I just wanted to let anyone know that was interested that the Kindle Fire doesn’t work for Linq. While you can obviously read the texts and any lingqed words, I wasn’t able to create any new linqs. Furthermore, it is almost too small to even see linqs that have already been created. The screen is a little larger than the previous Kindles, but it’s still just too small unless you are simply using it to read texts. I’ve been waiting for it hoping that it would be a cheaper alternative to the Ipad, and so for those of you that have also been waiting, my opinion is that it’s not going to do what you want it to do.
But,…will it blend?
Shame, they’ve only done the ipad so far! 
But, it a more serious tone, the Kindle Fire is using a modified version of Android 2.3 (so old!) which is based on Linux. I use Linux in Firefox and have absolutely no problems with the site. It’s perhaps the modifications which Google and then Amazon makes which cause this lack of function.
One question I have got (because I only own a desktop computer) is: do you use the Android LingQ application or are you able to run it through a browser? I’d imagine that the Android application would only be useful for people on phones, while others would only really use the main website as normal.
I don’t think that this is the fault of the Kindle machine per se - universal compatibility is something which is basically impossible to manage. Every website, every OS, every version…it’s kinda mind-boggling when you think about it. Surely it’s not much of a reason for others to not buy a kindle since - how many people use LingQ? Maybe there’s some function of the OS itself which is creating a little conflict. Something to do with copy-paste functions would be a possibility.
Let’s see what Alex has to say about it. 
I don’t have a Kindle Fire so I don’t have much to add here 
Maybe some day we can look at it, but for now we’re working on getting our Android app caught up with our iPhone app, so we’ll have to work on any compatibility issues a bit further down the road.
I’ve never bought a Kindle of any sort, because every time I study the specs I can see no mention of support for any languages other than English, which must rule one out for at least half of all LingQers.
I have a Pocketbook Pro, which although it doesn’t do anything very fancy DOES support every language I read, and even has text-to-speech and a selection of bilingual dictionaries for each language. As far as I know, no Kindle offers them.
There are some things to consider with language support here. If they only supported Latin based scripts, it would be usable for languages other than English. I can’t imagine them only supporting ASCI only…that would be a spectacularly dumb move. I’ve seen that there is a patch for right to left languages and from what I’ve read, other languages can be enabled too.
I must say that these devices are not impressive to me. Far too repressive.
Why would anyone every buy one of these? eeewwww
Well, I bought my ebook reader because I wanted to read books in Russian and I can’t get hold of paper books in Russian in my provincial town.
Having said that, these new tablet thingies look pretty slick and if the prices ever come down to about ebook reader level, I would rather have one of those.
Amazon’s readers do seem to assume you want to use them to read Amazon products, which seems pretty restrictive to me. Imagine if my glasses were only designed to render Amazon books clearly readable, and my other viewing requirements were unsupported :-o
skyblueteapot, according to Amazon; “Kindle can now display Cyrillic (such as Russian), Japanese, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), and Korean characters in addition to Latin and Greek scripts for certain file types.” You can certainly buy bilingual dictionaries, but they don’t come as standard. I know that because I have dictionaries for Latin and French. You can also read your own files on Kindle but if I’m right you have to send them off to be converted and they are then sent in the correct format to the Kindle. I don’t use that function since I still have my Hanlin. The most annoying thing about the Kindle is they’ve just opened up French, Italian and Spanish Kindle stores on the sites for those countries but the books available there are not available in the UK yet, and when you’re from the UK you can’t buy from those stores. I hope that the available books from those other stores will migrate to the UK soon. It’s awful to see books you want in those languages allegedly available in the EU and yet not be able to buy them.
@Imyirtseshem As far as using LingQ in Android’s web browsers are concerned, the default Android browser used to fully support LingQ earlier this year. You could listen to the audio (since the default Android browser fully supports Flash) while reading along, and clicking on a blue word brought up the LingQ suggestions and “create LingQ” box. Then LingQ updated their site to have a hover event bring up the new word suggestions, and clicking just brought up the red x and checkbox. This effectively killed the ability to LingQ through Android browsers (unless you go to the QuickLingQ view). However I did discover a “hack” in the Android Firefox to allow me to still LingQ. If you “tickle” a blue word (long press the blue word while moving your finger up and down in a rubbing motion) that triggers Firefox’s hover event without triggering a click event, and lets you LingQ blue words (though you have to make your choice quick, the suggestions box will disappear after a second when you lift your finger, and you then have to “tickle” the word again). The only problem then is, since you can’t play the audio through Firefox, if you want to read while listening to the audio at the same time you have to go back to the default browser. So my current Android setup (on both my phone and my Galaxy Tab) is to read and LingQ using Firefox, and read while listening using the default browser. Both will nicely reformat the text to fit the screen size, so its a manageable solution until the Android App is improved.
I doubt an extremely cheap ebook-reader from a chinese company without even a website. I’ve never had an issue with language support…strange how that works. Of course, this is only for reading books - but that’s all I bought it for.
Odiernod: it sounds like a nightmare…I’ll never be a fan of touch-screens and laptop/tablets/phones.
I hover my mouse over the yellow words while listening and reading and this is how I learn my words. As I get to know them, I move them up levels - while doing the listening and reading. It’s all pretty quick and I never loose my place. The manner you describe of how to interact with LingQ with a touchscreen, would be absolutely impossible for me. For something like LingQ, I think touchscreens cause more troubles than they solve (although there weren’t really any troubles to begin with hehehe).
@Imyirtseshem It is definitely something I have trained myself to get used to, but as I am normally using LingQ in places where a computer is just not appropriate (in bed) or possible (from my deer hunting stand in the woods), my phone is always accessible, and I have to say that my android phone and tablet have allowed my to use LingQ in many places and situations where language learning would be otherwise impossible.
My first ebook reader was a Hanlin, I liked it a lot. They are sold under different names in different European countries (Bebook?), which is perhaps why they are hard to find on google under the name Hanlin.
The most useful portable device I have right now is my Cowon multimedia player. It doesn’t support Japanese, but it does support Russian and Latin-based text files. Also I put linguistics textbooks on it. I read them in places where I didn’t expect to have the opportunity to read a book (like waiting for a school concert to start). I look like I’m just checking my text messages so people don’t give me funny looks like they do when I pull my ebook reader out of my handbag.
I put books on my phone too, I have informatics and software engineering books in Italian on my phone, that way, even if someone catches me reading a book on my phone, I’ll be spared the embarrassment of explaining why I am reading a chapter on multidimensional data mining techniques, I can just claim I’m reading Dante.