I have to praise Memrise for using mems (i.e. mnemonic) to associate to a word (or any other learning item on non-language courses). Also it’s not just one per word but there are multiple to choose from. The best thing is that users are allowed to create their own so the only limitation is the sky!
However, this also opens a can of worms that quality of many mems are questionable. I understand that different people have different imagination so I don’t complain about even the weirdest association. But if some users simply repeat writing the identical words as his/her mem, I don’t see the point (i.e. you have absolutely no additional advantage of associating a mnemonic “abc” to the same word “abc”). Yet the worst is that sometime in the past there was a bug in the Android app where hitting the mem’s “save” button doesn’t confirm the mem creation so quite some users (including myself) must have hit it couple times, hence couple dups!
Another common misusage (well at least to me but maybe not to the others) is that some mems are written in totally different language than the one to be learned and the one the course being conducted in. For example, a course to learn Japanese written for English speaker would have tons of mems written in Russian, Vietnamese, Chinese, etc. They would make sense only if the Japanese course is written in Russian, Vietnamese, or Chinese.
I know that there is a flag button so you can report to Memrise for review. However due to this, I doubt how effective that is. I doubt how many users really take the pain to hit the flag if the useless (again maybe just to me) mem doesn’t really offense. Dislike mechanism might do it but again it might also open another can of worms for irrational / emotional dislike.
As of now, it’s really a headache to go through looooong list of mems with highly varying quality, although I am still willing to go through the pain as mem is probably the most critical aid to my language learning process.
In general, you’re supposed to make mems for yourself — you’re not really even supposed to use other people’s mems. If you read a book like this, it’ll explain how to make better mems. Just think of it as a happy accident if someone else makes a mem that works well for you.
Even if I’m studying from a course in English, I might be reminded of something that helps me in Swedish or Esperanto so then my mem won’t be in English. I don’t think that’s anything to worry about.
Memrise was originally created by a team of memory scientists (or at least based off their research data) and memory contest champions, if I remember right. So they had the idea of using mems from the beginning, as that’s an extremely basic memory technique. But for some reason, they’ve always neglected to teach people how to make good mems.
Most people don’t learn memory techniques in school, and they also have no idea how fast they could learn or how effortlessly they could remember if they only knew how, so when they come to a site like this they have no clue what actually helps them — and end up doing stuff like inserting sentence examples or just copying the answer, instead of doing what actually helps humans remember best. Remember, these people were taught in school that the way to learn is to copy the answer down 50 times…
Also the flag button isn’t for stupid or useless mems, it’s more like for mems that have porn in them for no reason. But if someone is making a lot of useless ones you can check their account to see if they’re actually a robot, and if so you can report them.
Finally… if always seeing everyone else’s mems ends up really annoying you, you can just make your own courses! ; D
Regarding what you said about mems that are using different languages than the one used for the course, I’m not sure this is really a problem. Sometimes, I have a very good mem idea that only makes sense in my native language (french). As @risgrynsgrot said, making this mem is mostly useful for me, and that’s just a nice bonus if it also helps others.
Another reason why I’m not sure that this is a problem to have good mems in another language, especially in a course based on english, is that most people are learning a new language from english (even though it’s not their mother tongue). Sometimes the courses based on other languages are just not what the learners are looking for. This means that even though you cannot understand the mems, there are people who can and who will.
I generally agree with @risgrynsgrot and @Onesmy that different people will have different ideas to remember a word or a phrase that possibly only work for them. E.g. the more languages you already know, the more words you can link to the new words that you’re learning. When I’m learning Russian, usually the words are similar to Polish and I can draw a connection between Polish and Russian, even though the best course I’ve found is an English-Russian course, but in some cases a connotation with an English word works better for me. For instance with the word “North” which sounds “syevyer” in Russian - in Polish “North” means “Północ”, so something completely different, but someone made a connection with the word “severe” because life in the North may be severe and it works just right for me, too.
I still really miss the possibility of choosing a picture from a graphics browser, though, it helped me create tons of very helpful memes for Dutch and since it’s gone, I’ve almost stopped creating memes at all because it’s not fun anymore. The official explanation for taking it down was similar to what you wrote in your post - too many poor quality memes, plus many of them were using the same pictures. But for me it was a brilliant tool as I was creating my own Memes so the “poor quality memes” were simply ignored and didn’t bother me at all.
