I agree totally.
Music analogy -. you’ll make most money if you’ve composed a classical piece of music that gets played on radio (probably assuming that it’s a score with different harmonies for each instrument - a lot of work!). Slightly less if it’s only “a song” (even if it has the same length), and nothing at all if it’s a cover (unless you’ve done some kind of “arrangement” of the song in question - something that’s up for discussion).
A couple of years ago I started to record audioblog and share it on Lingq. Every episode was about 15 minutes. It took really much time to transcribe it with almost zero outcome, as these lessons had only a couple of regular listeners. So, I stopped to record it and switched to Beginner content, although I, personally, don’t like beginner content. I prefer to move to “Intermediate I” as soon as possible. That’s why I think we should encourage providers to record lessons like JapaneseLingQ, EnglishLingQ. The kind of lessons that Berta and Oscar record together. There is no need to have loads of Beginner content. It’s just boring. Natural content about daily life is more interesting and more effective.
I agree with Xena. I am finding with Czech that I am ready to move into real content after just two weeks. I don’t mind fighting my way through content that is interesting, even if it has lots of unknown words.
However, I think that most learners prefer easy, beginner content, and seem to want to see at that level for a long time. Beginner content is the most popular type of content in our libraries.
I think it’s difficult to learn a language from scratch on LingQ without loads of very simple lessons, especially when the language is very foreign (e.g. Chinese for an English speaker). I’ve just started learning Korean recently, and I don’t see how I can spend a lot of time listening without having a greater variety of content at my level. At the moment, Who is She and Eating Out are too hard. To make faster progress (and to be able to use my dead time more effectively), I would really need 10 or 20 different Greetings and Goodbyes-style collections to be able to clock up more listening hours and not listen to the same 5 minutes of dialogue over and over again. After that, Who is She and Eating Out shouldn’t be too much of a stretch, but then I’d still need more and more content at that level to keep up my daily listening. I don’t think I would be able to jump straight to intermediate content, the way I would if I started learning Portuguese, for example.
Some people say beginner content is boring and is not as important, but try learning a completely foreign language from scratch on LingQ without lots and lots of beginner lessons.
@Xena, Steve: Nobody is saying that Intermediate and Advanced content is not interesting from the point of a learner. The problem is that there is less advantage for the content provider considering the time that you have to put in.
Xena wrote “It took really much time to transcribe it with almost zero outcome, as these lessons had only a couple of regular listeners. So, I stopped to record it.” Yes, this is logical. That is why you hardly find ORIGINAL content mady by content providers. I for myself think sometimes that I must be really crazy to transcribe so many podcasts for the advanced learners by hand.
Peter, I can see where learning a completely new language would be much more difficult than me learning Czech (based on my Russian) or Dutch for that matter.
I know that this an issue, Vera, and we are looking at some way to allow learners to reward content providers that they really appreciate.
Some people say beginner content is boring and is not as important, but try learning a completely foreign language from scratch on LingQ without lots and lots of beginner lessons.
Peter, I did it with Japanese. There are a lot of romaji and kana lessons in Japanese, I tried to learn them once and realised, that kanji lessons are much better. So, I switched to kanji lessons at the very beginning (but I finished “Hiragana drill” collection first). I started with kanji version of Meet Emma. I even had not finished Meet Emma collection, when I started to add JapaneseLingQ podcasts. So, please, don’t assume that I’ve never tried to learn a foreign language, a very foreign language, on LingQ from scratch.
Now at LingQ we have some kind of paradox. The site is designed for independent learners. The more advanced learner is the more independent he is, right? But providers tend to create beginner content more than intermediate. Of course we need beginner content, but we need intermediate and advanced too. When I start to learn a language, I want to achieve at least Intermediate II level. So I need a lot of Intermediate content. But in Japanese, for example, there are only JapaneseLingQ that I found interesting and long enough. I want to have third-parties podcasts transcribed by LingQ members, but it is really hard work. Unfortunately there is no Vera among Japanese providers :))
My point is, that the majority of LingQ contents should fall into Intermediate I and Intermediate II. Then, Beginner II, Beginner I and Advanced.
When a learner is at advanced level, he does not really need LingQ much. He is able to find any content he wants (and import it — thanks for bookmarklet :D). Having hundreds of lessons for beginners does not make sense either…
@Xena - I wasn’t assuming you hadn’t, I was just making a statement.
In any case, the way I use LingQ (and the way I like to learn languages) is with lots of listening, comprehensible input. Ideally, I’d like to be able to do this right from day 1 (or within the first week at least). If I only have 5 minutes worth of somewhat comprehensible content, I can’t really listen to 1 or 2 hours per day. Listening to stuff that’s far too difficult at the beginning is a quick way to ‘tune out’ the language. Listening lots to content that is at my level is a good way to learn words, pronunciation and to move onto more difficult content. I’m trying to emulate what I do at higher levels. Listening, reading and getting exposure to the language.
