EDUCATION - LANGUAGES - 10.11.2011

Learning foreign languages the easy way

There are scores of websites helping you to learn or understand a foreign language. But Memrise (http://www.memrise.com) is special: this site relies on prompts and mnemonic aids to help you remember words. A wide range of languages is supported (French, Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese, Chinese etc.), and each has thematic lists (although the presentation of these themes needs some improving). To familiarise yourself with the approach, we suggest launching the brief demo on the homepage: it teaches you a couple of Chinese characters and shows you how to remember them easily by using animations.

For some languages you’re also given handy phonetic prompts which will help you to “plant” the foreign words in your memory. This is always done in three steps: first by means of seven-odd “seeds” (new words), then via a greenhouse containing the “potted plants” (recently acquired words), and finally in the “flower garden” (words to be harvested later). Short tests assist you in the gradual language-learning process. Free registration is required - you can use your existing Facebook account for this purpose - and your personal Dashboard keeps you informed of the progress you’ve made so far.