We have had several forum threads on the topic of “How can you learn grammar with LingQ???” This is what I have been doing recently, and it is proving very helpful:
I didn’t worry much about grammar as a beginner. I worried more about creating and learning LingQs, of words I came across in my reading and listening. As I create words much faster than I learn them I have a lot of words at status 1 - 3, which appear highlighted when I open a new lesson.
At beginner 2 I started to take an interest in grammar. Everytime I created a new lingQ, or came across an old one in a new lesson, I tagged it as noun/adjective/verb/preposition. With French and German it’s important to learn the gender of nouns, so at this point I tagged nouns with m = masculine, f = feminine, n = neuter.
At intermediate 1 I took an interest in verb forms and tenses. I started tagging Russian verbs as perfective or imperfective. I had long ago read the rules of Russian verb tenses, but it only started to make sense (and start to look obvious) when I sorted all my verbs into perfective/imperfective. At this point I also went over the definitions again, to make sure that they were correct: e.g. “I will go” or “I would go” or “he was going”. Now I can (finally!) look at a Russian verb and know exactly what it means. I also have figured out that, if in doubt, you use the perfective, because I have about 3 times as many examples of perfective verbs than imperfective verbs.
Intermediate 1 is where I am getting French subjunctive straight in my head too. I never learned this tense at school and so don’t know how to form it, but I already have a couple of pages of examples, real examples I have found in real reading and listening, tagged so I can find them easily. I have also tagged whole phrases like “had he known…” and “he had lived there most of his life, ever since…” which are tricky to work out from first principles.
I shall use some subjunctive phrases in my next piece of French writing, and see if I get them right!
What a great piece of advice! I never quite knew what to do with tags. I’ll give it a try. Thank you and je te souhaite que toutes vos phrases soient au subjunctive (si tu le veux).
I do nearly the same like Helen but I started from the beginning to classify words. I think this is of the influence of my mathematical brain
Learning English I have some problems figured out analyzing my conversation reports. So I created LingQs to work on these problems. For example I created the following tags with example for these problems:
adj_adv = example for usage
do_does
few_less
good_well
have_has
if_when
is_are
merkliste = words that I should know, which not stay in my mind
much_many
ortsangabe = statement of place/location
past
people_person
plural
tutor = Things to ask my tutor
was_were
which_who
zeitangabe = time specification
I also have a tag: “dict” so I can find words that aren’t in my default dictionary and look them up somewhere else, and “ask” for ask a tutor.
You can have as many tags as you want attached to a lingQ, so I have for instance:
запрещаю (1) *
compelling imperfective talking verb
means: I forbid
for specialised vocabulary, I tag with its source:
не-мертвый (4) *
adj death dracula
means: undead
If I do a piece of writing about vampires, I can easily search on the tag “Dracula” and come up with garlic, Holy Water etc. It’s not easy to remember phrases like “he rises from the grave to drink the blood of the living” and you won’t get it right if you try and work it out from a dictionary. Better to tag it when you come across it so you can find it again.
Yes, it is exactly what I have As I quite usual speak and write about sending/receiving postcards all over the world, I have a tag “postcrossing” :)) So, before a discussion I just review words with this tag. It is rather convenient.
Yes, I can imagine Dracula being a bit difficult, but a few tags or perhaps cloves of garlic should sort him out in no time. Thank you Helen and Vera for your clear examples. I have copied them into a document, otherwise I’ll lose the thread/plot.
I’m not sure how I’ll use Lingq for grammar. With the languages I’m learning I already had a pretty good idea of the grammar even if I’m not perfect. I’ve started French from scratch but Spanish and French grammars with a few exceptions are basically the same. Right now I’m just reading and lingqing and trying to get an accurate number in all three of the languages I’m working with…
I think for the most part my grammar will come from some basic grammar book that I read on and off and my focus even through the higher levels will be to lingq and learn.
I use LingQ library, written dialog and readings.
I download the written dialog. Print the dialog. I use LingQ flashcards to learn new words, and memorize words.
If I do not understand the grammar, I circle the problem on the printout,
with red pencil. Then I get all the printouts and ask the tutor, “How does this grammar work?”.
And I use the American: Kemple’s book, “Essential Russian Grammar”, to
correct by myself.
Grammar is important. Grammar is like glue. Grammar is what we use,
to put our LingQ vocabulary together. words + grammar = sentences.
My advice is to learn grammar is also to Read, Read, Read… ! You will learn new words, and learn the grammar also! You can make learning grammar fun.
My Russia tutor corrects me when I stress the wrong syllable in a word. She writes the stressed syllable in capitals. Then I link the phrase with the tag pron(unciation).
