I’ve noticed that learning algorithm for the first session, when you are learning new words, in the official courses has been changed - from six repetition rounds to three.
Are you guys OK with it? Is it enough for you to remember a new word? Seems like insufficient to me.
I’m pretty torn. For Spanish, which is rather easy for me, I like it to not have to go through 6 reps. For Russian it’s the other way around - I’d rather go through 10 or so reps before a word is flagged as learned.
One thing I certainly do not like is the fact that, very often, you don’t even have to spell out a word or phrase. However, IMHO that’s the single most important test.
FWIW, I don’t see this as a bug. It also has been like that for several months and only concerns the official Memrise courses.
Could you split discussion to another thread, if it’s worth it?
Done (duh, why do I have to enter at least 10 characters!?).
@lurkmoophy, @JBorrego, @MemriseSupport: can you share some insight as to why you opted to move away from 6 repetitions when learning a new word/phrase?
(apologies if this is the wrong place to be putting this, I’d be happy to edit/delete anything that doesn’t belong here.)
Perhaps some sort of toggle to make it so that you can move freely between, say 3 and 9 reps or something, (no idea what good numbers of reps for different settings would be) similar to how you can change how many new words to learn in a session, that way it could be changed depending on what course someone intends to get into next could be helpful ?
(attatched is a picture of the currently implemented setting in reference)
Best of luck learning / Bonne chance apprentissage 
I am learning Polish and for me there are to few repetitions of new words and there should be much more typing. In the very beginning of the language it is nice to have less typing , so that you can get used to the language, but later on typing is one of the best tools for learning the vocabulary.
Hey people!
I have the opposite, I am learning German and because my grasp of the language is fine, I really just want to expand my vocabulary. Which is really easy if you know Dutch and Swedish.
In my case, I don’t want to type at all. I see a word and I will know it. So I really just want to move through this German vocab course like a bullet train, but all the typing is slowing me down and it’s so annoying haha. I would just like to use the speed reviews, but before words appear in the speed review they have to be “learned” first, so I really have no other choice.
(This forced pace of learning is something that’s even more the case on Duolingo, which is why I don’t use it.)
It would be nice if you could customize the different learning methods in the same way that you can choose to have the tapping tests on/off.
(It would also be a nice function if you could check words that you already know, in the same way that you can ignore them. I imagine doing that for the entire “1000 words of elementary German” course and then just speed reviewing through the whole thing in half an hour. But I imagine that function would be of a lower priority to make haha.)
Just as an example of how much it slows me down in terms of actions that I need to take:
If I have a speed review or normal multiple choice test and the answer is the third choice I type
“3”
When I have to write a word down it’s like
“d” “e” “r” " " “F” “e” “i” “e” “r” “a” “b” “e” “n” “d”
In other words, when counted in terms of actions I have to take to get past the word, being forced to write this down will slow me down 14 times. There goes my ticket to the bullet train!
Look for the auto-learn script here on the forum. Don’t have my link list right now, LMK if you can’t find it, I’d look for it tomorrow then.
Wow I guessed I should have checked back in on the forums a bit sooner! Thanks for that tip! I found it here:
Hey, sorry about missing this thread last year.
This is a change that we made a couple of years ago. We posted an FAQ and release notes in the app stores about it - sorry to hear the announcement wasn’t visible enough.
Here’s a detailed explanation of the rationale behind it and how it works:
On Memrise, you are generally tested on a word or phrase at least 6 times before it is considered fully learnt and is then moved to Review. However, easier items will only require 3 or 4 tests before they are considered as learnt, making your learning on Memrise even more efficient.
Our system predicts difficulty levels for individual items based on the accuracy scores of everyone that learned the course before you. If the average accuracy score for a word or phrase is sufficiently high, it will be classified as a potential ‘easy’ item.
Generally speaking, we have 3 brackets, based on specific accuracy percentages:
It’s worth specifying that if you make a mistake on an ‘easy’ item during the first few tests, it won’t be categorised as ‘easy’ for you (even if it has a high average accuracy score among all previous learners) and you will go through 6 tests by default. Your accuracy score on all words and phrases inform our technology for learners that start the course after you and helps make Memrise an ever more efficient learning experience.
Unfortunately there’s no way to disable this system or customise it, however if you wish you can always continue to practise individual items with Classic Review or any other review session (to do so, simply select any level and tap on the button with the 9-dot grid to start a session).
I hope this clears any confusion.
Best,
A.
From my experience, the feature only works for official courses. Is it the actual case?
I do appreciate the feature and find it useful. Good work! It’d be nice to be able to turn it off, though, as some people may want to have some more repetitions even for the “easy” words.
May I add that this is, once again, about a presumption that the system makes, and that this presumption, while it could actually prove to be helpful, can actually have the opposite effect for many.
Learning is a process which can be very different for different individuals, so a simple average accuracy may completely be misleading. And again the question is: why don’t you leave it up to users to decide whether they want something or not. But no, you come, as always!, to the conclusion that it’s clever to decide for everyone based on your research or algorithms.
Can you give a link?
I remember someone from Memrise team answered related question on this forum, but there were no FAQ, no release notes with full description of this feature.
This FAQ is now updated and live again. Thanks for your patience.
To confirm, this only applies to official courses.
