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Hello everyone.
Welcome to the Lange focus channel.

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My name is Paul.
Today I'm going to be talking about a 

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language learning tool called memorize.
I tend to be a traditional kind of 

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learner.
I focus on using textbooks on audio 

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listening materials are not 
communicating with native speakers.

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Those are the staples of my typical 
study routine,

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but a lot of people ask me about things 
like memorize.

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So I decided to give,
memorize a try and give you my review 

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and tell you my impression.
So first of all,

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what is memorize?
Well,

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memorize is a language learning platform
that's available on your desktop 

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computer or on your smartphone.
And it is basically a system for 

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memorizing using flashcards with a 
spaced repetition system.

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So it's similar to something like 
[inaudible] in which you use a flashcard

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and to learn a word and then you review 
it at graduated intervals.

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Those intervals get longer each time you
review the word,

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so maybe the first time you review it 
two minutes later,

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but then after that the next review 
comes 10 minutes later,

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the next one comes 30 minutes later,
that kind of thing.

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So you're increasing the interval 
between the reviews of the flashcard 

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each time.
That's what I mean by a spaced 

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repetition system memorizes used 
primarily for language learning,

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but you can use it for other kinds of 
information to like geography or biology

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or whatever information you could put on
flashcards.

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You can make flashcards and use them in 
the memorized system.

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One of the pillars of the memorize 
approach is science.

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They claim to have a lot of legitimate 
science behind their approach behind 

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their technology with one of the 
founders of memorize being a 

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neuroscientist and the other one being 
an award winning master of memory,

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someone who's won a lot of memory 
contests,

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that kind of thing.

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The science of memorize focuses on two 
things in coding and testing.

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So the first thing that memorize is 
focused on is encoding new information 

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into your memory.
And that is done by using something 

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called memes.
What memes are is they are kind of 

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multimedia bits of information that can 
help you connect to that new information

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to something you already know.
So it could be an image.

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So you're associating that new phrase or
a word with an image that is familiar to

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you.
It could be a funny sentence or a 

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shocking sentence,
something like that.

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It could be a mnemonic device.
Any of these kinds of things that can 

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help you connect that new information,
make some connections and retrieve that 

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memory later.
Those can be used as memes.

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If you're an experienced language 
learners,

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and you might be good at coming up with 
memes of your own off the top of your 

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head,
but if you're not,

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or if you just need extra ideas,
then you get these memes within the 

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memorize system that are provided for 
you.

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So those memes are for the purpose of 
encoding new information into memory.

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The second scientific principle that 
memorize this,

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focused on his testing.
So after you have encoded that new 

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information as a memory,
then the next thing is to test yourself.

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That is to prompt yourself to recall 
that information later on before you 

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forget it.
And when you do recall that information,

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that strengthens the memory.
Okay,

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next I'll talk about the content.
And by that I mean the courses and the 

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flashcards that you can learn from 
inside the memorized system.

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Memorize content is organized into 
courses and each of those courses 

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consists of a bunch of flashcards and 
those courses are created by memrise 

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users.

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They're not created by the founders of 
memorize or their employees,

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the created by you,
the people who use memorize.

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So anyone who has the desktop version of
memorize can create a course anytime 

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they want.
And that means that there's a huge 

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variety of courses available.
There are tons of courses on memorize.

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Okay,
so I'm going to talk about the positives

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and the negatives of memorize.
And then after that I'll give you my 

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final thoughts in summary on this tool 
for language learning.

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So the positives,
number one is just the sheer number of 

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courses available.
The amount of content on memorize is 

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staggering.
If you look at the courses available at 

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the languages available,
there's just tons and tons to choose 

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from.
So it's like being a kid in a candy 

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store.
It's really a lot of fun just to browse 

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through there and think about what 
course do you want to try next.

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So let's take a look at the selection 
inside.

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Memorize plumps.
Here we are on the memorize homepage,

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and if I click on the courses button 
over here,

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we'll see some of the featured courses 
on the front page.

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So we have learned basic Russian learn,
basic Brazilian,

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that et Cetera.
So at least ones are particularly 

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popular.
So they are featured on the front page,

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but these are not the only language 
courses available.

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Let's look at the left hand sidebar and 
see some of the others.

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So this is,
these are the top categories,

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the most popular languages,
but look down below that and we can look

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at all categories.
So you see there are some other subjects

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like Trivia and memory training,
history,

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geography.
But let's look at languages looked at 

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that.
We've got all languages or language is 

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broken down into regions.
So let's click on for example,

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African and see how many languages there
are.

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You can see there's a big long list of 
African languages,

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Zulu,
Kosa,

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Wallace,
Somali.

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There's all these languages.
Let's have a look up above at,

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let's see,
Asian and Pacific.

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Let's see.
So a lot of the Asian languages are 

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here.
Indonesian,

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Korean,
Thai,

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Vietnamese.
So even I knew even the,

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I knew language from Japan,
which is a very endangered language even

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nowadays.
So there's a lot of languages that are 

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much less widely studied that courses 
are available for it.

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Let's choose a language and click on it 
just to see the variety of courses that 

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you can get just for that one language.
So let's click,

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let's not click the top one because that
would be too obvious.

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Let's click,
let's see,

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how about Italian?
Let's go for that.

