.

The company also offers an AI tutor called MemBot, but I found these sessions to be a little gimmicky.

In other words, there’s no room for spontaneous speaking that mimics real conversations.

So from that perspective, I definitely think there are better options out there to practice your speaking and expand your conversational abilities.

Pimsleur and Rocket Languages are the two best in this respect, in my opinion. They do a really good job of getting you to participate and use the target language under pressure within the context of simulated native conversations.

Not Ideal For Advanced Learners

This concern builds on the previous one. Because there’s no real opportunity to advance your conversational skills, I don’t think Memrise is the best choice for advanced speakers.

Once you progress past the basic level into the intermediate realm, the next logical step is to take what you’ve learned and start putting it into practice by conversing with fluent speakers. With Memrise, however, you really don’t get that chance (unlike the Pimsleur Italian course, for example).

Honestly, it’s for that reason that I think their program is best suited for individuals seeking to gain an elementary to basic understanding of a new language.

No Longer Offers User-Generated Courses

One real bummer is that Memrise used to give you access to user-generated content in addition to their own, giving you exposure to all sorts of different topics that may be of interest to you.

For example, within Spanish, you could find units that cover Harry Potter, yoga, criminal law, amusement parks, negotiating at car dealerships, and a ton more. This was awesome for finding super niche courses that match your specific interests, hobbies, and passions. You could essentially build an entire program around your specific likes and dislikes.

 

Unfortunately, all of this user-created material is no longer available on the Memrise mobile app, as it was moved to a separate website in 2024. The good news is that you can still find these courses (at least for now) – but they’re not accessible from the Memrise platform. This is an additional resource you basically have to track down yourself.

It’s not the end of the world, as this was just a bonus feature, and the quality of the user-designed content was hit and miss. Still, I wish Memrise would have replaced it with a new community feature, rather than removing the user-made lessons altogether.

User Experience Varies By Device

Lastly, the Memrise user experience seems to vary by device. Not all content and features are available across desktop and tablet.

Honestly, after using all device types, I can tell you it’s mobile that is going to offer you the best Memrise experience. Thus, if you’re the type of person who prefers your computer over your iPhone or Android, then this is something to keep in mind.

Verdict: Memrise Review

All in all, I definitely like certain aspects of the Memrise language program. For example, I like that they use lots of videos of native speakers, their spaced repetition framework and adaptive tech are effective for retaining new vocabulary, the gamified activities are fun, and you can customize the length of your sessions.

Of course though, like any language learning program out there, there are a handful of negatives as well. Most notably among these, the lessons themselves are pretty basic, and I don’t believe Memrise is the best for developing your conversational skills.

Therefore, I would recommend the Memrise free plan as a supplemental tool, not a standalone learning program. If you are truly serious about achieving an intermediate level of fluency, check out our list of the best language apps.

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