yes, very interested. Do they have community courses that are searchable like memrise (kinda still) has?
If so, I’d also rather contribute to a platform that I feel confident will listen to its users and maintain useful features.
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Please bring back mems, what is going on seriously?, they were literally the best part of memrise now there gone? Worst decision by a company I’ve come across in a long long time, just awful.
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I was literally about to purchase a lifetime subscription today, but all the mems disappeared. I thought this was a bug. I restarted my phone, cleared the app’s cache and memory, forced stopped it, uninstalled and then reinstalled… but… it’s real. Unbelievable coincidence from my end as I was completely unaware.until today.
This is the only reason I use this app. The mems were crucial for me to learn words easily. Surely there is a better solution to this problem. Here are some less radical suggestions:
- You could have user moderators filter the mems if they are offensive. Something like what Fandom implements.
- Reduce image quality to free up server space
- Remove unused mems after a long period
- Switch to text only
- Add a cap of number of mems per word
- Only use mems in official courses with approved mems or most popular courses for each language
However, your solution is to remove the only part of your platform that made it unique. I can’t express my disappointment at this decision. After nearly 7,000 words learned, it’s time for me to leave.
I strongly urge you to reconsider this decision.
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Everything related to Anki is community-created. There are no courses per se - the studied items are organized in a form of decks, which can be exported into dedicated files and shared freely on the web. A lot of them (and I mean a lot) are gathered on the main site Shared Decks - AnkiWeb. There are also some on Anki forums Shared Decks - Anki Forums. But you can find even more than that just by googling around. For example, here is a collection of decks specifically gathering stuff from Japanese shows, and it is huge in and of itself: My Files.
The best way of searching for a good deck is probably looking for recommendations in a subreddit/forum dedicated to studying your target language.
However, in Anki it is so easy to create your own decks from videos you watch and articles you read, that I would suggest leaving the idea of learning from other people’s decks entirely (except for universal starting vocabulary and, maybe, some other specific cases).
With extensions such as Yomichan, you can create cards that would include screenshots, audio, sample sentences, and everything with just a couple of clicks. It helps immensely when the items you are studying are not some abstract entries, but something directly related to your personal activities and grounded in the context you are familiar with.
Actually the removal of mems was Ben’s idea:
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Thank you for responding, even though you haven’t explained anything at all, you haven’t answered the most important question: what is supposed to replace the mems. And not in terms of replacing them on your list of priorities or list of expenses. But replacing their function.
It would be interesting to know, where Memrise is going, because most of the changes done have been in a rather sad direction, and your list of “pedagogical principles” sounds just like generic empty words we hear everywhere. Mems have been an interesting and helpful part of Memrise since the Beta. I still remember some of the mems years after! They were very helpful, especially when I had started German the first time. They were something unique.
It is fair to say, that you no longer want mems, they don’t fall into your strategy. Ok. But saying “they’re no longer providing the right pedagogical value” is simply untrue.
As to your “principles”:
1.learn words and sentences: yes, that’s what memrise was about, primarily words though. Your very sloppy, superficial, and badly thought out “professional” courses show exactly why sentences are tricky on this platform. Mems were helping with learning words. You’re throwing that away.
2.videos and audios: we got it, you still want to push primarily your trashy official courses, not the user courses, which are often of much higher quality, mems removal are just a part of that strategy. But why have you chosen to become just another source of beginner videos, when you had already been on the way to be the best SRS around? I know, not getting an answer. It is just rather sad that you are removing the actually useful features, just to put more attention to stupid videos.
Btw how on earth are those stupid cliché videos supposed to be more useful than original and funny mems?
3.“communicate with fellow humans with no fear of making mistakes.” What a nice phrase we’ve all heard a million times from so many companies. Are you sure this is what an SRS platform should be doing? People coming to Memrise are looking for SRS to learn our vocabulary, perhaps conjugations, some will try learning sentences here (even though Memrise is not a good tool for that). Yes, the vocabulary will help with communication, but you are skipping your actual role here. Memrise is not a conversation partner finding platform, nor is it a therapy tool against fear. You are supposed to help with the huge and scary step before conversations. Removing mems is a step away from that purpose.
