A couple of posts ago I mentioned my aim to renew my efforts at learning Hindi. Whilst researching different resources, I came across an app called Memrise.
Finding a quick way to learn vocabulary is always a bit of a fantasy. But this app comes pretty close…and the best part is it’s FREE!
Like many language tools before it, it uses a flash card system. However a key difference with Memrise is that you repeat the words you learn just before they would normally disappear out of your short term memory. You ‘water the seeds,’ so to speak, to ensure they remain and grow in your memory. Another advantage is that you can do as much or as little as you like. The point is that you learn SOMETHING every day.
The app also has a great interactive feature, where you can upload memes to help other learners remember words. For example, a picture of a window, and the sentence, “this window is so quirky.” Quirky sounds like the Hindi word for window. They are very useful and occasionally very hilarious!
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| The German word for “urgent” is “dringend” |
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| The German word for “expensive” is “teuer” |
Unfortunately it seems it was too good to be true…well, at least for Hindi. There seems to be a glitch with how they display the Hindi letters. In the screenshots below, you can see the word for English person (approximately “angrejee”). The problem is the word is missing the vowels! It is meant to read अंग्रेजी
Then, when you go to re-enter the word, the second screenshot, the vowels show up, but as blank boxes. Now, if you didn’t know the vowels were missing, you would just enter the letters as shown in the first screen shot. But then it tells you it’s incorrect. The only way to get the word correct is to know the actual word spelling with vowels, then to guess which blank box corresponds to the vowels and hope you get it right…phew-if you were confused just reading that, you’ll understand my frustration.
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| Without vowels, this would be pronounced “agrj” |
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| The mysterious blank vowels |
So how come I still think it’s a good app?
It’s because the glitch seems to only affect Hindi. So whilst I’ve had to go back to old school pen and paper for Hindi, I’ve been using the app to revise my German and it has been brilliant.
They have HEAPS of languages, so I’d say give it a try and hopefully they’ll have an update one day that will fix the glitch 🙂