I find Memrise much more interesting and "powerful". It only shows you sentences and relies on your brain to know how the grammar works (a bit like how a child learns how to speak).
I've found Memrise to be a good way to learn languages, using just a few minutes twice a day. I've tried a few ways online and offline before this, and none have been anywhere near as successful.
I've heard of Memrise, but haven't really spent any time playing with it. In fact, I just checked my phone and it looks like I downloaded it at some point and never opened it. Adding it to my list to check out, thanks!
I like Memrise, but I don't know if it's disruptive as much as it is convenient. It does similar things to Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur (though I think it's more effective). Spaced repetition, pronunciation, quizzes, diverse methods of testing your understanding. It's gamified with leaderboards and points.
I don't work there, I just use it, but I think it's great for non-tonal languages (as in, it doesn't do Mandarin great).
Thanks for the Memrise recommendation. I tried it today and found it much better than Duolingo.I think Duolingo makes you more stressed to keep up with the day streak and I find my self just redoing a couple of stories just to keep it running.Not good.
Memrise is surprisingly good, I've found. It focuses on phrases, and has short videos with native speakers talking that you learn from. Also has repetition. It's a good app.
Memrise (under the languages section) is pretty amazing. Or, at least seems amazing from 15 minutes of going through the Chinese stuff. I hate memorizing things, but the interface and visual cues for learning characters, and way they track your progress actually makes the process enjoyable for me.
So far, at least.
As with all these tools, you could teach yourself this stuff before, it'd just require more work and discipline for you to find the necessary books and make your own teaching plan. The advantage of these services is that they lower the friction to learn. Hopefully they reduce the friction enough so that there is a much higher ratio of enjoyment/reward to effort, making you more likely to stick with it. But you still have to stick with it to learn anything.
Memrise is better as its more structured. But it's only as a supplement. Duolingo is also a good supplement, not the primary tool. Best to take some class and drill textbooks with fill-in exercises. Then books with short texts on different topics - highlight words, memorize. Then find ways to practice in real life.
Yes people say they used Duolingo to being close to fluent, most people who speak very bad grammar and mix tenses but people don't correct them mush as they get the point. So most are unaware. I speak it from first hand experience knowing about 10 people like that.
I'm a HUGE fan of memrise (www.memrise.com). Easy to use, clean interface, and a great concept. I've been using it to learn mandarin and have found it to be infinitely better than self-studying out of a textbook.
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