It is still a very good SRS tool, that has some huge advantages. The user made content, with tools like “Difficult words” (I love that one), with low quality official courses with useless videos (really, does anyone need to see a boring person on video, to learn “Hallo”?!), and also with mems. No other platform had been offereing that. But no clue, why Memrise is destroying itself.
I just cannot understand why is every big change on Memrise a removal of something very good, something that actually gives people a reason to come back, to invite friends, to pay for. What are you gonna offer instead, so that it falls in the “principles” presented? Are you gonna erase Memrise and make Italki2? 
Or just add more stupid videos?
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Thank you for putting this into words.
Me too, I agree there will be a good replacement for the functions of Memrise that we’ve loved. There are many SRS on the market, perhaps some will add Mems (even if they have to rename them), and overall value User contributions.
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It was made clear by the community call last year, that Memrise is guided purely by metrics and ignores the simple fact that in matters related to learning the metrics are inherently skewed.
The number of novices always outweighs the number of experienced learners, simply because everyone starts at the beginning, but not everyone advances past it. From a metrics standpoint, this means that the appeal to newcomers is naturally more important than the needs of long-time users. As a result, we get the dumbing down of the interface and removal of features. This, I think, is the ultimate reason, why so many learning platforms look so much alike and provide so little value for people, who are serious about their studies.
The more depressing part about this trend is that even though it makes it easier for people to pick up learning languages, without the means to advance past a certain stage it also makes it even easier to put the learning down after a little while. In the end, it only increases the dichotomy between beginners and experienced learners, skewing metrics even more and increasing the rate at which tools for advanced users are being removed.
A practical conclusion would be to leave the platform and move on. If you are on this forum, you are in a minority, therefore your opinion doesn’t matter. The reaction to all the latest changes here was unambiguously negative, and it didn’t affect anything in the slightest. Whatever Memrise is doing next, they are not taking your interests into account, so the chances are you wouldn’t like the result.
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You’re absolutely right. This is not the first time Memrise goes only after the beginners and sets them up for a failure (because the metrics don’t really lead to helping newbies get anywhere useful).
There are a few things, that have been holding me here.
1.My own course I’ve made and a few other high quality user made courses. Please, das the addon Memrise to Anki work again? I read there were some problems encountered. It would really be awesome to just get my favourite courses (at least the one I spent so much time creating) and go.
2.Nostalgia. I still remember the wonderful Memrise Beta. With the flower analogy (and beautiful simple design), with the mems, with a great system that solved overlaps between courses. I just need to accept this is gone. But at least I am not the only sentimental one, I’ve seen a few more around
3.Lack of alternatives. This is less and less of an issue with every new alternative. Anki is great and I’ve finally learnt to make typing cards, which removes a huge plus from Memrise. I can finally do it just as easily (almost). Linguno is growing and could be a great opportunity for many people in need of conjugation drills and also vocab by cefr level (it is still just beginning though). Speakly (in spite of technical issues) has a better premade content than Memrise is creating. So do some of the vocab apps by some coursebook publishers (most are bad though. The market is different than it used to be.
You’re right, Memrise couldn’t care less about the learners, who have helped it grow. Time to go. I just hope to find a working addon, I don’t have the time to copy everything myself.
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In fact, there just was a development:
http://community.memrise.com/t/how-to-use-memrise2anki/70021/36?u=eltaurus
I’ve seen this message and haven’t understood it at all. . It’s as if you were speaking Mandarin to me So, is the addon working? What is a “dev console”? I save the decks with the .csv ending or the addon, please?
No, the addon still doesn’t work, but there is a new script that at least makes up for some of its functionality. I’ve just finished my own variation of that script, converting it into a Chrome extension.
Please check the thread again, I’ve tried to provide detailed instructions on how to install and use it:
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It seems no emails were sent and the only people in the know are those who found this Forum. (And it’s still hard to find.)
