[Feature request] Suggestions for better learning

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1

After about 6 months with Memrise these are a few things that I would suggest to make it better. I’m only talking about the iPhone App, since it is the only one I use. If these features are already available on the website I hope you will add them to the app also.

By the way, I’m doing the Polish courses. But this would apply for other languages also.

  1. Be able to exclude words, or at lease lower the priority on words. Now it feels like I waste a lot of time on words that I feel are really easy, or maybe is the exact same thing in my language and the language I’m learning. I want to spend time on the words that I think is hard to learn.

  2. Be able to select which training module to use when doing a review. For me, after finishing Polish 1, seeing a word/sentence and have 3 audio alternatives and hear a word/sentence and have 4-6 alternatives feels more like a game than actual learning. After one course, even if you don’t know the right one, you know which ones that it isn’t and you 99% of the times select right. Not much training and just takes time.

  3. What I instead think would help in learning is the possibility to hear a word/sentence and then need to write it. Not have 4-6 alternatives that you only have to select the right.

  4. Also, as it is now, all writing training is from English to Polish. I also think that the other way around would be good. You see/hear the Polish word/sentence and have to write the English. It could help to practice how different sentences is put together in Polish.

  5. When practicing sentences or “double words”, just selecting predefined words and put them in the right order don’t help much. I would like to see the possibility to only get empty boxes, so you know how many words there is. And then you have to select each box and write the correct word. This might also help understanding and learning the grammar of the language.

  6. When writing words and I have the full keyboard selected it would be nice if you could add a extra row with the special characters for the language you are learning. I have seen other apps that have a custom keyboard where they have added a top row with their own characters. I find that it takes time to select the special characters for Polish the standard Apple way. And sometimes also hard to know where to find the special characters.

  7. At any time you should be able to select a word to hear the sound of it. If for example my suggestion above is implemented when practicing sentences. Or after a review I can find it a little annoying that I cant press a word that I maybe missed and hear how it sounds. I have to exit the review and find the word in in any of the completed stages.

8.I think that it goes to fast for Memrise to think that I have learned a word. The app could for example check how long time it takes for me to write a word to determine if I’m confident in the word. Just hearing and selecting it from a list a couple of times should not be enough for “knowing” the word. If you follow the pace of the app you should probably learn like 20-30 words in an hour. But give another hour, or the next day, and you remember maybe 4-5 words.For now I many times have to select the wrong word so I get to practice it in the Difficult Word module.

  1. I think it should be possible to combine courses when I do the review. Now I have to switch between courses all the time to repeat words that I have already learned. Would be nice if it was possible in a easy way to practice all learned words within one language.

As I said, this is what I miss in the app, and maybe it is available in the web version. Or maybe something is in the app also and I don’t know how to find or activate it?
But maybe my suggestions could be used for something and maybe make Memrise better. Right now I start to feel like it is more of a game than a learning tool. I know and understand the words in the app, but I have a hard time to use them in real life, and Memrise should prepare me for real life.

Maybe some of my suggestions could help people learn faster and be more confident when using the language and creating their own sentences in real life.

Thank you for your time.

1 Like
2

Have you seen the ‘ignore’ function? Or doesn’t that really cover your need.

This function is already available. A course creator can set ‘writing’ or not writing for a column in a course. The Memrise courses are all writing of the ‘foreign’ language. Or, again, is that not what you need?
But if the sentence is long, it becomes a ‘word-tapping’ exercise. I’d like to have more writing in those cases two, especially when it is only, say 3 words.

I like that one! Easier than writing the whole sentence, but more difficult than tapping. Good step-in-between.

3

Thank you for your answer.

No I haven’t seen it. Is it available in the iPhone app? Maybe it is what I need.

I don’t know if we talk about the same thing. Because the only I get in listening exercises is the option to select the right answer from 4-6 alternatives. Or I see the English word/sentence and get 3 sound alternatives and need to select the right one. But maybe there is different options for other languages? I try to learn Polish.

To hear the word/sentence and then need to write is what I would like.

For me, it is the writing that I learn and remember most from.

More writing less tapping =)

4

Should be, but I’m using Android. This is an image I found using google (from Thomas Heiss in another thread here ,actually). Andorid has three dots under the flower, which opens a menu with the ignore and mark-difficult options. But iOS doesn’t have that. Does iOS have another way open a menu somehow?

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5

Can’t find anything in the iPhone app that gives the possibility to ignore words, or lower their importance.

But anyway, right now Memrise feels like a game with all the tapping. Doesn’t give me the right kind of challenge to learn new things. It was good in the beginning. We’ll see if there is some improvements, and maybe they’ll use some of my suggestions. But I think I need to take a closer look at Duolingo now.

If the developers read these kind of threads? I hope so.

6

Another things, besides it would be nice to get some kind of feedback from the developers when making a thread like this.

If I try to open the forum or login on my iPhone the Memrise app opens instead. Impossible to use the forum on the phone.

And maybe more important, as of now you need to have the iPhone on English language to be able to select courses that is from English to any language. If I have the phone on my language, Norwegian, almost no courses is available.

Make it possible to set the language to use in the app, to use the system language to show available courses is just stupid.