I’m an advanced student aiming at proficency.
While there is a clear learning path for beginners - many levels to complete.
Situation looks different for an advanced student - he starts from the higher level and there are no next levels for him, although there is still much to learn.
What about it?
hi greg,
good for you to be an advanced learner for this I think you do not need anymore a path. Look for the items they are interesting for you (perhaps you have some hobbies and interests) - then listen to and read and vsave vocabulary. More path isn’t necessary.
Above all I would not misse the conversations and the writings! Both are very helpful!
I agree with Irene. Use our library or import content to study in a variety of fields of interest. You do not need to worry about your level, but you might want to find out how large your vocabulary is.
The higher your level,the more you should work on your speaking and writing.
I felt the same when I achieved the goal for the advanced II in English (12500 words). I recognize my level of English is quite good, but I also think there is a enormous lot of things to learn. Now I have 16000 words there, and I still feel like this…
In a sense, the statistics are not needed at all. At any level, you can just go and read, and listen and learn more and more words. Seemingly, this is an endless process.
By the other side, though, I liked when I had some specific landmarks to achieve, it was very encouraging achieving them, one by one. Now there are no such landmarks, and I just go ahead. Well, I have some joy from achieving “round” numbers. Also I created a goal of reading (an listening and studying) an entire book at LingQ. It has been taking me several months and I guess I’m going to bought a bottle of champagne when I finally finish it!!!
Anyway, I finally understood and accepted the fact that the way to proficiency is MUCH LONGER than I ever imagined, maybe infinite.
I’m not sure what will happen in the long run. In a sense, my goal is simple: being able to communicate so naturally and comfortably as I do in my native language. But in reality, I don’t know to what extent it is truly possible for a person who doesn’t live in an English speaking country. Despite the uncertainty of my “enterprise”, I’m trying it very hard.
I’m aware that I can, all of a sudden, simply get tired of studying English. I don’t see this in the near future, though. I’m just having a lot of fun.
Hi Anna,
I think the number of word can be only a LITTLE instrument of measure.
When I save a word often I have the verb and in addition 2, 3, 4 different forms for using. In the reality it is only ONE word. And there are a lot of words I do not more remember or I had learned not yet really.
For me it is not important to be able to speak, I don’t need it for business, but it is my own goal to improve and I would be happy to understand really what a native speaker writes.
On the other hand I am a little proud when my relatives recognize I improve and can take part on conversations when they come to us as visitors (they live in US).
I have fun that I had never before with learning English since I am here in LingQ!
I think the real difficulty is thinking in another language. At school, for work and practically everywhere you have to translate and so translating become an habit and when you must use another language you continue to think in your language and translate and vice-versa… can you suggest me some tricks to avoid this passage?
Navigante,
When I was in Great Britain among Britishmen I naturally switched to speaking and thinking in English, that was great experience. It’s easy when you are in company of an English speaking person…
Alone much harder…
Navigante,
Do not force it. it will come, gradually and intermittently. It is not something that you can deliberately pursue. Enjoy the language, get used to the language, speak and write without thinking too much, without worrying about being correct. It will come naturally.
By the way, I am still hoping to see you open up some discussions in Italian here. We are hoping that our members will come forward to host discussions in their language.
Right now we can only accommodate the languages that we offer, since we want these discussions to be integrated with the rest of the LingQ system via the Discussion Report. You can earn points doing it.
When we open this up to other languages we are counting on you too Greg.
Steve, I feel hopeless… :(((
I’ve just came back from the new movie Batman and I felt terrible I couldn’t understand anything the characters were saying…
I’ve been learning English for so many years, teaching it. Now I work as a translator in this language. And such things happen - I don’t understand anything… It’s better when I listen to British radio and even much better while listening audiobooks but still I don’t get the real language… I’d be grateful for the advice on how to deal with it?
Take it easy. I lived in Japan for 9 years, used Japanese everyday for business, understood the news and commentary and economic and political discussions on radio and television, had no trouble holding my end of any conversation, even on philosophy.
I could not understand the Japanese samurai movies, nor their soap operas. I did not have the background. These take longer. Something to work towards if you want, but it does not really matter.
Get videos and watch them a few times. Good luck. And keep LingQing.
Greg
I can imagine how difficult it is to understand some movies. First of all, sometimes the voices are not as clear and clean as you would get on the radio or news. As a native speaker, I find some action movies difficult to listen to Just because they recorded the audio so terrible.
Another difficulty with movies is that they tend to invent a lot of new words and phrases.
I have studied several Japanese movies, and I find this technique to be helpful.
1st Get the script of the movie (you will probably have to buy this)
2nd Record the audio in your computer
3rd put the audio and script into your private lingQ collection. If you are like me, then you have to type out the script word for word. but that is good practice anyway
I find taking away the audio from the video to be helpful in focusing on understanding the movie. If the video is there, then I just kind of doze off and my brain goes from study mode to movie mode. Having Just the audio really helps me focus on studying. Then the next time I watch the movie I just enjoy it 
good luck
It seems movies are a constant source of frustration for almost all of us… rsss…
There are some that I understand perfectly, and other ones that I can’t understand a single word. I intend to work specifically on movies at some point in the future. Maybe they are not “important” from a professional point of view, but it is unavoidable to feel kind of defeated when you study so much English, and can’t understand a seemingly simple movie…