I agree A/B tests are not a kind of “panacea”.
However, you and me are not LingQ. That is, if Mark / the LingQ team are convinced that the road to subscription hell - sorry, I meant: “heaven” 
- is paved with low LingQs thresholds, so be it.
Yeah, I got nothing against you in any way. I’m more surprised and disappointed that apparently that is their primary source for testing. And correct, we’re just users we don’t really have an impact or say really - nor should we, only suggestions.
I posted these messages in hopes somebody who might be able to do something sees them and might look into it. I’ve fallen in love with LingQ and it works well for me. It’s disappointing how inactive the community is and how bad these common experiences are.
Thank you for your time and have a great day as well.
Maybe small limit is more effective for getting new subscriptions (similar to how video games without demo get more purchases), but do these subscriptions stick?
Some people may want to subscribe, just to see further what’s Lingq is about. But if they don’t like it eventually, they’ll probably just unsubscribe.
Although here’s probably where the second part of strategy, such as hiding Cancel button kicks in.
Some other suggestions (i learned chinese but hey, kinda similar)
Like peter said, LingQ is great but you need a bit of a base to start with LingQ if you are learning chinese / japanese vs a related language
Get some basic grammar down, read a bunch of graded readers (Graded readers for Japanese – where to start) while cramming kanji with an SRS tool (some people like wanikani or remembering the kanji or mnemonics with anki)
the mini stories aren’t really that great for japanese / chinese beginners since they throw a bunch of random characters that aren’t necessarily N5/N4 beginner level
But while getting a good N5/N4 base down, LingQ can still be used! There are some great beginner resources that people have uploaded - search for “comprehensible input” and go through a lot of those while learning the kanji / basic grammar. The vocab will come from reading a lot (like a lot…like way more than you think…) - the trick is to get in the habit of reading a little more every day and keep up your streak!
after you get a base you can start the fun part, by uploading your own content! Get webtoepub google chrome extension and you can import a lot to stories from https://syosetu.com/ or find your own epubs to upload
Believe me, reading webnovels (especially with LingQ’s TTS!) is a super fun way to learn a language - you’ll stall out very quickly with duolingo
Times change, habits change, your demographics for an app changes over time.
With that said, why not create a tutorial where lingqs are free WHILE IN THE TUTORIAL. Then, when you finished the tutorial and saw everything the system has to offer and move on, your LingQs are reset and you start with the 20 limit.
Lots of games do that. “Task: Create a LingQ. Here, any LingQ you create during the tutorial is on us, but be aware as soon as you finish the tutorial you’ll only have 20 for free. Go ahead, create a LingQ!” – or something like this.
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Thank you SO MUCH! I’ll take a look at all of your suggestions!
Thank you. I never heard of the Genki books. I’ll give them a look.
I’ve talked about this before, but I came into LingQ understanding what I wanted was an audio-reader software that made tracking words easier. I had essentially re-invented this concept in calibre, highlighting 5 words/page I didn’t know and looking them up in wiktionary/glosbe/etc. After reading a book doing this I thought, someone has to have had this idea before and found LingQ.
For the core functionality of LingQ to click for you, you need to buy into the idea of extensive reading, and tools that make extensive reading more accessible sooner.
As a complete beginner looking to start Japanese, you may benefit more from other tools first as others have suggested. There are of course Mini Stories and you could get mountains of short story content from ChatGPT now (at your own peril), so it is certainly possible to learn only using LingQ, but it may be more efficient to use a more structured approached.
In particular with Japanese you have the mountain to climb of 3 writing systems, and one being logograms. SRS is your friend here – Memrise and Anki.
I’ve learned Japanese from scratch on LingQ. It was harder than, say, Russian, because the Japanese writing system is truly frightening. But other than that, it’s the same as learning any other language. You find content that interests you, at a level that you almost understand, and you keep reading.
I import Agatha Christie novels into LingQ and read them. My main problem is that it is hard to find DRM free translations in Japanese. If anyone can recommend a source of Japanese novels in PDF form, I would be very interested 
You do need the premium version though. The free version isn’t worth the money, so to speak.
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I’m on Lingq 38 days. I was learning Spanish with Babbel over one year and I thought I will never learn Spanish. Almost nothing stuck in my brain. Now with Lingq I can read easy stories. Babbel helped me a little bit with grammar, though.
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You can’t do much with a free account, but I can attest that reading and listening to content in LIngQ is so much superior to Duolingo that there is no comparison. Reading and listening to self-selected content is vastly superior to translating millions of sentences and having cartoon characters treat you like you are a pre-schooler.
That is my use too. I import my own books into French and Spanish and that is 90% of what I use. Occasionally, I will browse the available content and read or listen to something if it catches my attention.
It takes me seconds to import a book.
I have discovered quite a few podcasts with real people speaking and listen to quite a bit that way. Actually the LIngQ podcast is pretty good and all about language acqusition, I have gained from that.
same ……in my advanced language most of my material is imported. It’s fairly easy to do. And if you think of Lingq as an ereader assistant, that’s what you should be doing. Though I think it would be nice if there were already more interesting books+ audio already uploaded — thank you to those who uploaded the francais facile podcast, it makes it really easy for me 
1000 words is about 3-4 pages, hardly exhaustive. Don’t see how that would mean using Lingq free ”forever.” The concept of Lingqs only really comes through when you see the same word in different lessons, anyway. Otherwise “saving it” doesn’t mean anything and you don’t get a sense of what a Lingq is.
I mean it’s true. Without a subscription you can’t save any new words.
Can you recommend me the podcasts you like?
I credit Lingq for establishing my first foothold in learning Korean. Some basic features have made a considerable impact on both my learning style and efficiency. Firstly, electing a lesson based on the percentage of unknown words enhances the readability of the text. Secondly, the simplicity of looking up definitions with linked online dictionaries saves tons of time. The highlighted or lingqed words are the last and least noticeable, which help me retain the less familiar vocabulary with greater efficiency as I follow along in the reading. All these may mean little to a beginner in using Lingq, but it makes a world of difference as we can talk about reading books, watching TV series, and Youtube channels of particular interest, etc., in a much shorter time frame than we expected. I have constantly reminded myself that personal time and effort are an essential part of the equation besides excellent tools.
I understand the business decision to limit the free user account. I get it, truly. I work for a mobile video games company, and if there’s something we do good is to set up paywalls 
My questioning for this strategy is that this limit is stopping me from even finishing the tutorial. I am not even allowed to see what the platform has to offer in a structured and guided way, because of this limit.
Yes, I’ve got a good grasp of what the platform is about, but I question the design decisions very much
same I was skeptical of Duolingo coming from memories but realised the duo lingo league tables helps to distract from pain of learning great for competitive ppl. I was attracted to this for videos and TV shows. seems to require more conscious learning. still early days so ill try a little harder but I feel Duolingo will be my staple.