Let’s get some stat.
Even if the majority of the users really love 5.0, it’ll help for those of us who are unsatisfied to make a desicion and finally part our ways with LingQ peacefully.
I have a lot of words, but all of them are rather angry and I’m not sure anymore if anybody really cares. In part, because of exactly that.
I’m sure people at LingQ care. If they could please everybody they would but they can’t go back for the sake of a few users who don’t like it.
I don’t mind, just want to make it more clear for myself and people like me if it’s just our personal kinda bias. Since I’ve got an android I wasn’t able to use LingQ anyway.
4.0 for iOS wasn’t perfect but was close to that 
Now I just don’t want to subscribe, because my personal setup of AutoHotKey + Calibre + Anki works better than 5.0.
Trust me you need more than LingQ itself to make real progress in the language acquisition of your target languages. Watching TV shows. Having conversations. Anki review etc The benefit of using LingQ is to look up words quickly and see them highlighted in different texts at a fraction of a cost. Try it with online dictionaries or physical dictionaries. A real pain in the ass. Anything other than if LingQ offers customers should consider it as a blessing rather than a self-right. Still, I can import subtitles from Tv shows on Netflix and study them. There are different courses available in the library. I can create different playlists and listen to them when walking outdoors. I simply focus on learning the language rather than on using the features. All these core features remain intact and in terms of acquiring a language through reading or L-R approach, nothing has been lost.
Used LingQ 4.0 over a year. In fact, adding Dark mode is forcing me to read more as it is less straining on my eyes. My honest opinion.
Personally, I think it would be better if they went back to their roots and ditched the whole SRS idea. They don’t really support it ideologically and I get the feeling there’s a lot of frustration around that aspect of the website precisely because of that.
Key idea is to read a lot and make a lot of Lingqs; I think 5.0 has greatly improved upon that idea, but maybe not on other things.
I trust you, mate, I watch TV shows, interviews for 3 hours, conversational practice and so on. As for reading and looking up, only 4.0 was better than alternatives that we have now. For English and German for sure. To look up a word or phrase we have context-reverso and DeepL applications that show you defenition and use cases when you press Ctrl+c+c. To comfortably read anything in any color theme, I use Calibre reader. With a setup of Auto Hot Key you’re able to 1) highlight the word or phrase on calibre, 2) Save this highlighted piece to ANKI deck and even 3) stop an audio book on youtube or standalone player, while highlighting and saving and resume after that, so your flow wouldn’t break. And 4) Open Any dictionary in the window pop-up. And all of that by pressing just one key or mousebutton.
For reading on smartphone there are also alternatives that work faster and have Dark mode, though other features of 4.0 as the clickable highlighted phrases and the access to users’ translations are the reasons I waited 5.0 for.
You probably just don’t understand how hard it was to make changes to LingQ V4, it was an old system and has been in use for more than 13 years, there was a lot of cluttering and adding features on top of each other - developing a new system is a huge step for a better LingQ, it may not be perfect for many, but at least it would be much easier to work with and make changes for the developers. So what are your exact problems with 5.0, if you could kindly explain? I’m interested in hearing why, because many who say that they don’t like the new version can’t really articulate what’s the problem, many say it messes up their hotkey stuff, some that dictionaries are now inconveniently placed, my personal is that new counting system is kinda broken in some ways and so on… Those issues do not seem like a very big deal, but a lot of users are ready to turn their back on lingq, which is completely fine if they want to, but also it’s hard to understand what are those inconvenient things for them and why they are inconvenient in the first place.
I don’t like your tone, neighbour. For some reason you suppose I’m a 12 year girl that doesn’t like the colors of the new toy. In this post, I asked the users to vote peacefully, not to try to convince me or others.
If I start to explain what I don’t like in 5.0, this will happen:
But If you insist, you should pay me tenge for my time, because (considering how many flaws of the UX, from design to performance I see in 5.0) it’s called audit.
My suggestion. If you’re satisfied, don’t be a team’s psychological support, just go mind your buisness. You contribute nothing this way.
@azarya
“I get the feeling there’s a lot of frustration around that aspect of the website precisely because of that.”
If a LingQ user doesn´t want to use LingQ´s SRS then he / she simply shouldn´t use it. It´s an additional option - nothing more.
In general, using an SRS (but, of course, not necessarily on LingQ) can be quite useful:
at a beginner stage as a booster for learning 1000-2000 of the most frequent words (ideally embedded in a sentence / paragraph).
at an advanced stage due to the law of diminishing reading returns
In this context, a great feature of LingQ is the option to export collocations / phrases with context information from LingQ to Anki.
