I suspect LingQ the company is … offering an ambitious niche product that’s hard to make profitable enough to address major issues.
Yes, LingQ is indeed very ambitious. They support Windows, Android, iOS, and a web browser interface , and a huge number of languages. And it’s inherently not easy to get to grips with, and that’s not a criticism.
Applications such as Duolingo, Babbel, Busuu are much simpler to create and use, and must make a good profit.
But as someone else said earlier, LingQ needs to focus on fixing existing serious bugs, not adding new features.
I completely agree. I think that’s the part where they’re stuck in the “enthusiasts’ hobby project” that I was talking about: they’re not professional enough to focus where focus is needed. (Sorry guys, I do love you nonetheless )
Please stop saying this. Some here are or were professional software engineers. Even experienced users know there are always bugs.
Speaking as a retired professional, no company I ever worked for would have allowed the rampant bugs in the basic mouse-keyboard-event-handling in Sentence View to pass QA and into the hands of users.
For example, tell me about any commercial software product you have ever used where the keyboard shortcuts were not reliable.
However, alternatives are on the horizon. For instance, Lute (Learning Using Texts):
If you’re going to do it yourself, I recommend LWT. I had it up and running and used it for a while, but quite frankly, despite or maybe because I was in software development for so many years, I did not want to host my own tool. And this is just the reader – it’s not a material repository, it’s not going to host and manage playlists for me, etc. – and I’m not going to pay for online hosting and secure access!
Lingq isn’t perfect, I’ll grant you. It seems the web dev team has some code management issues. The iOS app is more solid. However, as long as Lingq returns as much value as it does, I’m OK with the bumps in the road. Here’s what Lingq offers that any other competitor would also have to offer me:
(1) Cross platform online application (and offline in iOS) – Mac, Windows, Android
(2) Single database serving all my access to it tracking my learning
(3) Playlists available to use wherever I am on whatever platform I happen to have at the time
(4) Virtually unlimited languages supported
(5) Amazing amount of built-in material for study
(6) Creating my own lessons from a virtual unlimited amount of external sources
(7) Audio transcription at no additional charge - I’d go broke paying for this myself
I’m not going to do that myself! It works 98% of the time. Any alternative would have to match what Lingq offers.
I’m a former software developer and current software product strategist.
My overall point of view is this. LingQ used to have a technical problem. They now have a business problem.
As I see it right now, the next generation of an input-based language self-study platform will likely a) take the lessons learned from LingQ and others, b) remove the lower-value features, c) have higher software quality, d) better press into dopamine hits such as TikTok and Youtube Shorts now embody, e) create or heighten the revenue opportunity of language acquisition content creators, and d) powerfully leverage generative AI in various ways.
LingQ has the right of first refusal for what’s next. I’m a huge fan of LingQ for both what is now is and what it could be.
I had a career as a professional software engineer. But my experience wasn’t in programs running on Windows and using “keyboard shortcuts”. So I can’t disagree with comments about QA for that type of bug.
As an end-user, I’ve been using DOS/Windows programs since the 1980s. I am used to finding input problems (keys or keyboard shorcuts that don’t do what is expected) in countless programs and having to work around them or avoid them. This year I am sure I have encountered problems in EXCEL, in licensed Forum software, in LingQ, in DuoLingo, in Busuu and elsewhere.
Life is too short to be upset because something isn’t perfect. Expecting perfection leads to disappointment. Demanding it (see title of this thread) is silly.
I basically agree. I am still on LingQ and using it as my primary app for language learning. With a little help from ChatGPT 4.
Thank goodness for LingQ. It does scratch my itch for language learning.
However, I don’t see why we can’t have better code, better UI and fewer bugs. It doesn’t seem too much to ask, as I keep harping on, that the keyboard shortcuts and mouse handling in Sentence View work as well as in other apps.
Fixing those shouldn’t be a big deal, except I suspect that the codebase is so screwed that a major rewrite is required and LingQ doesn’t want to bite that bullet.
