Don’t you get points easier when you do reviews? I’ve choosen the max. length for reviews: 100. That gives me max 100 words to review, and makes it possible to get 15000 points and more in one go. It’s only by using long reviews and the red quick review that it is possible to get 80 000 + points/hour. Beginners can’t do that.
The red quick review is really a fast shoot out. It looks as if you’re only grabbing small amount of points, but it’s actually quite fast.
And, all in all, to be able to pull that of, should always be the goal if you learn something, no matter how much subjects you learn.
Except speed review is awful for long-term memory and should be avoided. Maybe viable if you’ve been on vacation for 50 days and have an impossible amount of backlog.
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Speed review is something you have to do if you’re already good at normal review.
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tja, course creators leaving memrise… i just noticed today, Horakely (was teaching Mandarin) left memrise…btw, when searching with google (UK) got all sort of memrise clones mem-rise, memrise.co.uk etc … straaan …ge… Horakely was aboard for some good years…
Posting here for visibility, but is anyone versed in the original review algorithm or know whether the app’s algorithm has crossed over to the web platform?
I might just be overly suspicious but I’ve noticed that some of my retained memories don’t “feel” right, or as stable as of late. Similar to when I tried the app out for a few weeks. I don’t have time at the moment to read all the threads but has there been any explanation of current algorithm changes on the website? One of the devs mentioned something but I can’t remember which thread that was. I remember testing out the app algorithm myself and finding that one of the first 5 review schedules was moved back or eliminated.
The algorithm is probably the most important thing holding the value of memrise together. If memories don’t stick, then it just becomes too much a game.
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Daniel Zohar did say that they changed the algorithm significantly, to require fewer correct answers after an error, in this thread.
Howerver, as usual, nobody from Memrise ever explained in detail how the new algorithm is supposed to work and how it differs from the old algorithm. And I think that Memrise is trying to make itself into a game catering mostly to kids who want to have an illusion of learning and an edutainment experience, while abandoning any pretense of being a tool for serious learning. Their co-founder, Ed Cooke, said as much in an interview that I posted a link to in another thread.
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One change I’ve noticed is that learning sessions now force you to learn all the words. For instance, if you miss “dog”, it will keep coming up so that you fully plant the word in the session. Before, you had to have a script for this.
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and i consider that an improvement,
no half-baked session results anymore
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Personally, I really really really HATE Ziggy and this new ranking system,
I really really really miss the old ranking system, the old badges, the day streak counter on the profile and …
Please please please make the Memrise like it was before otherwise most of your users will left!
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I do try to review 50-100 words at a time but I focus on learning the words rather than guessing if they’re right for points. So I make myself get a lot wrong if I don’t know them 100%. This is particularly the case with Japanese where you need to know kanji reading and English meaning. But that’s me personally.
I know many people who soak up vocabulary like a sponge and other languages are easier to review, so I can see where getting lots of points in one review session is possible.
I’m a fan of this also. especially since if a lesson is being learned where there are still unlearned words besides what is currently being focused on (say you’re learning 10 of 25), when a learning session was started to finish learning the missed word, it would also begin learning new words. This is definitely a big improvement.
What I’ve noticed though is that though all words are force-learned, mistakes aren’t punished as severely.
it’s also better because it prevents a word is not learned because of small spelling mistakes
I would like to say that due to this “improvement”, I have quit using Memrise altogether. The badges is what made me still use the site, despite learning new words increasingly became more inefficient (due to review piling up). Now I almost have to double my 2.7 million points achieved during a period of about 5-6 months. And that is just bullshit.
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When are those results going to be shared? It´s been a month and a half already…
We really want to know what is going to happen with Ziggy, the levels and the badges. You are getting a lot of feedback in this thread, it would be really nice if you gave us an answer. 
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Here is some more feedback for you to consider.
I joined Memrise around 5 and a half years ago and have been working away here almost every day since then.
When doing my daily review today, I noticed that my total points score reached the half-way mark (!) on the way to my next Level.
At my current rate of progress (around 150,000 points each week), it will take me another 5 years to get the additional 39 million points I need in order to level up again!
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I am in the same boat. I planned on reaching 50,000,000 by x-mas but this added years on. Kind of took the steam out of my progress. My 150,000 weekly average has dropped off significantly.
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Heya,
We’re still working on this! We’re still working on the case study to publish (it’s taking a while in amongst other work…), but we’re planning a v1.1 coming out for Ziggy in the coming months.
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Good to hear from you :-). Keep us updated please.
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I’ve just noticed that the mascot name is now localized, and it appears as Загги (Zaggy) in Russian. Ziggy may have some unpleasant fascist-related connotation in Russian, so changing the name is a good idea.
Anyway, that new Zaggy sounds and looks as much awful as the original one, and I don’t want any Ziggies or Zaggies in my profile. My nickname is WildFox, why the hell it says I am Zaggy?
I hate that space-alien-contacting idea in general too. People who live in different countries are not aliens from the outer space. They are (we are) human beings and share the similar cultural values. I learn languages to talk to people, listen to music and watch movies, but the app tries to convince me that there are aliens with claws and tentacles there. I would not like considering either myself or other people in such way.
I’ve not been using Memrise for a month, looking for some alternative. However, despite the new disgusting design and tons of bugs, it is still the best choice for learning vocabulary. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to be a part of the dev’s target audience.
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I agree about aliens being a bad metaphor.
Also, showing progress/effort as evolution is another bad metaphor.
Our language learning progress, and effort, is not evolution… it is a conscious directed process, requiring thought and hard work. Evolution is the opposite.
Ah. Watering plants was such a good metaphor. Shame it wasn’t sexy enough for them.
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