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So we've got learn basic Italian,
I don't know exactly what it consists 

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of,
but it says learn Italian vocab and 

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grammar verbs,
phrases.

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And down here,
let's see,

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intermediate,
Italian,

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Italian verbs and expressions,
introductory Italian,

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the 500 most common Italian verbs,
hacking,

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Italian,
elementary,

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Italian.
So these are all different courses by 

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users.
Some of them might cover similar things,

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so you probably don't want to do all of 
the courses,

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but there's a lot to choose from,
which is part of the fun of looking 

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around inside memorize,
so you don't have to start at the 

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beginning and follow a linear path with 
any kind.

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Of course,
you can jump around and skip around a 

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little bit.
You can do multiple courses at the same 

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time.
It's really up to you.

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It's nice to have that flexibility.
Okay.

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The second positive thing is that the 
system of encoding and testing,

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it's quite effective in my opinion.
I tried out some to gallows and French 

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courses,
but I also tried out a Turkish course 

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because Turkish is a language that I've 
never studied and I got a chance to see 

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how it feels to learn a language from 
scratch using memorize.

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I didn't get really,
really far with that course.

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I just did a few lessons in it,
but I had a chance to see how well I 

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remembered things and I felt that I 
remembered the words quite well because 

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I was prompted to recall the words at 
times when I was just about to forget 

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them.
And that's actually really good in 

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spaced repetition and the goal is that 
you want to retrieve the word right 

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before you forget it because the more 
effort it takes to recall and retrieve 

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that word,
the the more you will strengthen that 

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memory.
So it felt like the memorize system had 

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really strategically timed when I needed
to review that word right on the edge of

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forgetting it,
which is good.

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I also found the memes quite useful.
I'm an experienced language learner.

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I'm pretty good at coming up with my own
memes.

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But having a bunch of crowdsourced memes
to choose from makes it just really easy

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and quick.
And sometimes you see one that really 

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you connect with and you want to use 
more than your own,

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and that just makes everything easier 
and smoother.

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So so there,
why not?

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It's useful.
Okay.

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So now for a couple of negative things,
the first negative point is that 

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memorize is not really a comprehensive 
language learning system.

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It's basically a flashcard drilling 
system with spaced repetition.

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So it's not something I would use to 
learn a language completely from scratch

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all by itself.
You don't really get any explanation 

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about the grammar or phonology or 
anything like that.

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So sometimes when it's practicing with 
memorize,

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I would be looking at a word and 
thinking why are the letters pronounced 

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this way?
I would,

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I really would like to have some 
explanation of the phonology or things 

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like that.

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But of course there is none.
So I'm pretty good at to do sing that 

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stuff from examples just from 
experience.

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And that's the way I think.
But I think a lot of people really need 

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to have that explanation.
And even for me,

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it's good to have it.
It makes it easier.

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So just the lack of explanation and that
was the lack of presentation of the 

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language concepts makes it less than a 
full language learning course.

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It's really just drilling vocabulary of 
phrases and translation of sentences.

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So that means that basically you should 
use memorize along with another course 

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that is more comprehensive.
Okay.

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The second negative thing is that the 
user generated courses are both a 

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blessing and a curse.
Like I said before,

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they're a blessing because there's such 
an,

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an awesome amount of variety and such a 
selection to choose from.

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But at the same time,
there's not really a lot of quality 

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control and there's no standardization 
of the courses.

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Some of them are a lot better than 
others.

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Some of them seem to introduce words in 
a really strange order or they start 

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with things that in the beginning that 
you don't need yet and that kind of 

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stuff.
So I found that I really had to search 

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around and try a few different courses 
to see which one fit my needs and then 

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if it didn't fit my needs,
just leave that course and join a 

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different one.
So you have to look around,

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shop around a little bit before you 
decide what course to use.

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So that's a little bit different than 
some other language learning platforms 

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that have been kind of refined and 
standardized more so that you kind of 

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always know that you're getting a course
that they themselves have developed and 

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focused on.
Basically to sum up my positives and 

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negatives,
I would say that memorize is actually a 

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really useful tool for drilling 
vocabulary and for drilling sentences 

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and maybe doing some sentence to 
sentence translation and it's a fun tool

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to use so it's good as a supplement.

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It's good to get that extra source of 
input of the language.

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It's just a useful tool but it's not a 
comprehensive language learning program 

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so I wouldn't stick to only memorize 
unless you're just dabbling in a 

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language on the side.
Like if you're focused on French and you

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want to learn a bit of Portuguese,
then just use memorize.

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For some Portuguese that would be fine.
But if you are really taking a language 

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seriously,
I would have a comprehensive main course

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and then use memorize as an extra 
additional helpful tool,

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which it is.
So that's all from my impressions.

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But how about you?
Have you tried memorize?

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If you have,
then I ask you to leave your comments 

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down below.
Tell me what you thought of it,

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was it useful for you?
And if you have some tips on how to use 

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it more effectively,
then please write that as well.

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Thank you very much for watching the 
langue focus channel.

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Be sure to follow lane,
focus on facebook,

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twitter,
instagram,

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and Google.
Plus.

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I'll be looking forward to interacting 
with you and all of those different 

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places.
All right.

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Have a good day.