This LingQ plus Anki combo has several advantages:
LingQ creates the Anki decks for me
LingQ allows me to select the important collocations / phrases I want to focus on Anki
I can remember the Anki decks better because
a) I´ve already read the text on LingQ
b) LingQ also provides context information on the Anki decks
I can use Anki´s SRS system, which is superior to LingQ´s SRS implementation.
Nowadays, I love an “ultrareading (while listening)” approach because it´s extremely effective when coupled with timeboxing (Pomodoro & Co).
However, I´ve come to the conclusion that ít´s even better when the (ultra)reading method is combined with more active strategies such as oral / written summaries and / or selective SRSing.
In short, LingQ´s SRS function is a nice feature that comes in handy when used (selectively!) with Anki.
But, por supuesto, if learners don´t want to use LingQ´s SRS function then they shouldn´t use it
@peter - I’m not making the case for or against SRS (anki or otherwise). I don’t use it anymore personally, but I can see the benefits for myself or others.
It only seems to me that in everything that has been said over the past months in the run up to go live of 5.0, but also in the many videos Steve has posted regarding language learning and the Lingq website, that they don’t really believe in it.
As a result, there are people who don’t want to make lingqs, want to keep words blue, only want some words to be blue, want no lingqs at all , or want to modify the way they use the website in some way to suit their SRS strategy. Not that I think that is wrong, I only think it’s causing frustration because Lingq itself doesn’t believe in it.
I may be wrong, but also in this thread (and @S.I. can certainly correct me here) it seems SRS is one of the drivers ? Although I certainly agree that there are many things to iron out and it’s still buggy in several areas- my impression is that if you’re only here to read and to make Lingqs (the core philosophy) this has been improved upon in this update ; whereas no to little attention was paid to anything pertaining to SRS and grievances of users relying on SRS.
(on a different note to be completely honest, I personally expected a lot more as well (taking into account that this update has taken years to push out) , but it is what it is and it’s still an improvement in that sense compared to 4.0)
I don’t care about SRS on LingQ. I care about fixing the bugs and flaws of UX, as we were promised 2 years ago.
Regarding core features of LingQ philosophy as I also follow, at least for Android and Web version 5.0 it’s the worsening. I’d had iPhone 5c with the screen 2x smaller than I have on android phone now, but the interface somehow was more clear, useable, as though it was 2x bigger than android. And most of all I question this attitude when the team take us for dumbs who don’t understand what we’re talking about. They making us think it’s a dialog when it’s not.
Access to dictionaries, performance of the popups, the proverbial extra-clicks are the things that mechanically slowing down your progress.
I didn’t want to bring those up in this post.
The whole forum is stuffed with constant bugs, complains, suggestions, I even can’t come up (sure I can) with something that wasn’t repeated by other people infinite amount of times since the old discussion, when we were explained why the bugs of 4.0 wasn’t getting fixed because of the development of 5.0
They’ve removed 0.9x speed. Someone on the Forum asked to get it back, Zoran promised that it’ll be implemented. WHAT? Nice done, it justifies how many? a few weeks of serious implementation of the feature that already was present.
We even haven’t a place to discuss consistently, because the forum is either down, or can’t load threads in the comprehensible way. Guys, in the 2010 were PhpBB forums, and you know what? They’re still working better than LingQ Forum.
“that they don’t really believe in it.”
Yes, I agree.
But the problem is that “the reading (while listening) method” in itself has also its drawbacks because the degree of engagement is lower than reading (while listening) plus some more active strategies. Selective SRSing based on “active” recall is one of those strategies.
Therefore, I´m quite thankful that LingQ offers the SRS option - even if they may not believe in it. It´s enough that clients like me know that “selective SRSing” can be quite beneficial when used wisely.
Or, to paraphrase an old proverb: "The angler doesn´t have to like what the (client) fish pleases
Reg. LingQ version 5.0:
I understand the frustration of S.I. and other LingQ users. But I’ve come to the conclusion that the main advantage of version 5.0 is its higher adaptability - in the future. And that’s a good thing, because working with legacy systems can be a real nightmare for software developers.
Personally, however, I´ve decided not to try LingQ v5.0 for the next few weeks until the dust settles a bit. Therefore, I´ve switched to ReadLang and LWT.
Moreover, I’ve always wanted to test both audio readers in depth.
“that if you’re only here to read and to make Lingqs (the core philosophy)”
That has been my (Unix inspired) tool philosophy for many years (“Make each program do one thing well” https://homepage.cs.uri.edu/~thenry/resources/unix_art/ch01s06.html)
This means in this context: Just give me an elegant content flexible audio reader software that supports reading all the texts in my target language that I want to read - that´s all! However, I don´t need LingQs, streaks, avatars, content shared by others, writing forums, etc.