Software moves on. Someone will do a better job. Unless LingQ does so, my bet is LingQ is dead in five years, probably three, maybe less.
LingQ is an API with a front end that you can choose to engage with. Lots of software devs in here but nobody has pointed out that the front end is just what they have made, not what is possible and not exclusively what is available.
As vern pointed out, LingQ provides Services Translations, Storage, Transcribe, Word Data, Stats. Nobody is forcing an experienced dev to use the LingQ reader. Could create your own GUI or check out the Rooster Tools you might have a good time.
I think we all have different expectations from LingQ. I want that I can use the API and develop my own techniques and features to enhance language learning. You might expect that the front end features just work, and to a good standard which is not an outrageous thing to say or complain about when they don’t.
My biggest issue is the time loss from using LingQ reader. Mainly because of the clicking, interactivity, no translation in auto scroll mode and the required context swap from the video website. I’ve now gotten accustomed to mouseover tooltips/keyboard shortcut/shadow mode which has sped things up quite drastically.
If you change your mind, hit me up for a free trial
Here is one bug. I use LingQ to watch YouTube videos while reading the transcript. This trains my brain to recognise words. Very often the current line has scrolled up off of the screen. Thus it is unusable. Please don’t tell me I expect perfection and I am the one at fault. This is basic functionality that does not work.
Recently for about a week the app crashed while in use, and would not reopen. It crashed every time I tried to open it. That is a show stopper. Expecting the app to, you know, like run, is that expecting perfection?
I loathe Duolingo, and I like Babbel, but LingQ is far superior to both. It is by design a much better way to learn. Neither Duolingo nor Babbel nor Busuu ever had bugs of this magnitude, in fact I don’t think I ever found any software bugs.
LingQ is far superior to other apps I have used, the interface looks polished, but it has show stopper bugs. So my attitude is yes, it’s great, fantastic idea, but I’m looking for an alternative YouTube importer and player.
I do wonder if the management are panicking, and trying to shoehorn in as many features to ensure their survival, given that competitors with similar basic functionality are popping up.
Thanks for this and the other details you provided. I agree that this is a “showstopper” for you. That is why I use Language Reactor for studying Chinese from Chinese TV dramas. But of course LR has its own problems and limitations. If and when LingQ solves the killer import problems, I will probably switch to using LingQ.
My only disagreement is that this is “basic functionality”, or that LingQ can fix it easily. Instead, I think LingQ is trying to do something too ambitious. Here is my thinking:
This is a problem with LingQ code working with other products (YouTube videos) that LingQ can’t control or change, not a problem with things that LingQ controls. How many different formats are these YouTube videos in? How many of them does LingQ have this problem with? And what about the AI translation feature? Is that LingQ code, or was it bought from some other company? If it’s another company, LingQ is trying to integrate software products from at least 3 different companies, each with their own code base and ongoing changes. It is not surprising to me that there are problems.
Before I retired, I was involved in at least 3 projects involving integrating software from 2 or 3 companies. In every case, the programmers at the different companies had to spend time working together in order to make it work properly. Imagine me (who spoke no Japanese) spending 3 weeks in Japan working with programmers who spoke no English. But we all knew C, so we found and fixed the problems.
I realize this is different software, but I suspect the same is true here: LingQ might need help from the other companies to fix these interface problems. But that is just my uninformed opinion, so it might be totally wrong.
My only diagreement is that this is basic “functionality”
We might have a misunderstanding here due to my choice of words. When I say basic, I mean key, fundamental or critical.
However, I think it is straightforward to fix. All they have to do is place what they think is the current text in the transcript in the middle of the screen, rather than near the top. It would require a little work to work out the screen size, and number of lines visible, but I doubt it is that hard.
Unfortunately they’re probably focusing on adding more languages, and obscure bugs associated with existing languages such as Korean. Just having a language on the sales blurb might be seen as more important than having the thing work. After all, most language learners give up after a few months. That’s must a guess of course, we don’t know what is really going on.
