Been on Lingq about 3 months or so and ive almost done all the mini stories on the website, the mini stories contain the most common words and verbs however i have no idea what to do after that, learning these mini stories took time and a lot of repetitive listening. it will be too time consuming to do that to other content. So what do i do ? just read through other stuff and not memorise like ive done before.
Many Thanks.
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I wouldn’t recommend trying to truly memorize anything. Just keep referring to certain things when you want to understand something better in the moment. Also, remember that the grammar explanations are doing the best job that they can to describe the function of the language, but they aren’t perfect either. Unless you’re studying a language that was constructed and then used, this will always be the case.
For what to do next, I’d recommend trying to find some conversations with accompanying transcripts of a content of interest in your target language. There are usually many online resources on youtube and other places that even start with more simple conversations. If you’re less concerned with getting to a basic conversational level for the time being, you could also start using some short stories, history, or non-fiction things in your target language. These will probably have fewer of the common spoken words, but it will allow you to start building up your vocabulary so that you can talk about more things you enjoy.
Goodluck! 
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Hi, kaiser111!
You have quite a few options for learning “Russian” (according to your profile):
- Did you check out the LingQ “library” for more content (levels: beginner 1/ 2)?
- Youtube is your friend, esp. beginner stuff in Russian with subtitles
- Graded readers for beginners (some like them, some don’t):
graded readers in Russian at DuckDuckGo - Assimil Mini Dialogs (Amazon.com : Assimil russian)
- Look for free resources, esp. audio with transcripts, on the W3:
learning russian short dialogs for beginners at DuckDuckGo - Are there podcasts in Russian for beginners?
- To give your vocab learning process a boost you can use free, ready-made Memrise decks, too.
Memrise - Russian - Courses for English (UK) speakers
We just had a discussion in the LingQ Premium forum about how a “spaced repetition system” (SRS) can be used in combination with an audio reader à la LingQ. See:
https://www.lingq.com/es/community/forum/premium-access-forum/how-do-you-review-new-vocabula
Good luck
Peter
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A quick Google search revealed that there are quite a few podcasts
for learning Russian: The 19 Best Podcasts For Learning Russian (Updated For 2021)
It’s a good idea to look for short dialogs with transcripts in Russian first,
which you can import into LingQ.
Have a nice weekend
Peter
I’d say to just use the filters and set them to Beginner 1 and 2 material. There are plenty of lessons to read here on LingQ. Once you get to Intermediate 1/2 then maybe upload some easy books and read those.
PS, reading interviews is a great way to pick up relevant words that surround daily conversation. Avoid children’s fairytale type books.
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You can use more than 2000 my Russian lessons and articles from the level A-1 to C-1 in the Russian library in Lingq. After you went through the most interesting lessons and articles here in Lingq, you can use a lot of materials in the Internet - YouTube, radio Эхо Москвы, a lot of Russian films.
For example, here you can find the stories of my students for the level Low Intermediate:
ВЕСНА В ПРАГЕ:
ЖИЗНЬ ПРОДОЛЖАЕТСЯ:
МАЙ В КАНАДЕ:
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Hi, Evgueny!
Excellent - thank you very much!
I’ll even make a note for myself to remember to use your resources when I learn Russian in the not too distant future 
Have a nice weekend
Peter
thank you very helpful so is all the a1 -a2 beginner 1 and beginner 2 ? etc thanks
Roughly speaking. It should be easy enough to get through without too much difficulty.
ah i see and you just read and listen right dont force memorise because the words will come up later is this the right approach??
Yeah. I don’t ever look at the flashcards. Just keep reading and you’ll start retaining words naturally. It may be worth some effort familiarizing yourself with the grammar outside of lingq though. I have some links in my profile for russian grammar lessons.
“Right / Wrong” isn’t a good distinction in this context. It’s rather a question of the “degree” of efficiency. (see our current discussion in the LingQ forum:
https://www.lingq.com/es/community/forum/premium-access-forum/how-do-you-review-new-vocabula).
The main points are:
-
Getting enough “exposure” to your target language is “king”.
