Using Memrise and Duolingo to Learn Russian Vocabulary Versus Acquisition In Context

Initially I thought I would stop using Memrise and Duoling. But occasionally I find myself with a couple of minutes spare and opening those apps. It can't do any harm to go through them after I've done my revision for the 625 most common words using Anki, right? (I'm at 39 btw).

I'm only a month into my Russian acquisition experiment but there seems to be a difference in the type of retention I have for the 625 words versus those I'm learning with Memrise and Duolingo.

The 625 words I'm learning from the book and with Anki have clear mental images attached to them. I feel (though I admit I haven't verified this properly) I have a much higher chance of recognising them when listening to Russian dialogue or watching a TV show. 

At the very least I'm definitely able to recall the images away from my computer and I can remember the relevant words quite well. Similarly I can recall and recognise various words that I've picked up from watching Comprehensible Input videos or words that I've heard frequently in Dungeons and Dragons play sessions and subsequently looked up like Сколько / How much?

But the words I'm learning with Memrise and Duoling are mostly only available to me in the app. The exceptions being very simple words like яблоко / apple. My recall of words and phrases in the moment I'm using the app is very good, and I can read Cyrillic quite well. But as soon as I close the app I struggle to remember what I just learned. I'm not very confident that I would recognise many or any words or phrases from the app when listening to real dialogue or when watching a TV show.

This seems very similar to what other people experience with these memorisation apps. When using them you feel like you're making progress but outside of the app it's as if you haven't learned anything.

I'm not sure whether I'll continue with Memrise and Duolingo. 

My stats since I started this experiment on the 2nd of August are:

Passive Listening and Watching: 29:25 hours

Active Watching: 1:50 hours

Vocabulary: 1:03 hours

Total: 32:20 hours

Average Per Day: 1:21 hours

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