Hi. I’ve already reached 120 LingQs (no idea where I got the extra 100? I didn’t invite anyone) Am I just completely screwed at learning for free? I’m loving LingQ, but I just can’t afford to pay such a high price for a potentially volatile hobby that I’ve barely gotten into.
Do I have to upgrade to continue using LingQ, or is there still an effective learning method for Chinese in LingQ now that I’m out of LingQs?
Thanks!
I do not know if you can use LingQ without forking out money. However there is a similar app called Learning with Texts LWT which is inspired by LingQ. It is free to use.
I think to use LingQ without paying, you need to not lingQ any words. Just look up the definitions and don’t save any. Honestly, I tried the trial a long time ago, but you can’t really use the most useful parts of the software without paying. For $13 per month, this is cheaper than a one hour lesson with a tutor. I consider that if I spend more than two hours on LingQ per month, it’s a good deal. 
I obviously spend a lot more than two hours per month on LingQ.
I think you can keep reading, you just can’t save words. But you’ll be able to still click on them for the definition (I think).
If you are learning one language only, I would recommend the lifetime subscription provided you are committed to studying the said language long term. You’ll have to part with $199, but it will be more cost effective in the long run.
This is what I have for Korean and I never regretted it.
I’m looking into Learning With Texts now. Thanks for the suggestion!
Do they still offer the lifetime subscription?
You could try readlang as well. They may have some free usage (not sure if you end up having to eventually pay).
Alternatively, if you don’t need any real bells and whistles and don’t mind looking on the web for content, good old google translate extension works great. I use it fairly frequently to quickly read some news articles whenever I’m too lazy to import into lingq. Also to some degree I find it easier overall and quicker to use so sometimes I’ll read an article this way and then import into LingQ and quickly go through the blue words to mark them known or yellow. So imo google translate works great for this. You just don’t have any tracking of where you’re at, but no reason you wouldn’t improve if you truly kept at it.
You can also use tools like Language Reactor to watch netflix movies or youtube with translations. Sometimes they aren’t the greatest and maybe paying for that would get your better translations, but it overall does pretty good at the free level.
Then of course if you feel input based learning is helpful and you do want all the bells and whistles then certainly consider LingQ again.
Yes they do. Just google it and you will find it. It doesn’t appear on the upgrade options page, which is quite sneaky, so users have to find it by themselves.
@SeoulMate, Thank you for sharing this!
It’s frustrating that they don’t include it on their price page, But I was worried I wouldn’t be able to afford to pay for LingQ next year, so this might be a better alternative if I can save up enough for it before my year subscription runs out!