In my opinion, LingQ´s problem (beyond the SRS option) is that LingQ tries to be a complete language learning platform. That is:
The logical consequences of this “business decision” (!) of creating a software version of the German “eierlegenden Wollmilchsau” (The Egg-laying Wool-Milk Pig | Hackaday) for language learning were in v4
But if this basic business decision remains intact, it´s only a matter of time until LingQ version 5.0 suffers from similar defects - despite it´s higher degree of adaptability.
It´s up to Mark and his team to change that
@S.I.
I feel your pain. But it´s no use to get too upset about the current situation.
Personally, I´ve decided to take a break from LingQ for a few weeks.
And the good thing about this experience is: I’m still having fun learning languages without LingQ while being in a good mood.
This wouldn´t be the case if I had to use LingQ version 5.0 right now
We can take this offline Peter, but I have
been using LWT with some minority languages that I expect LingQ to never have natively (Frysk and Plattdüütsch – very slowly reading Rêdbâd: Kening fan ’e Friezen and Alice ehr Eventüürn in’t Wunnerland).
I prefer reading on my tablet or mobile device to a PC. I can of course access LWT via the browser and the local IP, but have you tried exposing LWT beyond your local network? I keep wondering how bad of an idea it would be… I would like to be able to take LWT with me when say walking in a park (and without remotely connecting into my home network).
If you’re really not happy with the service, you’re welcome to just cancel your membership. There’s no need to tell anyone else, there’s no need to create a drama and there’s no need to spread fear, uncertainty or doubt among other users. I see so many of these posts which Zoran has responded to, but I think that once resolved, the negative posts should be removed.
You’re not smart, are you? If you’re not happy with the thread, you’re welcome to just stay away, I didn’t tell you anything before you came in and started telling me what to do.
It’s called dictatorship. You’re welcome to Russia, by the way. Here you can keep your mouth shut as you like. It still won’t protect you from jail 
Hi, Toby!
*** LWT ***
I have only had a passing glance at LWT so far.
Maybe we can share our experiences regarding LWT (outside of the LingQ forum) when I´ve found out what is possible with LWT and what is not.
For now, though, I’m still focusing on ReadLang in combination with YT / Audible.
*** Minority lanuages not supported by LingQ ***
Why don´t you just use your unused language “slots” (e.g. for Arabic, etc.) on LingQ with the minority languages you´re interested in?
If I remember correctly, Zoran suggested a few weeks ago that we could do that.
“I would like to be able to take LWT with me when say walking in a park”
Interesting.
I love both reading and walking / running, but I don´t like reading longer texts while walking.
Doing SRS or just listening to stuff while walking seems more “natural” to me.
It´s probably a question of habit…
Nah dude, I literally just asked what is the problem, which you kindly couldn’t provide us with, everything else you fancied up in your mind, my tone is neutral. There are enough people that can only complain and when they are asked about what the actual issue is, they quickly shatter. I do not think about you in any way, you litterally didn’t explain anything and as far as your comment goes, you can only use angry words, devoid of any reasonable thought, which is what I wanted, without getting personal and presumptuous as you do. You take your time to write this, you make posts and comment, but all you have is “angry words” where is civil explanation? And yeah, I’m not gonna pay you tenge for your time, you probably don’t even know how to pronounce it, so what use is it for you? You definitely have it, don’t you? If you waste it for anything, but constructive thoughts. Again, I am neutral in this regard, I am not supporting any “team”, I am asking, kindly, what’s the whole deal with hating the new version, angry blabbering is not what any of us want. Please, stop being protective over something that you don’t have. If you want peaceful discussion or even just voting and nothing more, then why engaging (in a sense that you don’t explain your point of view and only critic others) with people who simply have other opinions. And I’m not your neighbor btw.
Well, are you surpised? The poll alone is a masterpiece of how not to conduct polls. First, the question is a manipulative leading question. But it gets worse: you can actually vote as many times as you like. Face palm…!
So, that’s how up to 15 ‘yes’ answers converge in the same time? It was you? Why are you ‘kind people’ that way all the time?
My bad, the poll isn’t protected from such people, I didn’t know it before you pointed out.
Still don’t get it, if you’re satisfied, why you just don’t read and listen in your TL, but attack those who see the problems. Just ignore and go further. I suppose you have a lot of time and can’t find another way to spend it instead of constant hysterical liking, arguing and so on.
Or you’re so sensitive, when you see the word ‘bad’ you instantly feel bad?