The Memory Palace Language App
The only language app that uses the complete memory palace system — spatial memory, vivid mnemonics, and spaced repetition — so vocabulary doesn't just enter your head, it stays there.
Early access — Android APK. Starting with Brazilian Portuguese.
You study 50 flashcards. A week later, 40 are gone. Traditional language apps rely on brute-force repetition with no memory structure. Your brain has no anchor for the words — so they slip away.
Without a memory system, you forget 80% of new vocabulary within 48 hours. This is normal — your brain isn't broken.
So apps make you repeat words endlessly. It feels productive but it's fighting biology instead of using it.
Most learners quit within 2 weeks. Not because they lack motivation — because the method doesn't work.
The Method
The memory palace technique was used by Roman senators to memorize hour-long speeches and medieval monks to memorize entire books before printing existed. Every world memory champion still uses it today.
The Kitchen Palace
Each group of words lives in a familiar place — a kitchen, a café, a park. You already know these spaces. Your brain's spatial memory (the hippocampus) is incredibly powerful at remembering locations. We tap into that.
bom
= good
A BOMB explodes flowers at the mirror 💐💥
Every word is anchored with a wild, unforgettable mnemonic at a specific spot. To remember “bom” (good), you picture a BOMB exploding flowers at a mirror. Absurd? Yes. That's why it works — your brain is wired to remember vivid, emotional images.
Retention over time
We show you each word at the scientifically optimal moment — right before you'd forget it. Combined with the memory palace, this means words move from short-term to permanent memory in a fraction of the time.
The Science
This isn't a gimmick. The method of loci is the most studied and validated memory technique in cognitive science.
🧠
The 2014 Nobel Prize in Medicine went to the discovery of “place cells” — neurons that fire when you imagine being in a location. Memory palaces activate these cells, giving abstract words a physical address in your brain.
📊
A 2017 study trained people in the method of loci for just 6 weeks. They went from average memory to remembering 2.1x more words — and the improvement lasted 4 months later with no additional training.
🏆
At the World Memory Championships, competitors memorize 500+ digits in 5 minutes. Their secret? Not talent — memory palaces. Brain scans show they use spatial navigation areas, not special “gifted” regions.
⚡
Ebbinghaus proved that reviewing at expanding intervals defeats forgetting. We combine this with spatial anchoring — making each review faster and more durable than the last.
A True Story
In 2005, a journalist named Joshua Foer walked into the USA Memory Championship to write a story. He watched ordinary-looking people memorize the order of entire decks of cards in minutes, thousands of random digits, and pages of poetry they'd never seen before.
He assumed they were born with photographic memories. They weren't. Every single one of them told him the same thing: “I have an average memory. I just use a technique.” That technique was the method of loci — memory palaces.
Foer was skeptical. So he tried it himself. He started training, placing vivid images at locations in palaces he knew — his childhood home, his high school, his neighborhood streets.
One year later, he entered the USA Memory Championship himself — and won it. He memorized a shuffled deck of 52 playing cards in 1 minute and 40 seconds. Not because he was gifted. Because the technique is that powerful.
He wrote a book about the experience — Moonwalking with Einstein — which became a New York Times bestseller. His conclusion? Anyone can develop an extraordinary memory. You just need the right method.
Loci puts that exact method in your pocket, applied to the one thing everyone struggles to remember: foreign language vocabulary.
Features
Not another flashcard app with a streak counter. Every feature is designed to move words from “I've seen this” to “I know this.”
🏛️
Words grouped by real-life scenarios — the kitchen, the café, the market. Each palace is a familiar space you mentally walk through.
🎭
Every word comes with a handcrafted mnemonic scene. Bizarre, visual, emotional — exactly what your brain is wired to remember.
📐
Reviews are timed to the moment before you'd forget. Words you struggle with come back sooner. Words you know stretch out to weeks, then months.
🎯
Multiple choice, cloze fill, dictation, sentence building, conjugation drills, and more. Variety prevents pattern-matching and forces real recall.
📈
A structured path from zero to conversational. Pronouns, numbers, verbs, nouns, and phrases introduced in the right order.
🏃
Short, focused sessions that fit into any routine. Consistency beats intensity — a few minutes daily builds permanent knowledge.
| Typical apps | Loci | |
|---|---|---|
| Memory technique | Rote repetition | Memory palaces + mnemonics |
| New word encoding | Text on a card | Vivid scene at a spatial location |
| Recall method | See prompt, guess answer | Walk through palace, see scene |
| Review timing | Fixed intervals | Adaptive spaced repetition |
| After 1 month | ~20% retained | 80%+ retained |
The method of loci has been used for millennia by people who needed to remember everything — before writing, printing, or smartphones existed.
2,500+
years since Simonides of Ceos invented the technique in ancient Greece
100%
of World Memory Champions use the method of loci as their primary technique
2.1x
improvement in word recall after just 6 weeks of training (Dresler et al., 2017)
Download the early access build and start learning Brazilian Portuguese today. More languages are on the way.
Download for AndroidAndroid APK · Early access · Free
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