Hey @Uczalka, do you mean that they used to allow uploading a picture for mem creation by using the phone app, while currently we can upload picture only when creating mem on their website?
If that’s what you meant, I am on the same page with you too because I LOVE using an unique picture to associate with my text in the mem so it’s even more effective. What I want more is to allow bold/italic formatting of text when using together with a picture.
@daydaywong I know, it might sound like more work than it’s worth, but you could add italic / bold on an image with image editor programs, while it’s still not available.
@daydaywong I don’t really use the phone app but it was possible to create picture-based mems in the WebApp as recently as a year ago. I had already got used to it by that time and then it was suddenly turned off.
I obviously use mems differently than you do! I like grammar guides and word etymology descriptions. Pictures doesn’t function for me because if I have already made a connection to that phrase in my mind, it’s already buried into my brain. For instance, if I learn Swedish, there are lots of words similar to English or German or they are international, there are words that mean something else in other languages that I’m familiar with, there are words that are funny, and there is a group that I don’t know how to overcome…
it was possible to create picture-based mems in the WebApp as recently as a year ago
When you say “WebApp”, do you mean the website? If so, I am able to upload picture without problem. The following screenshot is my Chrome on PC at work, but it works equally fine with my Chrome on MacBook at home. Are we talking about the same thing?
@daydaywong: Maybe I wasn’t precise enough - sure, you can upload pictures but you need to have them saved on your drive first. Previously when you were creating a mem, a window would pop up with an internal search engine where you could just find various pictures online and choose one. The current process takes definitely too long for me to bother, you need to first find a pic, then download it and then upload it again to the site. It used to be so convenient… :’(
@wynrich on that post commented with a copy of Ben’s comment from the uservoice feedback forum, explaining why they removed image search from mem creation:
I am a strong advocate for the Keyword method for learning vocabulary. It’s fun and effective to encode each syllable (or sometimes sequence of syllables) with something familiar. It’s even more satisfying when these encoding(s) are able to be put together in a picture (extraordinary or not).
To @risgrynsgrot’s point:[quote=“risgrynsgrot, post:12, topic:120”]just think of it as a happy accident if someone else makes a mem that works well for you.[/quote]
I still want to see if someone else’s mem instantly rings a bell for me first. Am I the only one doing this? I bet not. Would people give up if nothing fits and just pick what others liked most? Very likely. For me, I sometimes spend hours to create mine, yet some other times I give up as well. I guess as long as there is no moderator for mem creation, quality still varies and a potentially long list of mems (good or bad) will eventually change the user behavior of attempting to “find” vs “create”, yet worst of all, “give up”.
I agree with this. Which is why I am confused that Memrise doesn’t have other users mems hidden as the default. Or at least an easier way to change it.
I agree. I am old enough now to know that my creativity doesn’t necessarily always allow me to devise the types mems that I have chanced upon and they just work. Some people just have the knack for it.
In general, you’re supposed to make mems for yourself — you’re not really even supposed to use other people’s mems.
Yeah some of the connections I make to remember something are totally weird and I’m sure wouldn’t really make sense to others even if I tried to explain them.
Though I do like having the option of using others mems because I found a lot of ways to more easily memorize something that I would then just rote memorization because I can’t come up with my own mem for it.
An example is one someone made for the Japanese Hiragana ふ (pronounced fu) they found a picture of a guy doing Kung Fu where he is in a position that looks like the symbol - something I would have never known on my own but I never forgot it after that.
Can anyone tell me whether you can add or control the mems in the iPad app? Currently I’m seeing lots that are in other languages - or that contain offensive language - and I would prefer to just see the Memrise official ones. Or to make my own, but I don’t see any options for this - or any way to flag something inappropriate.
I don’t understand how Memrise can suggest that children use this app, or that teachers use it, when I’m getting “mems” with f*ck and “ass licking” in them! How do I get rid of all this?!
I wouldn’t care so much if the Memrise one appeared first, and I had to scroll through to see the others… but I don’t want to have to swipe past the ass licking and f*cking before I get to any useful content.
I had already got used to it by that time and then it was suddenly turned off.
