First of all I do not find LingQing to be such a big deal. However we are planning to introduce automatic hints. One way would be from learner’s hints, since there are problems extracting this from the different dictionaries. We are not going to look at “ergonomics” of the LingQ widget for the near future, but will in the “later” future.
Jeff, All of what you describe about learning and forgetting is true. If you main activities are listening and reading, chasing words becomes like the mechanical rabbit at the dog race. Without realizing it you are growing in the language, and you are “hooking” more words, often “incidentally”. Do not look at the Flash Cards, or the Spaced Repetition System as the core, it is just an exercize. The core is the listening and reading. That is laying the foundation of the language in your brain, one layer after another.
At least that is my feeling. And I also save lost of words. I have 16,000 saved words in Russian, and regular try to save words that I have already moved to status 4 (known). All I know is that I can read and listen to content today, easily, enjoyably, that I could not handle even 2-3 months ago.
Oh yes, indeed it (sometimes) feels as if chasing words. What you write about layers is very inspiring, and something I can very much agree on (however, from other disciplines). I’m going to stick to it, keep saving words, listen a lot and read a lot. I know it will all fall in place. Someday. And I’m not in a hurry. Hey, I’m doing this “for fun”! No deadlines.
While chasing the words is our measurable, and building up our vocabulary our conscious goal, it is essential that we find and use content of interest to listen to and read. The stronger the intellectual, emotional, and pleasurable connection to the content, the more familiar it is, the more it satisfies our curiosity and desire for adventure and exploration, the better we learn. And it is this latter enjoyable activity, practiced whenever we find the time, that sustains us and is our major activity. Our deliberate word learning activities are rewarded when we read and listen and notice more words that we now know, or that we are getting closer to knowing.
Last night I went back to an old lesson (~30 seconds), listened to it repeatedly for about 15 minutes, and just a few minutes ago I read the actual text (the voices and intonation had somehow stuck without any effort). Everything did indeed fall into place.
In my experience, grammar and words without context, or boring content that we only read once, are all too easy to forget. Enjoyable content that we have read and listened to many times, paying attention to words and phrases that we often meet as old friends, creates a familiarity with the language that is hard to lose. I do not forget languages that I have learned in this way. And…they are easy to maintain, I just go back to content that I have listened to, old audio books etc. and the language is refreshed.
