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35

I can only tell you my experience, which is as I said that having completed a Babbel German course, I found the German short stories too complex. For me simpler phrases, with lots more vocabulary, are preferable. Dutch like German shares not so many words with English, unlike French, and it has weird word order.

A frequent problem I have had with LingQ is that in German, the supposed level of the content does not match the level (long complex sentences for A2) and secondly much better content can be found elsewhere by importing. Thus I now import my level A2 content. I also import B2/C1 French.

I think part of the problem is that many of the creators of content aren’t language teachers, and don’t realise what is hard, and what is easy.

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36

I mean adjudicating the difficulty of content with the way LingQ organizes it simply doesn’t work. I think a better way would be to organize content by intended audience. With content intended for learners you can state if it’s intended at an “A1” or “B2” learner, or whatever scale makes sense for the language being learned. Then with Native Content you can show the intended age range, education level, and domain of the content.

Often times materials targeted at helping learn to read and write their L1 are simply not well suited for people learning an L2 because the content presupposes you can already speak and understand the language.

The best signal you’ll have within LingQ is the percentage of new and previously LingQ’d words. If you are doing a large portion of your learning within LingQ you should have a sense for how much newness is going to be comfortable.

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37

“I can only tell you my experience”
Sure, no problem.

“I found the German short stories too complex.”
I’m not sure if it’s really a language problem here bc. I’ve
checked those stories in many Romance and Germanic
languages on LingQ - and they’re all OK (nothing fancy,
nothing terrible, just boring).

I wonder if your experience is more related to specific expectations, a
low tolerance for ambiguity (my guess: you use “sentence
mode” for all of your beginner content), and the wrong tools / approaches at the beginning…

You seem to expect sentences like in school:

  • The man eats the banana.
  • The woman eats the apple.
  • The child eats the orange.
    etc.

Yes, that’s content, but completely anti-compelling :slight_smile:
And it’s more than enough to use Memrise + LingQ 's Mini
Stories to expand your vocabulary fast - at least in Germanic / Romance
L2s.

And if there are complex sentences in German, you can always dissect them using ChatGPT…

“Secondly much better content can be found elsewhere by importing”
Exactly. Interest-based content hunting is the way to go. This is why LingQ is so awesome for independent learners who are actively looking for interesting stuff to import!

"I think part of the problem is that many of the creators of content aren’t language teachers, "
Yes. But with the tools I mentioned (esp. genAIs), it’s quiite easy to solve this problem nowadays.

Another problem is that learners often seem to start with a passive “don’t make me think” attitude (which is also the cornerstone of Duolingo’s “success”, but deadly on LingQ). And they don’t really know what to do when obstacles/challenges arise in their language learning process…

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38

"Often times materials targeted at helping learn to read and write their L1 are simply not well suited for people learning an L2 […] "
Sure.
But I’d say generative AIs can solve this problem nowadays.
Just create more simplified versions of texts / paragraphs / sentences.

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39

I do think AI simplification or reformulating of content is viable for making more compelling content accessible to learners faster, and would readily argue this is a better path than trying to teach teenagers or adults with content aimed at 6 to 10 years old learning to read.

I have seen for many adult learners how sites like 8 sidor or “lättläst” books help them, but this type of content needs to be produced somehow. AI can make this on-demand from content the reader has already deemed compelling.

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40

You’ve ascribed to me numerous negative characteristics without any evidence. I do not have a low tolerance for ambiguity. I do not expect very simple sentences. I do not have a passive “Don’t make me think attitude”. You’ve suggested I use the wrong tools at the beginning. I find your post rather condescending and offensive.

You’ve also stated that you’ve checked romance and germanic stories, and they are all OK. It sounds like you are saying “I’ve checked this, I’m an authority, and you are wrong”. You do realise that is your opinion, not fact? Are you a native English speaker? I suspect you are not a native English speaker, so you don’t appreciate the challenges.