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I’ve been working on formatting the courses I’ve brought from Memrise to Anki for a while now. If anybody is doing the same, maybe we could collaborate in some way. I’m planning to upload the template for the cards somewhere once I am satisfied with the result. It looks like this at the moment:
I also think I know how to make the collection of mems, which were downloaded when it was still possible, to work with Anki in a way similar to what we had here. So if anyone is willing to implement it, I’d be happy to share the ideas.
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After reading all those comments, I understand that the only way to learn with Mems is going to another website.
If someone hear about a language (Chinese) learning website using mems, please let the community know 
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Anki has Mems, see @Eltaurus’ answer above yours. However, the real power in Memrise’s mems was that you could use other people’s mems which IMHO is a true learning booster.
AFAIK Anki doesn’t provide any means to see other people’s mems.
And apart from the fundamental concept to have mems provide something that helps stuff to stick better, mems are (sigh, were) also being used to provide an alternative translation which I’ve come across countless times. This is simply due to the fact that non native English speakers learn from English because there’s just so much more (or better) content that teaches from English than from other languages. I recall a 5k French words course that a fellow German took and pretty much 90% of the times when I was wondering about the exact German translation for something, I found a mem by him.
I’d very much like to move away from Memrise. As tremendously good their original idea and concept was, they a) have continuously disassembled their own product and have b) been incapable to develop anything new with the required diligence - all new concepts have been carried out sloppily, to put it nicely. And, sadly, their official courses’ content confirms that sloppiness just as well.
I’ve simply lost my faith that whatever they come up with next will make anything better. But I simply haven’t found anything that runs on Android, provides community courses, (community) mems, a community network, a means to create your own or amend other folks’ existing courses and that doesn’t look like a children’s toy which is why I’m still using Memrise.
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Memrise, if you’re still listening – this is why your data-driven approach to product development is failing so spectacularly. Data and analytics are never going to tell you this story, but as the many comments on this forum show, it’s not an uncommon one.
Sadly, you’ve fallen into a classic trap that kills a lot of tech companies, but the part that makes it especially tragic is the number of people trying unsuccessfully to pull you out of it.
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Yes, Olaf breaks down exactly why I still use Memrise, and will jump ship at the first sight of something that fills this need and includes some sort of notes/mem-esque feature (and can be used on a computer without Admin capabilities, such as a work or library computer) (even if it’s Memrise itself that makes this change). Ideally it would be a site that doesn’t tell you it’s probably going to blow up at any second so you’re probably wasting your time contributing anything to it, but that would just be a bonus at this point.
I must confess to some schadenfreude over seeing the trickle of people who aren’t on the website every day or week or month slowly realizing they lost all their work and coming here and tell Memrise off. I only wonder how many astonished emails are and will be exchanged with Support from people who think something’s just buggy or broken, and then get told what’s really what. I don’t for one second think that this forum reflects more than a tiny percent of all the people who are and will be furious about this move, and am sure that the reputational hit, the destruction of trust, just gets bigger every day.
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The is no method that would work uniformly well for any deck and any language, but, with a bit of javascript, Anki cards can be configured to display mems from kanjikoohii site, for example, or from some other similar platfrom.
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While that is cool in itself, it probably is quite tedious to setup and doesn’t allow users to share their mems “out of the box”, so I doubt that it would work without further development on the Anki side.
I did a bit of research on Anki yesterday. It seems that Anki has been around almost 20y now, and it’s completely open source, pretty cool! I didn’t find anything about the original developer or the team that is working on Anki now, quite strange.
I also do think that Anki is very powerful, but also pretty much convoluted, and its appearance mirrors those ~20 years. Last but not least eco-system is decentralized, with AnkiWeb and AnkiDroid and the such and there doesn’t seem to be a fixed team. I’m really torn …
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Years ago, I thought the plan to put Community Courses on another platform (Decks) was a sad move, as people would not find them.
However it has been hard now for people to find them (and this Forum) unless you search diligently on the web rather than on the App.
How good it would have been if they had created Decks as a frozen MemRise in the initial era of the pastural landscape, Mems and linked Forums etc.
Any chance of ressurecting the old MemRise/ Decks and moving Community Courses there?
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