Pros & Cons
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- Beginner-friendly
- No limit on the number of languages you can study
- Good customization options
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- Extremely expensive, with inconsistent pricing
- Multiple-choice questions aren't difficult
- Inaccurate language placement process
Memrise Specs
| Android App | |
| iPhone App | |
| Number of Languages | 14+ More From Community |
| Style of Program | Interactive Activities |
| Web App |
Memrise could be a decent language learning tool if you've exhausted other options, but it's difficult to recommend broadly. On the one hand, we like that it covers more than 30 languages and caters to beginners. On the other hand, many of its exercises lack rigor, and its Pro account is insultingly pricey. Memrise needs to do a better job of determining your initial skill level, too. As such, we've dropped its rating by one star and rescinded its Editors' Choice award since we last reviewed it three years ago. You are much better off with Duolingo, our current Editors' Choice winner for free language learning, or Lingoda, one of our favorite paid apps that excels with challenging material and live, classroom-style tutoring.
How Much Does Memrise Cost?
You need an account to use Memrise, but setting that up doesn't require you to provide any payment details. The free account gives you access to a good amount of content in both the mobile and web app, and there are no ads except for promotions to upgrade to the Pro tier.
The pricing for a Pro account is, frankly, atrocious. When I last tested Memrise in April of 2022, I saw different prices on the mobile and web apps, but at least the rates (around $8.49 per month) were reasonable. Now, however, Memrise charges $59.99 per month, which is insulting. The list price for an annual account is anywhere between $81.99 and $115.99, depending on when and where you see it. I saw plenty of offers for 20% off those prices, although, in one case, I caught a math error related to said discount, which doesn't instill confidence.
The cost of a Lifetime account is also inconsistent, depending on when and where you open Memrise. You might get a discount of 20%, 31%, or 50%. Who knows? In short, you could pay anywhere from $162.49 to $324.99.
Although it's common to see perpetual sales on certain types of software, the lack of consistency here is stunning, and the monthly fee is absurd. When a company makes you feel this way about its prices, you generally shouldn't give it your money.
Paying for Memrise Pro (which, again, you should really think twice about doing) gets you access to all language lessons, along with cultural tips, extra role-play sessions, grammar lessons, language tips, and verb conjugation drills.
What Languages Can You Learn With Memrise?
Memrise has content for both English speakers and speakers of other languages. English speakers can over 30 languages, including Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, Galician, German, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Icelandic, Igbo, Indonesian, isiXhosa (Xhosa), Italian, Japanese (transliterated or with scripts), Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian or European), Russian, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Welsh, and Yoruba.
You can sign up for as many languages as you want, even if you're a free user, just as with Duolingo. That service includes courses for more than 40 languages.
Getting Started With Memrise
I spent about three weeks with Memrise for this review, though I have used the app on and off since 2017. Whenever I test a language learning app, I look at one language that I don't know and one that I do, respectively, Thai and Spanish in this case. I weigh my experience against other language learning I've done, not only with apps but also at the School of Language Studies at the Foreign Service Institute, in online and university classes, and with private tutors.
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(Credit: Memrise/PCMag)Once you choose a language, the app asks if you are a beginner or if you have experience. With Thai, I started at the beginning. With Spanish, I answered Memrise's question about my ability honestly; it placed me at a level well below my actual skill and didn't give me the option to change it unless I reset or deleted the course and started fresh. Even after doing that and answering that I was as advanced as I could be per Memrise's scale, I still got what I consider material for beginners. So many apps handle this situation better. Duolingo and Ligoda have placement tests, for example, and other apps, such as Busuu, use the Common European Framework of Reference (CERF) standard.
Interface and Instruction Style
When you start a new language, you begin with the first lesson. All of the following lessons remain locked until you complete the prior ones. You can at least jump around to different exercises at your leisure. The structure is fine for beginners, though I wish you could see a learning path on the main dashboard (see the image above). There is a learning path (see the image below), but it's difficult to find. Another complaint: Memrise is slow. If you're a quick learner, you'll find the app tedious.
(Credit: Memrise/PCMag)Memrise teaches material by first showing you a few characters, concepts, or words, depending on what you're studying. Then, it quizzes you on them. The app integrates both audio and written material. For example, the Thai program started by showing me videos of native Thai speakers saying single words or very short phrases and sentences. I saw written, transliterated versions of those words, and in very small type, the writing in Thai. The free version of Memrise doesn't teach the Thai alphabet at all, which is a shame.
After you see and hear the beginner words a few times, Memrise starts peppering in multiple-choice questions that ask you to identify what you just learned. These questions are sorely disappointing, however, because the possible answers include the word I just learned and three others I have absolutely never heard before in my life. Choosing the right answer thus meant that I had to have only a passing memory of what it was. A better method would be to teach three or four new words at once and have the possible answers use all the words. Some exercises were even worse, giving the answer right in the question (see the image below).
(Credit: Memrise/PCMag)Memrise encourages you not to learn too much at once, and it recycles words and phrases you have already learned to keep them fresh in your mind. You can change the number of new items you learn per lesson (3, 5, 7, or 10) in the settings, which is helpful if you need to go faster or slower. You get similar controls for words per review session.
Language Exercises
Learning Thai was an underwhelming experience. I retained very little because the multiple-choice questions were too easy. The free version doesn't teach you Thai script, as mentioned, but it still quizzes you on writing, asking you for transliterated spellings of Thai words. I managed to remember some of the diacritical markers for falling tone, rising tone, and so forth, although, on one occasion, I noticed that the spelling of one word was different in the learning portion of the app and the interactive exercise (mii versus mee).
Memrise has an AI component, through which you can chat with a bot. However, as the screenshot below shows, it often gets confused.
(Credit: Memrise/PCMag)What Makes Memrise Different?
Memrise used to have a lot of user-generated content and even other kinds of learning courses besides languages. They have all since moved off the app and are now part of another website. Although it was difficult to trust that content (language experts didn't necessarily create it), some of it was decent.
Perhaps the only remaining standout feature of Memrise now is that it uses videos of native speakers. You can hear a few different authentic voices, male and female, young and old, which is helpful. It's an improvement over the robotic voice Duolingo uses for its exercises.