The way I see it, if we want to avoid having to ‘memorise’ certain words and phrases, or taking that Assimil course, we need to be able to plow through lots of very simple lessons and all the words will start to stick, bit by bit. Input from Day 1 - that’s how I’d like it to be. But hey, I’m an idealist 
Independent vs advanced - A learner might be very independent (they might already speak 5 languages fluently), but they might be a complete beginner in the sixth language. IMO, the most laborious part of the process is getting to the stage where you can ‘follow’ authentic content (around intermediate?). From then on, it becomes much easier to listen and read and continue to improve (but it takes a lot longer, obviously!). I don’t think having a handful of beginner lessons is enough to prepare someone for intermediate level content, but I guess it depends on the person.
Peter wrote:
“To make faster progress (and to be able to use my dead time more effectively), I would really need 10 or 20 different Greetings and Goodbyes-style collections to be able to clock up more listening hours and not listen to the same 5 minutes of dialogue over and over again./…/Some people say beginner content is boring and is not as important, but try learning a completely foreign language from scratch on LingQ without lots and lots of beginner lessons.”
and:
“If I only have 5 minutes worth of somewhat comprehensible content, I can’t really listen to 1 or 2 hours per day./…/
I don’t think having a handful of beginner lessons is enough to prepare someone for intermediate level content, but I guess it depends on the person”
I fully agree. Unless the language is very closely related to another I know, I need variations on a theme, not an audiobook.
Peter, Jeff,
I say absolutely the same. I want a lot of content about various topics. But I don’t want them to be 1-2 minutes long, like the majority of Beginner II content. I want them to be up to 5 minutes long.
Our content generation system is somewhat anarchic. We rely on what our providers feel like creating or contributing. This will vary. What users are looking for will also vary. Hopefully, over time, this spontaneous generation of content is working. I am amazed at the amount of content I am finding in our library for Czech and we have just started. I am also starting to import content from Radio Praha, and will soon add other sources.
I suggested some length guidelines for different levels of content but we are happy for all content. There is no direct relationship between the effort required to generate content, and the value to learners, all of whom have different tastes. I have said that we need to improve the ability of our users to directly reward content producers whom the especially appreciate. We have this on our list, our long list of improvements.
We used to sell content and few users bought content when free content was available.We are trying again with our store and we will see how things develop there. We are also looking at other things we can do.
In my own view, in other words for me personally, what is most important in content are the following: These things are subjective and can vary with language and with my stage of learning.
The speed and convenience of LingQing has improved to the point that I am quite content attacking difficult content at an early stage, as long as it is of interest to me, not too long (2-5 minutes long), and the voice is pleasing and clear. That kind of content is preferable to content of little interest, with poor sound, and either too short or too long. I can read it and listen to it over and over while reviewing the flash cards. I can also play the text to speech on the flash cards, and even record the text to speech from the flash cards on to a sound file for a sort of audio flash card review. I know that even if I do not fully understand while reading, and understand little while listening, this is only a temporary situation and in time the fog will lift. I have trouble going through mountains of uninteresting content, however easy. But that is only me, and other users have different tastes and strategies in learning.
It is great if there are translations and notes for beginner lessons, and videos also add value.
I generally go to google (Czech grammar etc.) for additional help on the language when I need it.
I fully agree with Steve in his language learning assessment. I have same tastes and strategies in learning, No matter how easy one content is but if it is written about some nonsensical issues that I can not relate with personally that will have no value for me, I won’t be going through it again.Sorry.
I should add that somewhat uninteresting beginner content is unavoidable at the beginning. I try to move to more interesting authentic content as soon as a I can. However, I regularly go back to the beginning lessons to refresh and reinforce and usually find many things that I have forgotten or never learned. Novelty and repetition, we need to vary things to keep our brain learning, just like when we train our bodies.
I think it is difficult to make beginner lessons, to ensure that they cover certain key words and phrases many times, and yet are as interesting as they can possibly be. I think many of our LingQ content creators have done a great job on this, and they will be properly rewarded in due course. We are working on it.
I find the beginner content I sometimes provide for English is what I wish I had for other languages. To me it’s beginner I, even though I don’t hold back as far as difficulty of words.
Every entry is under a minute long and about five sentences worth of content and designed to be listened to over and over again.
This content takes me about 10 minutes to create and I mark it as beginner.
Berta and Oscar were providing much needed Intermediate content and were working much harder. Even though my minute lesson and their fifteen minute lessons count for the same when downloaded.
Because my lessons are shorter and for beginners they would probably be “appreciated” more if it’s done on a one to one basis. The idea for lessons being appreciated more and therefore more valuable is a good idea but the level of each member “appreciating” should be variable.
A new customer with an egg for an avatar and a 20 lingqs should not have the same weight as say Vera, Steve, Berta ect when they appreciate something, this way the system would work and it would encourage users and the community to add the intermediate content that will keep people here, beginner content just starts people here.
Until then I’m going to continue making simple content since it has the same value as more advanced harder to produce intermediate content (especially content that includes conversations).