Changes to the Memrise app

Changes to the Memrise app

Blog updated on 27 March, 2024. The Memrise app is changing. This is the place to stay up to date with what's going on and how may affect you.
March 27 2024 Memrise News & Events

Follow this blog post for updates to the Memrise apps. We’ll always update this page first. Last updated: 27 March, 2024

Summary of changes

Earlier this year we announced the retirement of community courses from the main Memrise product. From the 31st of March of 2024, they will be moved to a separate website and will no longer be accessible on memrise.com or the mobile apps.

This change could affect you differently, depending on the courses you are learning. Here, you’ll find all the information you need to understand what’s going on and what you need to do. 

If you’re already familiar with these changes and would like to head over to the new Community Courses website, tap the button below.

Go to Community Courses

 

Community courses moving 

Community courses are word lists but don't have any of the video content that word lists in the main Memrise product have. All non-language lists, like Geography or Biology, are community courses. 

All community courses are moving to a new website: community-courses.memrise.com This site is live and you can try it out now by clicking here. After the 31st of March, 2024, none of these courses will be available on memrise.com or the mobile apps. 

How does this change affect you, and what do you need to do?

  • Your existing login credentials will continue to work
  • Your entire progress is available in the new website
  • Course creation continues to be available

Community Courses FAQ

 

Q: What is a community course?

A: Community courses are word lists that let you learn facts and word translations, but don't have any of the video content that word lists in the main Memrise product have. All non-language lists, like Geography or Biology, are community courses.

Q: Will my Memrise login still work on the new web URL?

A: Yes, the same login will continue to work

Q: What will happen to my progress?

A: It will be exported to the new web app experience, and none of the words or phrases you have learned will be lost. 

Q: When will you remove community courses from the apps?

A: All community courses will be retired from memrise.com and the Memrise apps on March 31st. 2024

Q: When will you shut down this new URL? How long do I have to access my community courses?

A: Community courses will live in the new URL at least until the end of 2024

Q: What will happen to my community courses after you shut the new site down?

A: Before we do, we’ll have a way to give you your word lists in a format that allows you to take them, and continue to learn them, somewhere else. After we shut down, they will still exist in this format for you.

Q: Can I still create and share new courses with other users?

A: Yes, you can create new courses and share them.

Q: I upgraded to PRO. Are PRO features available in the new web app experience?

A: Yes, absolutely

Q: Will I be able to access Community Courses on mobile apps?

A: Community Courses will only be accessible on community-courses.memrise.com. They won’t be accessible via the Memrise app past March 31st 2024, but you can use the new website in a mobile web browser and create a shortcut for it on your mobile phone or tablet. You can find instructions on how to do this here for Android, and over here for iOS.

Q: I can’t find some of the courses I was learning on memrise.com, where have they gone?

A: If they were official Memrise courses (e.g. Spanish 2) and not community courses, they are only accessible on the main Memrise website and apps. The new URL is only for community courses. More information on changes to official courses is in the FAQ below.

Q: Can I get to my community courses with the links I had saved?

A: No, all community courses have a new URL. You’ll need to sign in to get to them, and you can bookmark the new URLs for easy access, or share them with anyone.

 

Memrise Approved courses

 

There are 3 types of Memrise-approved courses:

  • Wordlists based on the old "Memrise official" courses. If you were learning official courses on the old Memrise product, you'll find the same content here. There are 1000s of these wordlists in each language.
  • Lists based on the most popular community courses. We've looked at the lists that people are most interested in, checked them, improved translations where needed and added videos. There are 1000s of these wordlists.
  • Lists based on media content, YouTube videos and other user requests. We can generate lists based on any topic. There are 10k+ of these lists in each language.

 

Changes to Memrise-approved courses

Alongside our flashcard features, over the last 12 months, Memrise has been introducing:

  • Hundreds of thousands of native speaker videos whose vocab corresponds with the words and phrases you learn. This allows you to hear the words you learn spoken with accents, truncation and at full tempo. This will help you recognise the words spoken in real life by native speakers.
  • MemBot, our AI chatbot, allows you to have conversations, spoken or written, so you can practice using the words you’ve learned.

To ensure everyone has access to these new benefits, we are working on an update of the app that will happen sometime after we have finished moving the community courses to a separate website. We’ll keep posting about that update in this blog.

How do these changes affect you?

  • If you’re only learning Memrise-approved courses, you don’t have to do anything right now. All of your progress will be taken across to the new version of the app. 
  • If you are learning a mix of Memrise-approved courses and community courses, you’ll need to use the new website and main Memrise product separately for each. You’ll be able to use the same login details for both.

Memrise-approved courses FAQ

Q: Where’s my progress? How does the new experience work? 

Instead of having a series of “Levels” per language (e.g. Spanish 1 through to Spanish 7), there is now a single course for each language. The content in each course is broken down into “Scenarios”.

“Scenarios” has two parts: “Learn”, and “Review”. 

Everything you have previously learned will appear in the “Review” section, including Difficult Words and Speed Review.

Additionally, the new experience includes thousands of native speaker videos (“Videos” tab) and an AI bot to practice speaking with (“Conversations” tab).

Memrise before: (showing levels)

Memrise now: (showing scenarios)

 

Q: But what are Scenarios?

A: Scenarios are just vocabulary lists grouped by topic. They're similar to what you would recognise as “Word lists” or “Levels”. Most of these lists are everyday ‘scenarios’ such as checking into a hotel or buying groceries. Others are simpler, like months, numbers, or questions.

 

 

Q: Where are my word lists?

A: All of the words you learned previously now live in the “Scenarios” tab. 

Go to the “Review” section in “Scenarios” to find all the words and phrases you previously learned in “Levels”. 

“Scenario” names are not the same as the “Level” names, but your words and phrases are there.

Q: Is my progress lost?

A: No, please be assured it’s not lost. All the words you have learned now live in “Scenarios”. 

The words you have learned are ‘marked as known’, which means you have fully learned them. They will still be resurfaced in “Review”.

However, some “Scenarios” will have more words than the original lists. These show up in the “Learn” section. There, you can mark these as “I already know this” and the whole Scenario will be completed.