My language learning experience goes back 50 years. Over just under two years I’ve got my French to a level where I can understand native content as long as it is not too ‘street’. Thus a French soap would be hard, but a current affairs debate easy. German is a new language that I started a year ago.

I’m a fan in the broad sense of Stephen Krashen’s theories, as they agree with my own experiences. Thus he states that one learns by having input that is mostly comprehensible e.g. 95%. Having a story where the learner understands almost nothing requires that the learner spends large amounts of time deconstructing the text word by word. I find that tedious and it’s not a good way to learn. That in my opinion is the problem with using the German short stories as a new beginner. I don’t agree with Krashen that the material needs to be 95% comprehensible, but the key is quantity. Huge amounts of largely comprehensible input is key. I have listened to countless hours of French input where my comprehension was low, maybe 50%. That can be useful. If the issue is the pronunciation, then listening can tune the ear to that speaker. Thus it can be useful to listen to a text while reading a transcript even when one does not understand much, in order to train the brain to recognise the (largely meaningless) words. But in general I have found it far more useful to use input with a higher level of comprehensible content.

Thus I am not saying someone needs lots of simple sentences, rather I am saying they need large amounts of material which gradually gets harder. I am pretty much putting forward Krashen’s approach, which is hardly controversial these days.

As regards apps such as Duolingo, well my view is that Duolingo is [censored]. Tools such as Babbel are okay, they have the advantage that they guide the user, but my experience is that they are not very effective for countless reasons I won’t go into here.

LingQ is very powerful but it’s very unstructured, which makes it hard to use for complete beginners to language learning. I suspect LingQ is not suitable for someone with little or no experience of language learning. That though is an opinion, it would be interesting to hear from anyone who has used it as a beginner, and if so, how they went about learning.

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41

Hei eric,

… should then click and mark as 1, 2, 3, 4, known, or ignored as you click on them to look up the meaning. Setting to 1, 2, 3, 4 will mark them as some shade of yellow. You are still learning these.

EDIT: just some added comments to your excellent overview.

Mark “k” for known and also 4 counts as known. The difference is, that with 4 you are not completely sure, but you think you managed to learn. In other words in the count for known words, 4 is counted. Also, 4 is shaded like 1, 2 and 3 and the arrow pointer lands on any 4-word too. When you are confident, you can always move to “k”. The known count though will remain the same (or should remain the same).

Also reversing from known to 4 or less, is not shame. I do that especially often where words have different meanings in differing context. And of course one could easily forget if a word only appears in certain content areas. The other areas will then often not use this word, so you forget.

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42

FWIW I agree with @LeifGoodwin. At one point, LingQ have asked me to review the German mini stories and I found them to be quite awkward and unnatural - not at all representative of the German I know. In addition they don’t seem to be particularly didactic. New words and grammar structures are introduced haphazardly. And there seems to be an emphasis on rare verb tenses like Futur and Plusquamperfekt. Personally, I find it much more natural to express the future using the present tense, e.g. “Morgen wird Tobias seine Hausaufgaben machen.” → “Morgen macht Tobias seine Hausaufgaben.”

What I would like to see in beginner content:

  • only a limited set of vocabulary is introduced, then shown in multiple different contexts with lots of repetition
  • one grammar concept is introduced at a time (i+1), e.g. introduce the present tense and stay with it
  • the language should be conversational rather than abstract or academic, the idea being that one can actually start using it in early conversations thus activate the language

Unfortunately I have found LingQ’s beginner content to be consistently frustrating in this regard. For example the “Patterns” courses tend to introduce quite advanced grammar very early on and LingQ 101 mainly tries to teach the hypothetical future which I find hardly useful as beginner. Ultimately, I believe this is mainly of problem of translation, since the translators are expected to stick as closely to English as possible. Interestingly, this is by and large not a problem in Chinese languages, possibly because those languages lack the equivalent grammar concepts entirely (e.g. verb tenses).
The courses “Who is She” and “Eating out” are much closer to what I would expect in the Beginner 1 category.

