[considering the comments that stated out the offensiveness of relating the issue describe below to age, I thought it would be adequate to reframe the question]
Has anyone made the experience of introducing LingQ to friends or family members who do not feel comfortable in navigating through complex digital environments, mostly due to the fact that they are digital non-natives?
Given the wealth of resources that you find online and that allow language learning approaches that differ significantly from the traditional textbook and classroom environment, I believe that apps like LingQ present a huge learning opportunity even for people who are not experienced in the usage of digital tools. However, the introduction to LingQ turns out to be more challenging than to apps like Babbel or RosettaStone for instance. Did someone make the experience of introducing LingQ to someone else who needed a bit more of assistance at the beginning?
Iād probably turn them to Duolingo to gauge their real interest before turning them to LingQ. First of all the āfreeā version of LingQ really doesnāt do anything for anyone to figure out what the heck is going on. Also, unless you are willing to show them around, I think they might get lost rather quickly unless they are savvy and/or like to poke around and figure things out themselves still. I also think the ideas behind LingQ require a little background before understanding why they are good, so they may not take to it as easily.
After Duoling, or maybe at the same time Iād probably steer them to a Teach Yourself book before Lingq.
Caveat, I have no experience introducing someone to learning a language, let alone Lingq.
I donāt find LingQ useful unless I have an eternal keyboard to help with shortcuts. Unless I think they will accept that, I donāt recommend LingQ.
A pity, because in certain ways, itās great.
Iām 70 and had not any bigger problems when I started to use LingQ more then one year ago. But all settings and how to use LingQ is somehow confusing to all. A really good instruction on settings is:
I donāt think Iāve laughed so much at a question before . My husband is 70 and doesnāt do anything different than someone who is 50. This question makes someone who is 70 sound like they are incapable of using LingQ. I laughed because I knew what his reaction would be - and as I type this, Iām in bed and heās on the PlayStation!!!
What a weird question!!
I find LingQ very useful for me. Iām an experienced senior, Iāve been learning and teaching my entire life. I know more than 30 people over 72 who are doing very well studying various languages āāwith LingQ.
Do you really think that beyond a certain age, we no longer have a brain?
I hope your question is humorous, but perhaps sometimes some people donāt think long enough before asking questions that make people laugh.
Sorry, this did not mean to be offensive at all. Just in my context older family members have not a lot of experience using digital devices and less with using complicated apps like LingQ. This does not mean that age is a constraint for them to deal with complexity, but that the digital environment is challenging for someone who is not used to it. Sorry for the misunderstanding that this may have caused and if I offended anyone.
Well, Iām 82, and Iāve been using LingQ for three years. Iāve used it along with ePubor to remove coding from ebooks and import them to read and study. That was with a lot of help from people on the forums. For the most part, I find it very easy to use. I like seeing my vocab increase to now over 14000 words. Iāve helped my 86 year old sister learn to use it, and sheās been making progress. I really like the AI tutor, better than Langua. I think it all depends on the person. There are people in their 60ās and 70ās who just refuse to even open their email. But I take a class in reading and writing in Spanish, and weāre all seniors, and every one of us are very open to learning and using whatever technology is out there.
I read in an other forum a senior complained he couldnāt learn or understand a specific new technicology. And used his age an excuse not to be able to learn. I replied saying the age is not a factor when learning new mental things. My reply was not appreciated by him and others.
Last year I bought a 2 year subscription to my father as a retirement gift, he was 65 then. His IT literacy is fine, he is more up to date with developments in processors, hardwares and softwares than me because this is one of his interests, so it wasnāt a problem to him to use it.
The only thing I made was to compile a short list of settings before using it, like donāt mark words to known if he turns over pages.
He uses it and says he likes it.
I think your question is valid, not everyone lives in a welfare Western country where lots of old people keep themselves in a good shape. In the country I live most people over 50 look and behave like 70 and most people over 70 is like 90.
Iām 72 and the only confusing thing I found about LingQ were the crappy default settings. Immediately turn off āPaging moves to knownā, itās the worst offender. āAuto LingQ Creationā is not helpful. āTap to Pageā should be turned off if they find themselves turning pages when they try to tap on a word to find its meaning. āStreak and milestones popupsā add nothing to the learning experience. Iāve never found āGPT Hintsā to be helpful.
Thatās the way it is. If you state that seniors might have problems with LingQ and the like because they havenāt grown up with that kind of technology, seniors feel offended (as showcased in this thread). If you do it the other way around like you did, they are offended, too. All hail the great mimimi.
@all: Is their actually a particular reason that people always assume the worst intentions from the other person. Couldnāt it be that the OPās question arose due to the poster not having any elderly in his surroundings who has any experience with modern technology? Couldnāt it be that you are maybe not really representative for the people of your age?
Iām a 37 years old mathematician. Does this mean everyone in his 30s is good at maths?
JulianiTOgo,
Your question would have made far more sense 20-30 years ago - at least in countries where technology was advancing.
