I’m learning the Japanese language course created by Memrise, https://www.memrise.com/course/1659242/japanese-1/. For me, it seems to be completely free.
But when my wife tries to learn it, it does not allow her to! The application shows all lessons from the course as locked and subscription-only.
And we have exactly the same problem with the “no script” Japanese course found by https://www.memrise.com/course/1659245/japanese-1-no-script/. For me it’s free; for her it’s locked.
Why is that so?
Sorry if this was answered somewhere on the forums: I’ve searched for, but haven’t found an answer.
EDIT: None of us is subscriber. I was one (about 1 year ago, if my memory serves me right), for about a month.
I would pay for the app again, but I am currently really annoyed with the NY sale wich promoted the price of 650 rubles per year, but on attempt to pay it required me, suddenly, to pay $30, wich is three times more! Just imagine you go to a grocery store, see a price tag saying the good is sold with a 50% discount, but when you come to the cashier, he suddenly asks to pay a triple price compared to the discounted one. I would never ever return to such a store.
Try having her learn courses on the website version, then switching back to the app. It seems that new app users get locked behind a paywall sometimes, whereas the web stuff is still all free.
We both are using Android only, but still she can’t use it because of paywall, while I can.
We tried this with several Japanese courses, and the situation remains the same with every course from Memrise (we didn’t try unofficial ones yet).
Today she tried to use the web portal, and it appears that she can learn this way. But the lessons are still unavailable in the Android application even after reinstalling the application, even after she finish them in web portal, as can be seen in the the attached screenshot:
I don’t know if that’s relevant, but I also started to go through Japanese 0 for free on my computer, and after a while I was asked to pay for a subscription. (Which I did) ^^
So I was under the assumption that the first part of the lesson was considered a trial, and if I wanted to learn more I had to pay for it. Which is kind of fair, mind you.
Memrise is NOT free. For courtesy they may offer a taste of their learning platform.
Their Terms of Use read:
Our Content can initially be used free of charge. This includes early learning courses and content. If you decide to advance your learning, we have a range of subscription options to best meet your needs.
Also the description in their app page on Play Store makes this point clear:
You will need a Memrise subscription in order to access all courses and features. Courses and features available may vary depending on your device language and language pair.
The memrise answers to users in the review section expand further:
That is weird, it’s always been free before and paying only offered extra perks. Since when to complete courses you need to pay?
My roommate had the same, always with Japanese official course. I asked why he was pro since he only started using it (and knowing him will quit right away) and he said the app had him pay to start the Japanese course at all.
I completed all the Dutch official courses (which don’t have all the feature of the Japanese one though) and I never had to pay to progress.
Try getting her to just use memrise through the web browser on her mobile device. It’s still functional and designed to support it. You can probably use the app because it’s likely you’re using an old version of the app. If you update it, you’ll probably find yourself locked out of your courses and put behind a paywall too.
I’m an android user and I have the last version I still have access to all the courses.Maybe it’s free because I’m an old users even the offline mode is free to me.
My app is updated and I have to pay nothing.
I think it’s simply a matter of new official courses vs old ones, since the new ones have a ton of functions old ones don’t have.
And I’m an old user (6 years or something) but offline mode is not free for me, how is it free for some others?
Also, web Memrise is a completely different thing than app. I used that for years before getting a smartphone, and it’s very stressful and less useful, since all practices are timed and you have neither hints nor autoaccept. Not everybody likes it.
