Memrise

Memrise is a language-learning app and website run by Memrise Limited, a London company founded in 2010 by Ed Cooke, Ben Whately and Greg Detre. Its starting point was vocabulary drilling with spaced repetition, and it has since added short videos of native speakers, pronunciation practice, AI conversations and exam preparation.

The vendor says it offers courses in 149 languages and counts more than 80 million learners in 189 countries, including small languages such as Latin, Irish, Finnish and Ancient Greek. The problem it targets is the gap between knowing words from a textbook and understanding people who speak at normal speed with real accents. Lessons are assembled from a mix of activities, and the vendor says the team behind the product is about 12 people in London.

• Native-speaker video clips. Each new word or phrase comes with short videos of real people saying it. The vendor says every lesson is built around these clips, so learners hear regional accents and natural speed rather than a synthetic voice reading a script.
• Spaced repetition schedule. The review algorithm predicts when an item is about to fade from memory. The help centre prints the intervals: 4 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours, 6 days, 12 days, 48 days, 96 days, then 6 months. A wrong answer sends the item back to 4 hours.
• Wordlists. Vocabulary is grouped into themed wordlists such as travel and living abroad. One list is active at a time and feeds all lessons and reviews. Some lists are open to everyone, others are for Pro subscribers, plus a personal list built from words saved while watching videos.
• Pronunciation practice. Learners record themselves repeating a phrase and compare it with the native speaker's version. The vendor stresses rhythm and stress across a whole phrase, not isolated sounds. The privacy policy confirms that pronunciation mode sends voice data to Memrise.
• AI conversation practice. Lessons can include conversations with an AI partner, and the vendor describes work scenarios for people who learn a language for their job. The help pages list Conversations next to Learn, Review, Sentence Builder Buddy and Pronunciation Buddy as activity types.
• Exam preparation. A separate product covers IELTS, A-Level, GCSE, IB and CEFR-aligned exams. The vendor says the tool is trained on the exam board mark scheme, covers reading, writing, listening and speaking, and returns a score with feedback from an AI examiner.

• A traveller with six weeks before a trip. Pick the travel-and-living-abroad wordlist, watch the short clips for ordering food and asking directions, and repeat phrases aloud. The vendor claims 15 minutes a day is enough for a basic conversation in about two months.
• A European Portuguese learner. Memrise lists European Portuguese as a course separate from Brazilian Portuguese, which many apps merge. Someone moving to Lisbon can hear local accents in the clips instead of adapting from a Brazilian course.
• A sixth-form student preparing for GCSE or IELTS. The exam product lets the student practise all four skills against a model trained on the board's mark scheme and read the AI examiner's feedback before sitting the real paper.

You can start without paying. The vendor says a beginner needs no prior knowledge and that the app also lets people pick up where another course stopped. Create an account with an email address or sign in through Google or Facebook, choose the language you want to speak from the list of 149, and the app builds recommended lessons.

Subscriptions bought on the website also apply on the mobile app when you sign in with the same username or email address, and membership belongs to the account rather than to one language. The interface language follows your device settings. The help centre notes that some lessons cannot be skipped by new users who are just starting.

Memrise starts from vocabulary, spaced review and short clips of native speakers, and its site lists about 149 languages, far more than most rivals. The free plan has official courses for 23 languages, so the long tail is thinner than the headline suggests. Pro adds all learning features and removes adverts, but the pages we could read gave no price.

In our language learning apps ranking Memrise stands at #5 of 17: Busuu sits directly above it and Babbel directly below. Challengers hold places 1 to 3 where a category has them; the number here is a place in the order, not a mark out of ten.

Home market: the United Kingdom, one of 5 Europe bases among the 17 products here.

Memrise teaches through repeated review of words and phrases, with video of native speakers and gamified tests.

Pro opens all learning features and removes adverts.

The homepage also mentions private AI practice.

Its about page counts 149 languages, though many are user-made or minor, so check the course exists before paying.

Charging model: Free plan; paid Pro plan that removes adverts.

The vendor says you can start learning for free and that a paid Pro plan unlocks extra features. The help centre states that three subscription plans exist and mentions Annual, Monthly, Quarterly and Lifetime options in different answers, so the exact set varies by page. Amounts are shown only after login, per country, in the app or on the website, and are not printed on the public pages fetched for this review. Payment is by Visa, Mastercard, American Express or PayPal on the website, and by in-app purchase on iOS. Gift subscriptions and Family Sharing are not offered. Switching from Annual or Monthly to Lifetime requires contacting support, with no partial refund.

Where this comes from: the vendor pages at memrise.com, checked for Best Language Learning Apps in 2026 on 7 November 2026.

The privacy policy says Memrise collects name, email address, username, profile picture, learning scores and, for pronunciation and the Communicate feature, voice data. It names Amazon Web Services and Google in the United States among its processors. Account deletion removes personally identifiable information, and active subscriptions must be cancelled first. Certifications such as ISO 27001 or SOC 2 are not stated on the pages fetched.

Integrations the vendor names (5):

• Google sign-in
• Facebook sign-in
• Apple App Store (in-app purchase)
• PayPal
• Visa, Mastercard and American Express card payments

These are the nearest neighbours of Memrise in the same list, picked on shared traits and price model.

• Lingoda (#3 of 17): Live online classes with certified teachers on a four-weekly plan. Watch out: unused credits cannot be reached after the last payment cycle ends.
• Duolingo (#12 of 17): Gamified free courses funded by ads and paid tiers. Watch out: ads fund the free version and removing them needs a paid tier.
• Drops (#13 of 17): Language app whose paid tier adds offline learning and unlimited learning time.

Read from the vendor’s own pages on 5 November 2026.

• memrise.com: language count, method, FAQ, 15 minutes a day claim
• memrise.com/about: founding, 80 million learners, 12-person team, exam product, spaced repetition explanation
• explore.memrise.com/help: review intervals, wordlists, subscription plans, payment methods, account deletion, Community Courses
• memrise.com/privacy: data collected, voice data, AWS and Google processors

The same four questions are asked of every language learning apps product: time to value, real cost, the way out and the intended buyer. The result for Memrise: #5, out of 17 ranked. Read the editorial process for the method and where paid visibility fits in.