Yes, Ana Bilić is a great author. I actually self-published my own Croatian mini novel (it’s on Amazon, and it’s called Druga šansa (A Second Chance), which is targeted at learners at the B1/B2 level. I’m trying to get it imported into Lingq, and I’m happy to share it free of charge.
I’ve been able to import it as a lesson, but I’m not sure how to create it as a mini novel. If anyone here has any advice on that, I would greatly appreciate it!
I’d like to see a multi-language lifetime subscription.
Or perhaps a main language + 500 words reading in any other languages per day.
Yes totally, If you can find your own content to upload on LingQ since Croatian is in a beta phase.
I think the target language plays a big part here. I started from scratch with both Greek and Italian with LingQ. I couldn’t do it with Greek, it was just too much starting from zero, so I messed around with other apps to get a foundation before coming back. With Italian, I jumped in with no background other than some Spanish classes like 15 years ago and it has been fine.
I agree. When I first looked into LingQ, I was frustrated with the “free” part after 10 minutes. On the plus side, I could subscribe to “premium” for a month and try out all the features and then quit, for just $13. That is what I did. Quitting was very easy: no tricks, not hassles, no gimmicks.
Now that I knew what LingQ premium could do, I could re-start it if I ever wanted to use those features. I’ve done that twice since then: once for 3 months and once for 6 months (that one is still continuing).
Although from what I read on here, it seems like quitting is unnecessarily complicated if you’re not subscribing through an app store or the like…? Seems like another weird business decision 
I “quit” by switching from the Premium option to the Free option . That took me only a couple of minutes, and was easy to find as a logged-in member.
In theory I was still a member, but I was not charged (and never would be charged), which is good enough for me.
Yes, I did that too, before I decided to go for annual premium a couple of years ago!
I don’t think that it will be worth it until they fix all of the kinks and bugs. Can hardly import using their extension as it does not generate any text.
Speaking of: Is LingQ just a scam??
Sigh… That can’t be good for business. I am not sure if it’s user error or LingQ really is making it hard, but the impression “they’re trying to scam me” sticks with people either way 
I can’t disagree, if LingQ won’t do what you need.
But I suspect that each user has a different experience. If you don’t use a certain feature OR you don’t use that feature in a certain way, you don’t see a problem. The problems are very frustrating, but that doesn’t mean that the feature wasn’t tested. It just means that you are using the feature in a way (or in a situation) that the testers never imagined. Maybe the thing you are trying to import uses a new feature that LingQ was never designed to handle, because it didn’t exist then.
It also might depend on what language you are learning. I recently ran into problems with Japanese (which I reported), which were so obvious that I was amazed they were not reported and fixed years ago.
I’m sorry but that’s just not the case. I watch YouTube videos on LingQ, that’s not an edge case, that’s a basic function. It’s near unusable because the current text (as spoken in the video) scrolls off the screen, so you can’t read it. How is that unusual? And if I tab out to another app, then tab back, the video resets to the start. How is that unusual? For goodness sake, this is the most basic functionality.
I’m convinced the other poster is right, LingQ is a mon and pop style of operation, with a modest income, they don’t have teams of UI designers and testers, they don’t regression test properly, but they survive.
I’ve been searching for an alternative on iOS, and there isn’t one. That said, I might just watch YouTube and Netflix directly, LingQ is poor on iOS. That’s sad because fundamentally it is very very good, there’s only a few bugs that have a major impact, and they can’t be hard to fix. If only they would fix them.
LingQ are shrewd. They know there are better apps for some languages on some platforms. But they know browser extensions on iOS are rare. So they support many languages and iOS as well as Android and Windows.
Try reimporting. I had a video that imported, but no text. I deleted it, reimported, and all was fine.
Do you mean browser extensions for Safari? Because Firefox/Chrome extensions work on IoS. Edit: Not IoS - OSX
I did that some years ago, and I found out that Chinese LingQ’s stuff is full of wrong Pinyin, wrong TTS, wrong word splitting, non-matching audio. What’s more, the platform was slow and very buggy. The quality of the material was very low.
A few weeks ago I tested Japanese LingQ, and it’s the same like Chinese a few years ago: wrong Furigana, wrong TTS, wrong word splitting, audio does not match the text. And: the beginner lessons are starting with very complex grammar patterns and low frequency words.
My personal conclusion: LingQ is not suitable for beginners, and - if you are a perfectionist -, even not suitable for intermediate and advanced learners.
Too buggy, Often wrong. Not worth the - now increased - amount of money.
I’ve been filled with regret ever since I upgraded to premium. There are plenty of other free apps like LingQ available. While they may not be as good, they do come at no cost. Even if Croatian isn’t fully supported, I’m certain they won’t take any steps to improve it.
Good luck on your journey, and take care of the advertissement, most of the time, it’s totaly false…
@Vanandir I don’t know how you use LingQ but I’m not sure you got it. Name me one app that is a LingQ competitor and that I can use like LingQ. Basically, importing my own book, articles, podcasts, and create my own personal dictionary that will be always there whenever I import new material. That’s the core of LingQ (convenience for input based philosophy).
As far as we know, the only 2 apps that can be closed, or associated, and often used together, are: ReadLang, Language Reactor.
None of those, in any case, are able to substitute the core LingQ philosophy.
I’m just curious, honestly, I’d like to know those free apps that allow me to substitute LingQ.
LingQ is not an SRS, or a videogame, or a grammar check. It is immersion by reading, or eventually reading+listening. You create your own studies and plan. And you can even do a lot more now compared to years ago!
You don’t seem to know LWT, FLTR, Lute, VocabTracker. All can create immersion by reading, and even reading+listening. You create your own studies and plan. And you are the owner of your data. And they are completely free, and the first three are open source,
@walkingpingu I think some of them were already mentioned time ago, connected with a series of problems.
Thanks for mentioning them. I only remember the names LWT and Lute, but I don’t remember the discussions about them anymore.
If they are so easy to use, and great, I would definitely suggest to people that like them to use them. I don’t understand why paying so much if the experience is the same.
Besides the core philosophy of LingQ, I have probably more than 200k dictionary entries in 4 languages. Not sure if those softwares manage them.
I also like the importing features with the various extensions.
I like to have an iOS app that work very well.
I definitely like the new entries with audio transcriptions from podcasts, or the automatic TTS for single sentences, or the automatic audio for entire lessons.
Don’t get me wrong, I know about bugs, but I also know about the good.
But hey, if those programs can give you/him/them that, good for you, save your money.
A few hardcore language learners that have spent quite some time in this forum, haven’t found a good alternative yet. I tend to trust them.
It is easy to mention software names but if you spend few years with them, and they are really good, there is no point to pay for this service for sure.
I did that in 2022 for Chinese and found too many problems. Also, I was already intermediate in Chinese. So I use Language Reactor instead, for Chinese study.
Starting in mid-2023, I’ve been using LingQ (along with other websites) for studying Turkish, and I haven’t found any problems.
I started using LingQ for Japanese a couple weeks ago and found similar problems, even for an imported podcast.