I consider it a bug and this was already reported in old forum numerous times, but Memrise team doesn’t seem to care.
Currently I have 1800 unwatered entries and this number will keep growing, even though I will remember 90% of this words in 5 years without watering them once.
I’m seriously considering moving all my courses to Anki, where the algorithm works correctly, gradually extending the period for reviewing up to 100 years and more.
I have over 7000 words only in Spanish to review. I also learn Russian,German,French,Turkish,Swedish,Geography,Music etc… I don’t let the big number bug me. I’m also the 5min person for all the courses that I take. (There’s a lot of them). I only water courses I haven’t finished. When I have extra time, I do the word that have accumulated over months. These are easy points.
I also remember the time I spent hours and hours to water all the frases of all the courses… I spent every waking free minute…but hey you have to get some sleep sometime (i have 3 kids under 5 yearsold, so the main learningtime is at nights)
So I now even don’t try to water all and start learning some new words when ever I want. I only have like 10 courses that I keep the streak.
IT’S SO EASY to give your life to memrise, if you’re obsessed to review all at given time
Is there any way to export a course from memrise with all of the attributes and audio or pictures? I don’t think there is.
To me, that’s also quite bad, just in a different way. I don’t want things to go into a state where I’ll never see them again. I still want to be able to review the ones I’ve learned quite well, I just don’t want them to be lumped in with all the newer stuff, getting in the way and making it hard to even see if I’m keeping up.
@cos - I experimented a bit with Memrise-to-Anki. It’s a plugin for Anki.
With the right settings, it imports anything you want, though you may want to experiment so that alts, attributes, audio, etc go on the correct line of the Anki card. I suggest experimenting on a small course (100-200 words) before importing something larger…
Sometimes I do that but that’s really really impractical as a general solution, for two reasons:
It takes an awful lot of clicking to go through so many levels, especially in courses I started a long time a go where I have like 2 items to review in level 1, none in levels 2, 3, 4, then 1 item in level 5, then none in levels 6, 7, 8, 9, then 5 to review in level 10, and so on. It’s really slow and laborious.
When I know which level I am reviewing from, that is often a very strong hint as to what the answer is. I can get things right that I don’t actually know that well, simply because the strong clue of which level it’s on reminds me what it is. Doing too much per-level reviewing in a course will really ruin my learning for that course by spacing a lot of reviews far into the future for things I don’t know well enough yet.
If there is only few words per level then reviewing by level is not a good coice. Sometimes I just re-view those 1-3 frases. (Not actually doing the blue-button-thing) A week later you still remember them
Are you planing to review for the rest of your life?
Why would you learn a language if you are not planing to use it? Whether speak, read, watch TV…what ever. When you are able to -more or less - use it, you don’t need to review anymore. Especially not sentences or phrases. That’s why I never understood people who learn …like…ten languages at a time, or so. You won’t able work with them in twenty years. The goal is to make the language work for you, to be functional, not in watering, streaks, daily goals, points…
Whats wrong with learning multiple languages at a time.When I went to school I had to learn 3 languages on the same day in basic scool and there was 4 languages at high scool. It is not about only reviwing. You can keep your brain busy if you are doing multiple courses at a time. If brain is busy it can remember more and more things… it’s a brain training. The smartest ones are the ones that finish high school, because if you have to swift your brainvawes 6-7 times a day to learn another subject your brain will be quite mighty. After highschool you specialize on fewer thing and forgot others that you
It is somewhat neasier to lear multiple languages at a time, because there ae similarities. German, Swedish and Norwegian, French, Spanish, Italian and Portugese. I’m excactly that kind of a person who would learn 10 languages, if I could.
And about reviewing old stuff… sentences are more important than words, because then you’ll get grammar and words in context. I can take some sentences and make a course ot of them. And if a word has multiple meanings then there will be multiole sentences.
What I have learnt reading info on packages is that different languages say different things, whitch is awkward… but this is completely other story
people are different and with brains so why let some computer to decide if I want review smth in 180 or 200 days
But when you get that functionality level, you will start using the language, and with it, learning it in context. You will continue learning, just in another form. The goal is not learning by itself, but functionality.
First I have started with 4, 2new of it and I have decided to keep only them. I will easily upgrade the familiar ones. You need to be real.
I am really real =)
@Andrea_Mo3 - First of all, you’re forgetting that memrise isn’t all languages. I’m doing various courses on geography, history, science, and nature. For example, I’m not about to start “using” the locations of all those tiny Pacific islands on a daily basis, ever, but I still like knowing where they all are when any of them come up in the news or conversation - even if it’s an island I haven’t heard mention of in a few years outside of Memrise. For another example, my own tropical fish identification course will help me identify those rare fish I hardly ever see while diving, or fish from faraway places where I don’t travel to very often. As long as I keep up on my review, and brush up on the ones I get wrong so I can learn them better.
Secondly, even when it comes to languages, it’s useful to have some vocabulary in my head for languages I’m not about to learn to speak fluently anytime soon. And to keep up in my practice on reading their alphabets. For example, I do intend to visit Korea again, but it may be many years before I do that. If I’m keeping up on my review here, even if I don’t actually try to learn Korean, I will be able to read and understand a lot of signs and menus and other useful things the next time I go there. And if I do decide to actually learn Korean, most likely I’d make that decision at the same time I plan my next trip, so maybe I’d have six months - not enough to really speak the language, but if I have the massive head start of already knowing lots of vocabulary and short phrases from memrise, it would make those six months much more effective.
And then there are languages I have learned, or am learning, such as French - I speak it reasonably well. For a language like that, memrise has courses on more advanced vocabulary, and on idioms and sayings and expressions. Since I don’t actually live in a French-speaking country, I’m not going to encounter those sorts of things often, but if I keep on reviewing, then once a year or so when I do visit a French-speaking country, I’m better prepared to understand the less common words and expressions that will come up, and that I may not have actually used before, or not used for years.
So yes, I do plan to keep on reviewing for years, for the things I’ve learned here, in order to maintain my knowledge. If only memrise didn’t make it so cumbersome with their 180 day buildup of things I’ve learned really well already.
I have just realised that we are acting like if we couldn’t review the learned stuff unless Memrise alarms us to it.
Memrise sets the minimum…
But that’s the point of Memrise, right? A balanced setup of spaced repetition to use our time effectively. If it didn’t do that, we wouldn’t need to use Memrise at all.
You want too much things from this app. And possibly for free.
Personally, I would really love the app to have the algorithm to recognize the words I did learn, the words I didn’t at all, and the words in between. Maybe I am imagining, but I think recently I mostly review “favourite” words.
Allowing the learner to set a ‘‘review items at a less than/greater than X days interval’’ on a course would introduce a good degree flexibility to it’s usage. As widle suggests learners could concentrate on new/forgotten words, or also allow reviewing of older words if so wanted.
Making the assumption that a course that has items coming up for a 3rd or more review at 180 days has been completed by the learner … How about being able to mark a course as ‘learned’, and the items due for review don’t show in the total for a subject? It would save having to quit the course, or live with a high due for reviewing (I still type watering first…) of old items.
Personally I’m happy with the every 180 days review, I’ve got old courses that I review as and when and live with a high due for reviewing count. 
Are there any news on removing 180 days maximum cap? That’s a reason I stopped using Memrise altogether.
Or are there any comments from Memrise staff about the issue?
I’ve long since migrated to Anki. It’s immensely better, especially if you’re creating your own personal material! I still use Memrise for some courses!
I think it’s a design decision from Memrise and there’s no intention or indication for it to be changed anytime soon!