If you don’t get enough “exposure”, SRS, grammar, etc. won’t help you much. -
SRS are just “supplemental” tools to make the transition from a beginner (A1/A2) to an intermediate level (B1/2) more efficient. They are a kind of boosters, esp. when “collocations”, i.e., formulaic word groups, are learned. (for details, see the LingQ discussion mentioned above) .
But:
a) It depends on your time budget. If you don’t have a lot of time, then just focus on exposure, esp. by means of AudioReaders à la LingQ.
b) Do you have strong negative emotions reg. SRS? Then ditch them, too.
c) It depends of the “quality” of the (free) Memrise or Anki decks: If they are just simple “word equations” à la: “table (Engl.) = mesa (Spanish) / Tisch (German), etc.”, it’s ok to learn the most frequent 100-500 words.
But, in the long run, this will negatively affect your ability to build sentences
in your target language that native speakers would actually use (= the “collocation” problem. Again: see our LingQ discussion).
Therefore, you should avoid simple word equation SRS decks - after having learned more than 500 of the most frequent words.
I’m not learning Russian at the moment, so I have no idea what the quality of the SRS decks for Anki or Memrise is like. You have to check that yourself, especially if the “audio of whole sentences” is included in the SRS decks!
- A simple learning routine combining SRS and LingQ could be:
- Learn 5-10 expressions with Memrise a day and review what you’ve already learned (ca. 5-10 minutes a day)
- Spend the rest of your time on exposure by means of LingQ: 25-30 minutes, for example.
- Rinse and repeat
You could just experiment with such a routine. If it suits you, use it for some time. If it doesn’t suit you, focus on exposure-only.
- BTW, there are different variants of exposure. For example:
- You could adopt an interaction-based exposure strategy à la Jeff Brown:
How to acquire any language NOT learn it! - YouTube - Or you could choose a “silent period exposure strategy” à la Steve Kaufmann and Matt Bonder (“MattvsJapan”).
- Or you could opt for one of those main exposure strategies and mix in some pronuncation awareness training and what some call the “thinking method” (for example: Free Courses — Language Transfer or Michel Thomas).
I’ve found the “thinking method” at the beginner stages very helpful for learning target languages that are far away from the Indo-European languages I know (German, English and various Romance languages) because it makes language exposure strategies much more effective in a short amount of time.
- A last point:
The aspect “fun and ease” shouldn’t be your main criterion in this context
Teaching L2s and math for thousands of hours has shown me a recurrent pattern:
People who focus too much on the “fun and ease” parts of the learning process are the first ones to give up when things get tough!
So, you should expect that at the beginner levels there are times when language learning just “sucks” (you don’t seem to make much progress, you’re frustrated, there are plateaus, etc.).
In the end, it’s a test of your frustration tolerance.
Or, to put it more drastically: First, you’ve got to taste (beginner’s) hell before you can reach (intermediate / advanced learner’s) paradise
Exposure to authentic material (right from the start) doesn’t really change this fact because the stories/texts for beginners are often - at best - only mildly interesting from an intellectual point of view.
The true value of using authentic material lies in the use of “whole” sentences and their contextualization. And that’s not the case when you just use simple word equations of word lists, SRS, etc.
Good luck
Peter
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i would find a podcast in your target language or someone on youtube who is teaching your target language (preferably all in that language) and import it into lingQ. To me this is where lingQ is so awesome! there is an endless supply of material out there in your target language and lingQ is basically the decoder for you. hope you enjoy your language learning journey.
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“you’ll start retaining words naturally”
“Naturally” perhaps, but not necessarily more efficient,
esp. at the beginner stages
some effort familiarizing yourself with the grammar outside of lingq though
That’s not a good piece of advice for the beginner stages.
- Learning frequent vocabulary, esp. frequent collocations, can make the transition from a beginner to an intermediate level more efficient. In other words, incidental and deliberate learning is a bit more efficient than incidental learning by listening/reading-only when it comes to vocabulary.
- However, this doesn’t apply to the early and explicit learning of grammar, as L2 learners can hardly use this explicit knowledge in the automatic processing of their target language. Therefore, grammar is - at best - useful when an L2 learner is familiar with his or her target language.