Another positive example is the content created by Evugeny40 in the Russian library. In my opinion this is basically how beginner content should work. He’s not afraid to stick to basic concepts and give them ample room, allowing for plenty of repetition. Tons of examples for basic patterns, basic grammar etc. Highly recommended, the audio quality certainly isn’t Hi-Fi though.

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43

Good points @gbonnema, I definitely have no shame or concern of dropping a 5 back down into the “yellow levels”. I would like also to add, that one can use the various levels in many different ways that may suit them. I’ve even changed how I utilize them many times. Currently I don’t use 4 at all. If I understand a word in context I mark it 5 (does not mean I could use it in my ow output, or even that I would understand in isolation). If I don’t know the word in context, I mark it 1…next time I see it (different day, or different lesson) and I still don’t know, then 2. Next time I see it and still don’t know, 3. Then it stays 3 until I finally hopefully know it somewhere down the road. If I come across a known word that I don’t know anymore in a given context, then I drop it back to 3.

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44

I totally agree @bamboozled. The wording in the mini stories is very awkward. I think it can certainly help with learning the words, but one would never really use the sentences in this same structure when outputting (nor would they see them in this way).

Evgueny40 and Vera as well have great content. Unfortunately, since Lingq 5.0 their courses have gotten buried or even obliterated altogether. I’ve expressed concerns about their courses being impossible to find now (they used to be more prominently featured in guided courses in the old version). I know LingQ is concerned about the quality of the audio on some of these, but frankly, the audio is not bad. It’s clearly spoken and the content itself is much better imo than any of the other LingQ content so i wish they’d reverse their opinion on these. I think both are actual German language teachers so it’s a shame.

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46

"putting forward Krashen’s approach, which is hardly controversial these days"
Well, a “pure comprehensible input” approach is still controversial - even in this forum (just check the discussions with Michilini).

And there are good reasons for this criticism…

Moreover, we have nowadays more advanced (scientific) tools to deconstruct the input-output / sender - model of communication, which is one of the basis of Krashen.

Nevertheless, reading / listening are still awesome activities. And every learner should rely on them - if possible.

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47

I find you downright offensive. Rather than discuss material suitable for learners, you instead engage in ad hominem attacks by attributing to me characteristics that do not apply. I’ve asked you not to continue with derogatory personal remarks, and yet you continue to do so.

48

Again you misrepresent me. Here is what I wrote:

“I am a fan in the broad sense of Krashen’s theories”

Clearly you have difficulty understanding written English.

49

It’s great you took a look at the stories, I’m sure you are much more qualified than I to judge these matters. I don’t know anything about grammar, the little bit I picked up in school is long forgotten. So, I would never go so far and say there was anything ungrammatical in there.
I did send a list o gripes to LingQ and I know they worked with a contractor at the time to improve the stories, so maybe my information is outdated.
If LingQ ever have doubts about their German content again again, I will recommend your name. (Are you on Slack btw?)

As for something being unnatural, this is of course highly subjective and comes down to my intuition and it’s surely misleading me here. There is nothing objective I can give you, it’s just what I feel. It probably comes down to me and you having different backgrounds and influences that shaped us / our intuitions.
Anyways, the next lesson on your list (36) is a great example for what I consider awkward and unnatural, while possibly correct, I’ve never heard or used such language in my life:

Summary

36 - Philipps große Familie
Unser Nachbar Philipp hatte eine große Familie gehabt, als er jung war.
Er hatte eine Ehefrau und drei Kinder gehabt.
Er hatte zwei Söhne und eine Tochter gehabt.
Er hatte auch einen Bruder und eine Schwester gehabt.
Aber Philipp hatte seit langer Zeit nicht mit seinem Bruder gesprochen.
Sie hatten zu weit voneinander entfernt gelebt, nachdem Philipp umzog.
Philipps Bruder war vorher ein Arzt gewesen.
Philipps Schwester war eine Zahnärztin gewesen.
Philipp war ein Schauspieler im Kino und im Fernsehen.
Er unterschied sich sehr von seinem Bruder und seiner Schwester.

