Hello everybody! I’m Cheese, I’ve just enrolled this web site! This is marvelous! Tell me your original method to improve your target language and what language are you studying=)?
Dutch is my main language here at the moment.
Here’s my process of using LingQ:
- Take a lesson (mostly a chapter of a book) and import it into the site. (text + audio)
- Mark all known words, ignore names of people and various things like that and add all the lingqs. (listen to earlier chapters or something else in he background (could be a tv show))
I’ll do several chapters in this fashion and I’m usually a bit ahead of what I’m actually reading for the day. - Read and listen to the chapter, moving words to higher status (rarely lower). I also hover over words as I’m doing this. Not every word, but those which I’m least sure of. I find that those which I’m fairly close to getting usually don’t need reminding of at this stage.
I don’t use the vocabulary section, no emails with words or anything else. This is all I do at LingQ. For me, it’s a rather interesting and effective way of working on my languages.
Also, the same is done for any other language, regardless of level, except that I’ll work with shorter, easier texts until I’m ready to move up to books.
I’m currently studying Japanese and my process is similar to lmyirtseshem’s, although I generally don’t have audio to go with the text, and I study in smaller blocks. My process is:
- Find a document that I would like to read (this is probably the hardest step)
- Import into LingQ, if the document is over about 1,500 words, I will split it up first (I dislike leaving a lesson unfinished, so I make sure it’s a manageable chunk for one go)
- Read through and LingQ as I go (I find it much easier to notice phrases if I do it this way than by using QuickLingQ), change statuses as I go. Due to the language I’m studying, I also LingQ names, as I want to make a note of how to pronounce them, but otherwise I would ignore these.
- If a document is particulary interesting, I’ll re-read it, but in honesty, I read most of them only once
One thing that I do which I feel helps a lot, is that I LingQ words completely even if I felt I knew them. There were instances where a word was obvious to me in one document, but not in another because of the context, and I had already marked it as known. LingQing them all takes a bit longer, but I feel it helps me retain the word, and helps avoid complication later on.
I keep a track of the audio that I listen to in LingQ, but I generally do this outside of LingQ itself. This is almost always watching television programmes in the language.
Also, because of my language of choice, I spend some time reviewing and learning new kanji, but that’s all outside of LingQ and I don’t track this time here.
Ah, I forgot to say: Italian is my target language, but I’d like to learn english and other languages:).
At present I limited to use material on the Library of LingQ and listen, read and transcrib them (when I review exercises I try also close tests).
Thank you Imyirtseshem and Lyise for the response and teach me new style of study. I read enjoying your posts:). So both of them don’t use contents that we can find on library, but import your personal text/book + (or without) audio in LingQ! Wooow, it’s amazing method!
That’s right, I rarely take any material from the library.
I have to say, the import bookmarklet is one of my favourite things about LingQ. I like the library on LingQ, but I personally find it a little sterile, or at least the lessons which I have used. The sterile lessons are great for getting the absolute basics down, but I like diving into more “natural” content as soon as possible (even if it’s very hard and confusing to begin with).
I use things like Assimil and other more lively beginner content at the beginning, so I avoid the “sterile” feeling. I very much agree that that’s what it can be like. Surely there are some good things in there. Finding them…that’s another thing. A ‘view collections’ list is something we’re really lacking. 
There are definitely good lessons there (I’ve gone through a few collections of these), but as you say, finding them is another thing. A way to view collections instead of individual lessons would be the ideal solution for me.
Cheese, welcome to LingQ!
When I start a language I rely on the beginner lessons in our library. I will listen and read each lesson many times, and work on the vocabulary at the vocabulary page. I like using the Multiple Choice option at the Vocab page because it is easy. I also use the Flash Cards a lot. I tend to go to the Vocab page and I am less conscientious about doing the emails of the day. I find the Vocab page more convenient since I can control what to review, in what order, phrases only etc.
When I start out in a language I save mostly just words and do not use the Tag function. As I progress I start to save more phrases and to use the Tag function for certain grammatical patterns that are giving me trouble. That way I can review them in groups. I find that if I can review words and phrases in groups, whether by Tags, or in alphabetical order, this helps me to see the connections between words, and helps me to notice things when I listen and read.
I have only so much time for my learning so it is always difficult to decide whether to listen and read more, or to work on the Vocabulary. I think we have to strike a balance.
As I progress more and more in the language I tend to rely more on Imported content, or I look for audio books in our library.
When I am further along I like to review phrases, and set my Flash Cards to English on the front, which forces me to translate the phrase into the target language. This way I can choose things that I want to be able to say (phrases that I may understand but cannot use) and practice saying them while reviewing my Flash Cards. The Dictation feature is also something that I use when I am a little further along in the language.
I use the Import bookmarklet mostly for newspaper articles where there is no audio. If I Import radio interviews or other content with audio files, I will set them up as an Import Collection and import them the long way.
Sometimes I like to use QuickLingQ and then read the lesson and listen on my iPad. At other times I will mine the text for useful phrases.
There are many different was to use LingQ. The problem is finding the time. I guess what I do more than anything else is just listen, since it is easier to find the time to do this.
