I’m curious how many times you’ve listened through the full set of mini stories?
I think that I’ve heard Steve Kaufmann talk about 20x or 30x times through. Anyone else go through that many times?
Most of mine are in the 20-30 range. it was something I would throw on in the background to listen to where I didn’t have to focus too hard to understand it. The first few months they are very useful (in my opinion), and recently I find myself going back periodically.
3 Likes
I thought this was a religious post. lol. But seriously I put 5 on the playlist and just listen to it 2 to 3 times then do another 5 and do the same thing. I keep rotating them. I often do it as I drive to work as I have a 45 minute drive.
4 Likes
When I first joined LingQ there were no ministories. My equivalent was Assimil German, which I imported into LingQ. I think most of the lessons (100 of them–but most around 1-2 minutes long), I have around 5-10 readings and around 15-20 listens. I would listen to 2 or 3 different ones for my 20 minute commute (sometimes only for around 10 minutes total).
I think you have to be careful on the 20x or 30x. First of all don’t sit there on the same lesson and listen/read it 30x before moving on to the next lesson. I think you should start moving on to the next one after a few readings (if not before) and 5-10 listen throughs. MAX. And rotate like ajaz was saying. Note also, you don’t HAVE to repeat any of them. Some people don’t and simply move on to new content. You are going to see the most common words repeated many times over, so there’s not much danger in missing out if you move on to new content. Where there’s a language with a lot of content it might make more sense to do a lot more repeating. I think this was the case for some of the more recent languages he’s studied…Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, etc.
I’ve also heard Steve Kaufmann liken the ministories to “gym work”. Like getting a workout. They have the most common words and they are done from different perspectives. So I think he revisits them from time to time.
Over time, you may hit these stories over and over and hit the 20-30x mark, but I don’t think you should look at it as a goal or a requirement. I think as soon as you’ve gone over each of them AT MOST a few times, you should start looking for interesting content (let’s face it…ministories aren’t the most engaging). What that is for you you’ll have to figure out. I like looking for easy news and easy books.
3 Likes
&&^#%@ autocorrect! Some might think that the mini stories border on religious!
I walked away from LingQ for a couple of months, although I kept learning Italian in other ways, mostly reading with some listening. I realize though that I haven’t been listening enough. So I’ve amped that up and I know it must be working because I can literally feel my brain getting tired. (I’m not kidding.) Reading doesn’t have the same tiring effect as listening and in particular reading and listening at the same time really makes my brain hurt. Also, in the early mini stories, where I almost have them about memorized, I can still detect improvement with additional listenings.
1 Like