How can it be key/critical if it wasn’t even functionality that was here a year ago (follow the lines in the video). (Correct me if I’m wrong). So I tend to agree with gaoli. LingQ is trying to throw in a lot of cool things and some of it’s not going to work. On the one hand, it’s really cool for the scenarios that it does work for, but confusing or frustrating in those cases it doesn’t.
Critical/Key functionality in Lingq is as an assisted reader. That’s the critical function. That’s what it’s known for and will always be the most important aspect.
Best bet is for those things that don’t work. Email AND post in the support forum. Don’t just say X doesn’t work. Give the exact scenario. Name the browser, is it app or browser, what OS, give a link to the video you imported, give the language you are working in. As much information as possible so they can recreate the issue.
Not saying its you, because I don’t keep track of these things, but 99% of the posts regarding support only say that X functionality doesn’t work. Not very helpful in terms of solving the issue unless it’s a widespread issue.
One of the things that I’ve seen griping about for a long time is no visibility of what updates or patches are being worked. I know @mark created a system once that would have allowed (at minimum) visibility of what was in the pipeline, but to my knowledge that never went anywhere unfortunately
You’re playing with words and excusing poor execution of a product.
The YouTube import feature is how I use LingQ. The bug means that that feature does not work, hence it is critical to that feature. And the line by line usage of YouTube imports doesn’t work either because the text gets out of sync.
When I buy a product, I don’t expect the company to turn round and say “You can’t complain that feature X does not work because we only added it a year ago.” I don’t care when a feature was added. If I had turned round to customers, when I was creating software, and given that excuse, the management would have taken me aside and informed me that that is not how we deal with customers.
If LingQ wants specific details of the bug, they can ask.
I’m not sure what you mean by an assisted reader. I don’t see any explanation on the LingQ adverts saying “This is really an assisted reader, don’t expect other features to work”.
Incidentally when I did the German short stories, I found them full of errors, which I reported. To be fair LingQ were very responsive and fixed many if not all quickly, so top marks there. But it strikes me as odd as the short stories must be quite old. Maybe almost no-one reports language errors.
What annoys me is that in general I really like LingQ, it has helped me immensely with French and German. The general idea and design are really good. But it has really annoying bugs many of which are as far as I can see straighforward to fix. Hence I agree with the title of this thread, we are not beta testers.
I believe the team look at it now and again, but most users do not even know it exists as there is no link to it anywhere on the webpage. Communication is not the team’s forte unfortunately. I was hoping when they revamped the forum that they would introduce a section dedicated to feature requests, but this has not happened.
Again. Not saying that your criticism is out of line or that you can’t complain. What I am saying is that you are more likely to get help with the issue if you give as much information as possible. Unless what you are experiencing is a phenomenon across the board, then it can be difficult to diagnose. Also, if you’re one of few who have noted an issue AND you are lacking in information about the issue, there’s a good chance it could be dismissed. Not ideal, but if there’s lots of things to work on then the ones that have more users experiencing the issue, or that have more info to go off of are going to get taken care of first.
I import new content every single day and have done so for 7 years including youtube imports. I don’t have any of the problems you are describing. I even tried the line by line video option on something I had imported recently and didn’t have a problem (potentially I have to use it more to see some of the issues you’re seeing). So the question comes down to what is different about our two situations. (BTW, we are both studying German). Is it browser? Is it app? Is it device? Is it the specific content getting imported? This isn’t to say I haven’t had issues in the past either…but I give them as much as I can to help solve the issue and usually it does get resolved, sometimes admittedly not for a few weeks.
My reference to LingQ as an assisted reader goes back through the years. It’s been first and foremost a way to READ and be able to look up words easily and quickly. Importing youtube or netflix came later. Whisper transcriptions came later. Line by line reading came later. The last two only very recently in the life of LingQ.
BTW, I would love to see more visibility to the issues and what may or may not be working on. Even a “we aren’t able to recreate the issue” would be great…and a request for more information.
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