How well does LingQ work for Germanic languages?

I’m thinking of using it for German but I’m a bit concerned about how German splits up the verbs so part of it is at the beginning of a sentence (2nd position) and then part of it goes at the end… Does this create a huge headache for LingQ? I don’t think LingQ lets you select multiple words that aren’t next to each other (although they did a big revamp recently so maybe?)

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Norwegian is a V2 language as well, but I’ve not encountered any difficulties in LingQ with that.
It is not possible to link two words that are not adjacent as a LingQ, but I rarely see that as a limitation. You’re probably talking about compound verbs e.g. verbs used with so-called auxiliary verbs. If they aren’t next to one another, there’s no way to mark them together. Again, I haven’t found it to be a serious problem. I’m approaching 1-million words read in Norwegian so even if it bothered me a little in the beginning, I seem to have adjusted :slight_smile:

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You can easily use it for all the rest but separable verbs, when the particle goes at the end of the sentence, are not managed by LingQ. There is a limitation of highlighting 9 words and usually it is not enough for German.

See this discussion: Why the lingq is limited to 9 words?

In any case, you might find the same verb in many other combinations with the particle attached where you can lingq it as with the other words.

I don’t do it but if I wanted to be more accurate, I would probably use ANKI in combination with LingQ to copy/paste those longer sentences and save them there, or with another method that you prefer.

However, it is also true that if I really wanted to learn some particular separable verbs, I would probably ask ChatGPT to write 20 examples with the combination I want to and improve from there. Maybe save some of those examples as notes in LingQ.

You can easily find workarounds.

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Totally not an issue imo. You’ll probably feel a little uncomfortable for a bit, but in most cases, LingQ now autotags the various prefixed versions of the verbe. i.e. if you LingQ the word “gehen” (to go), then you’ll likely see tags for “ausgehen” , “angehen”, etc. If you click these it’ll take you to Reverso Verb Conjugation dictionary automatically, so you can see the meaning for that specific combo (as well as the conjugations).

Also, in many cases, others may have already included the various prefixes and meanings within the definitions that you can refer to and choose as your own (or make one yourself). i.e. you might find a Lingq meaning: gehen - to go; (aus)gehen - to go out , etc. So there’s definitely ways to handle it. You can also, if short enough, include a whole phrase with the separable prefix, but imo, this is mostly just a waste of time as this exactly combo of words will likely never turn up again, unless you are doing reviews in the vocabulary section.

David has a good suggestion with ChatGPT. I actually started doing some requests the past few months. Getting the various prefixes and meanings for the most popular verbs that also have prefixes. For example…Give me the various prefixed versions of gehen, give me the meaning and include an example sentence that clearly shows the meaning.

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It works very well.

I debated stopping there :slight_smile:. If your concern is simply around separable prefix verbs that’s something you can solve on your own pretty well. If you see a sentence end in a preposition, then it’s the separable prefix, and you can add a new LingQ to the verb and include its prefix.

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Something else I forgot to add that is immensely helpful imo is to work in sentence mode. Check the sentence translation (in general) before LingQ’ing any word. You’ll see and notice how the separable prefix works on the verb and sentence as a whole. You’ll also see how certain words work together to change their meaning.