*In the 1990s, company CEOs and executives were used to dictating text to their secretaries and quite unable to do everything themselves.
During that time, people were learning to read off screens and not have to print everything out before digesting it.
At the turn of the century there were more and more people using mobile phones - and as technology progressed - smartphones became a thing.
Digital babies are now in their 20s
The older generation - people who were in their 70s in the 1990ās and at the turn of the century are dying off - these are people who never got the chance to become fully familiar with the advances in technology.
In 2025, smartphone users in Europe amount to 93% and in the USA 97%.
Virtually cashless societies - such as Sweden and South Korea - make it impossible to live without a smartphone - no matter what age you are.
Your question would have been valid 30 years ago. A 70 year old today is someone who was 40 in the 1990s when technology was changing peopleās lives at an extraordinary pace. Are you suggesting that 40 and 50 year olds then were too past it to keep up now?
Good question - but perhaps should have been posed years ago
There again, itās a valid question for non-western societies.
Zolka mentions a country where most people over 50 look and behave like theyāre 70.
Thatās so sad to hear - not getting the chance to keep themselves in good shape, while others in richer countries sometimes throw such opportunities away.
Iād be interested to know what country you live in Zolka - to which country are referring to?
I hope that, with my reframed question (see the edit to my initial post), I have made it clear that it was not my intention to offend anyone. However, the way you responded does not seem very sensitive to contexts outside of a privileged Western country.
Another important question is whether they are interested in it at all, or were, back then? Of course someone in his 40ās or 50ās can keep up with modern development, and so can someone much older, if it is a generally curious person. However, if the person donāt has any interest in a particular matter, like electronic devices and software, said person may have a hard time when he is suddenly forced to deal with that matter.
As stated above Iām not even in my 40ās yet, still I donāt have any interest in social media. Iām therefore pretty sure there will be technologies in the future thatāll build upon those stuff, that I may have a hard time to unterstand, too. Even though I am a technology-affine person. Not everyone is like me, of course. But some are.
Half the challenge of introducing people to LingQ is mainly around facts about language learning itself, such as:
language learning takes a very long time, hundreds of hours at least, so be patient and slowly chip away at it
the beginning stage can be a real grind with certain methods, such as repeating beginner stories on LingQ, so you may experience a loss of motivation, if you are using this method, but thatās okay
you can actually learn and better a language through reading, listening, and looking up unknown words (this can be a particularly hard idea for some people to grasp and actually believe)
Then it comes to actually using LingQ itself. The strangest thing about LingQ is that you need to ālinkā a meaning with a word (i.e. select the most appropriate/best meaning). This is an odd concept. āBut why canāt I just click on a word and get the meaning?ā Well, yeahā¦ because LingQ doesnāt want to charge a high price, so doesnāt pay for dictionaries, and hasnāt made their own themselves.
So if you have all these issues, plus someone has minimal computer literacy, it might be pretty rough.
I donāt have direct experience of teaching LingQ, but if I were to do it, Iād give them a demonstration of how exactly you would use it. Mainly, how to login, select a lesson, read a lesson, read while listening, etc.
Computers are a very strange thing, if you arenāt familar with them, so you need to be patient and donāt overload them with information. Youād probably want to teach them about LingQ in multiple, short sessions, as opposed to one, long session. But it all depends their exact level of computer literacy. If they have low computer literacy, as the teacher, you need to be very patient and understand it may take a longer than you initially thought.
I have to say, Iām kind of offended myself, reading some of the discussion here. Everyone reading the original question in good faith knew what was being asked. For some to feign misunderstanding and choose to take offense at a very valid question really is undignified.
Nobody was ever saying older people cannot use digital technology. But if youāre claiming you donāt know anyone of an older generation that would have trouble being left alone with something like LingQ, I flat-out donāt believe you.
It doesnāt even have to be someone in their seventies. My own mother (in her sixties) regularly has trouble even dealing with the concept of windows and when an application is or isnāt closed, etc. It certainly is not for a lack of intelligence but simply that she did not grow up using computers (while others of her generation did). If I were to try and introduce her to LingQ, I would need to think about how to do it very carefully. And Iām frankly offended that another user facing a similar issue was faced with people taking their thoughtfulness in such bad faith and as some sort of personal attack.
Thatās the time we live in now. Everyone is getting offended by everything.
My mother is in here sixties, too, and facing similar issues often enough despite here using digital devices regularly and having worked as a programmer for several years. However, a lot of time has passed since than (she has worked as a journalist for the last 20 years or so before here retirement) and she doesnāt really share any interest in that kind of technology. Itās merely a tool to use if necessary. So she is mainly just insecure.
. My husband is 70 and doesnāt do anything different than someone who is 50. This question makes someone who is 70 sound like they are incapable of using LingQ. I laughed because I knew what his reaction would be - and as I type this, Iām in bed and heās on the PlayStation!!!
All hail the great mimimi.