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50

Hm, what do you think is off about it? Is it just past perfect tense that feels unnatural? I would agree with that, German doesn’t usually use it for narratives like this – but of course, the point of this particular Mini Story is to display how the past perfect is formed…

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51

As I said, it’s just a feeling. I just have a consistently negative feeling when I read these stories. I don’t have anything objective and I’m happy to defer to other native speakers, especially those who have a background in language. I’m probably the one who is off here. Just a shame that LingQ asked me to take a look and I wrote them a scathing critique…
Btw. the passage in story 46 seems to be an example of: Doppeltes Perfekt – Wikipedia and I’m sure it’s fine, it’s just not something I have ever used.

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52

I’ve given my opinion as a native English speaker, but of course I can’t speak for most English speaking beginners in German. LingQ has classifed the short stories as A2 which seems reasonable, again just in my opinion, German in many respects departs very far from English, and French:

a) The vocabulary is very different, and I initially found it very hard to learn. I don’t know if that’s a common issue. As you progress it starts to make sense, as it’s not so hard to guess the meaning of der Vorteil given vor and der Teil, or even das Unternehmen from its components.

b) It introduces a case structure, which modifies not just articles, but adjectives and even verbs. Few English speakers study Latin at school, so this is a completely new beast.

c) Word order is very different.

d) There are some very strange features such as separable verbs. Yes English has a bit of this which helps.

e) Prepositions are very confusing. French in contrast seems so simple.

I know Dutch shares many of these features, but is a bit easier. Some people far more experienced than me in language learning have suggested first getting a learners book to understand some of the basic principles e.g. introduce cases. I’ve heard it said that German is initially much harder than French, but gets easier as you progress as it is logical.

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53

I have no experience with teaching German and don’t really know what the most common pitfalls are. You didn’t explicitly ask for it, but if I had to give some recommendations for learning German, it would be something like this:

As a language, learner my favorite gateway into a language has always been Assimil, maybe check out their German course. I would say their courses are somewhere in between a highly structured grammar first approach as used in courses for university / college and immersion / no-grammar approaches like LingQ’s content. Maybe this can be a supplement to the comprehensible input content.

I’m guessing you are already familiar with this list of resources:

As for the grammar, I know there are people who claim to have mastered grammar purely by immersion and with minimal study. But I these people only seem to exist online, unfortunately I have never met someone like that IRL. So, my personal recommendation would still be to seek out a grammar book with lots of exercises. Or to make an effort to transform text and sentences you already understand into a different tense, person, plural etc. Similar to what they do in the mini stories.
Of course, as our friend Peter mentions, ChatGPT does know German, it’s not at the level of its English but makes virtually no mistakes when generating German text. Although I’m not sure if it could be used for specific questions and corrections. When I ask it if the opening “double Plusquamperfekt” sentence from story 46 is correct German, it assures me it is… That doesn’t instill confidence tbh. Imho it should at least point out that this is non-standard or a regional (I’m guessing East German) variety.

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54

English has been abandoning its mood system for centuries and we’ve been replacing it with a complicated tense system powered by auxiliary verbs!

One fun thought experiment I have had for awhile is going on Reddit and using the present participle in German as though I was speaking English. Maybe I should start with ChatGPT.

Morgen werde ich gehend zum Supermarkt, möchtest du etwas?

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55

Re; Review Options

I handwrite my new words, lingqs and interesting phrases or sentences into a slim notebook to be reviewed on an ongoing basis.

  • I enjoy the process. I feel a sense of accomplishment which I can visually look back on.
  • I believe consciously handwriting things down is its own review, perhaps more powerful.
  • Reviewing the words from an overall sequential context has its own power.
  • I don’t trust LingQ to save my data. Nor do I assume I will have access to my LingQ data forever.