Woahhh, thank you so much for exhaustive and detailed guidance! I posted this because I doubted about my method for study… that I wondered which would be better: ‘attentive reading memorizing each word’ or ‘extensive reading (many and many books) without consulting vocabolary’ with LingQ, but thank you all now it seems to be more clear what I’ll do:).
Sorry, I don’ t know why but I posted twice the same reply…Isn’t there the delete key in this interface???
I use LingQ basically to learn words. That’s what all the listening, reading and flashcarding boil down to. This implies tolerance for only a very low level of synthesis (knowledge of how the words work together) for a rather long time, especially for beginners.
I tend to view all my activity at LingQ as a form of flashcarding… even reading and listening. It is only with that mindset that I could tolerate reading and listening to things and really only having a very sketchy idea of what is going on in the text. To be precise, reading and listening is like flashcarding where your only confirmation of right and wrong is your feeling that you have “got it” or not. (Of course now with reading and mousing over the words at LingQ. reading has really become a form of flashcarding.)
With really new languages which have unfamiliar sound=symbol systems (for me, Arabic and Chinese) , I like short dialogs but always at normal speed. 10 to 20 seconds. I tend to loop the audio as I flashcard from the lesson and only move the flashcard up if I can recognize the word in the audio.
With languages I am quite familiar with, I will loop all audio and listen over and over until a) I am bored or b) until I think I cannot pick out any more words or phrases, regardless whether I have an overall synthetic understanding.
One rule I have for myself (because it does not come naturally to me) is do not rack your brain. Synthesis will come naturally. Words will jump into your mind or not. Do not believe that racking your brain will be more worth the effort than just moving on. This may be true for other subjects but not language learning.
- dooo
Steve, your comment about finding a balance between reading/listening and vocabulary work is interesting. I would have thought that you would listen while doing vocabulary. Perhaps you mean ‘vocabulary + listening’ vs ‘reading + listening’.
Personally I don’t have to worry about the balance because all of my vocabulary learning is directly while listening and reading.
@steve - When you were talking about the Tag function in your post I was wondering what on earth you were talking about. So I went into one of my lessons, opened one of the LingQs and sure enough I found the Tag function. I never noticed it before. In what ways do you group words and phrases? Would you mind giving an example? I’m having a hard time picturing how I could use that for my Japanese studies. Thanks!
Similar to other methods here, I import chapters of books I’m reading along with the audio. I then go through the chapter, marking words or phrases that I don’t understand.
I also import news articles etc, although most of these don’t have audio, and I haven’t been able to find any sites that offer this in Polish. I spend a lot of time outside of LingQ listening to the news or watching TV shows in my languages.
If I notice a word coming up a lot (i.e.Showing in yellow), I will make an effort to learn it, i.e. I will try and construct my own sentences with it, and add it into Anki (I was using this before the language became available at LingQ, and I have quite a large deck).
I too find many of the lessons in the library sterile and boring, especially the beginning content, but we have to start somewhere. I tend to avoid the beginning levels, even if I’m a beginner. I prefer to jump into more interesting content and pick up rules and phrases from there. If I’m not interested in what I’m listening to or reading, then I simply won’t learn it.
Thinking of doing Polish myself, so if you ever find anything like that, pass it on to me please Wiewiorka!
I just use this site to stalk Steve Kaufman and his family.
From time to time a member asks for help becoming a better listener. I read those posts in particular because I am one of those members who would like some concrete help for improving my listening skills. The number of words that I know in my target languages—French and Spanish–probably indicates my reading level, but it does not reflect my listening level. I suppose that the number of listening hours that I log is a better indicator of that.
One good helpful hint for better listening came from SkyBlueTeapot (I think). She provided a link to a YouTube teacher of Czech (unfortunately, I can’t remember what the link was, but he speaks in English). The Czech tutor suggested that instead of trying to hear individual words, we should try to hear the gaps between words. I found that tip helpful.
Now in this thread, Dooo provides another helpful hint.
He writes above on January 10:
“With really new languages which have unfamiliar sound=symbol systems (for me, Arabic and Chinese) , I like short dialogs but always at normal speed. 10 to 20 seconds. I tend to loop the audio as I flashcard from the lesson and only move the flashcard up if I can recognize the word in the audio.
“With languages I am quite familiar with, I will loop all audio and listen over and over until a) I am bored or b) until I think I cannot pick out any more words or phrases, regardless whether I have an overall synthetic understanding.”
When I listened to audio after reading what Dooo said, I began to keep an eye on my MyLinkQs in the panel to the right of the screen. When I listen to the audio, I try especially to hear the words in that list. To my pleasant surprise, I discovered not only that I could better pick our the words on the list, but also that I could better identify other words in the audio. (I repeat, my reading comprehension far exceeds my listening comprehension in both my target languages.)
Like Dooo, I prefer listening to audio read at normal conversational speeds.
Some caveats:
- I do read the selection first in order to create LinkQs as necessary.
- I want all the words on the MyLinkQ list to be visible, so either the selection must be short or the number of known words must be high.
- I have no idea if this method can help raw beginners.
- I’ve been following this method for only about a week, so I have no idea how useful it will prove to be to me in the long run.
Hope this helps somebody.