So, as I mentioned yesterday, I have started using Memrise to learn Catalan and to practice some other language skills. The site aims to make learning anything fun.
It combines flashcards containing mnemonics with spaced repetition to help learners. It also has a nifty garden metaphor where new items to be learned are seeds to be planted, then nurtured in the greenhouse of short-term memory, then moved to the garden of long-term memory. Periodically you water (review) your plants (memories) to keep them from wilting (being forgotten). It's clever and it works.
Also good is the fact that there is lots of pre-made (largely community-contributed) content. However, the quality of the flashcards varies; not all items have mnemonics (called mems on the site), and some of the items have typos. There is a curation system to make corrections to cards, but I haven't really explored it yet.
The site incorporates a point system so that you can track how well you're doing with your learning and various leaderboards by day, week, month, etc.
The site also has an iPhone app so that you can review on the go, but it is in beta and still needs some work.
All in all, Memrise shows a lot of promise and I will keep using it. I hope to learn more about how the site works and possibly take part in its growth and future direction.
www.memrise.com
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