Memrise Review

Video clips of actual natives

A word list, a native speaker, and a countdown

Memrise puts your current word list front and centre with a video of a real Vietnamese speaker embedded in the card, and previews the words in your next session — chào, xin chào, thế nào rồi? Note the banner at the top: a welcome offer with 24 hours to claim it, before you have learned a single word. The urgency starts early here.

Every word comes from a real person's mouth

This is what makes Memrise Memrise. Instead of a synthesised voice, each word is introduced by a short clip of a native speaker saying it — ordinary people, filmed in ordinary places, at natural speed. You see 'chào' spoken, then the English underneath. For a tonal language like Vietnamese, where the difference between words is carried in pitch, watching and hearing a real speaker is worth considerably more than a text-to-speech engine.

Then it tests you on what you heard

The video becomes the question: the speaker says a word and you pick it from four options that differ only by tone marks — chút, chào, thím, chú. That's a genuinely demanding exercise for Vietnamese, and it's the right one, because tone is exactly what English speakers fail to hear. Get it wrong and the item returns later in the same session rather than being quietly dropped.

Mems, and a button that lets you argue back

Two nice touches. 'Mems' are memory hooks written by other learners — 'seen chow' for xin chào, 'THE NOW ROY' for thế nào rồi — silly, and effective for exactly that reason; you can write your own. And when the app marks you wrong, there's an 'Actually, I was right!' button. Letting the learner overrule the grader is rare, and it quietly acknowledges that automated marking gets things wrong.

A free AI roleplay that speaks first

The Speak tab offers scenario roleplays — ours was ordering coffee — and the barista opened in Vietnamese with a stage direction and everything: '[mỉm cười] Chào buổi sáng, bạn muốn dùng loại cà phê nào?' You can reply by typing or by microphone, ask for a hint, translate any line, and rate the bot's response with a thumbs up or down. We reached this without paying, which makes Memrise one of the few apps here offering AI conversation practice on a free account.

The free tier is capped by the day, and the discount numbers don't line up

Here's the shape of the deal, and structurally it's a fair one: the free version has everything, but rationed — 'your access is limited per day' — rather than whole features locked away behind glass. Pro lifts the daily cap and removes the ads, at $61.99 a year or $164.99 once for lifetime. One oddity to flag: the numbers don't line up. The home banner offered 50% off with a 24-hour countdown, this page's headline says 70% off, and the badge and the button both say 50% again. That looks like a stale headline nobody updated when the offer changed rather than anything cleverer — but if you're weighing whether a countdown is worth hurrying for, it's useful to know the app itself can't tell you which figure applies.