Spanish
I used a speaking/grammar course for 6 months and hopped on lingq and since then its been about a few years now and I would say I am fluent in Spanish whatever this word means I can watch shows, listen to stuff on youtube, and speak with natives. Obviously if I want my Spanish to be similar to my level of English well then I will need another 7-10 years of doing the same thing, but I have only used lingq to read and youtube to listen. The ability to import whatever into lingq is literally magical and it allows one to get more out of there reading then one otherwise would with a greater rate of speed. So I can say with absolute certainty without lingq I wouldnāt have gotten half as far as I have gotten. I plan on doing the same thing with Korean once I conquer a few more domains in Spanish and iron some things out over the next year or so.
LinggQ helped me tremendously with French, Czech, Russian and Japanese 
I also think this is motivating. I am mostly working outside of LingQ and struggling to get to where SnoLeopard was in Russian when s/he started with LingQ.
IMHO, this is the ideal way to use LingQ. After the initial 4 years of high school or 2 years of university introductory courses. I minored in Spanish in college and it was a real struggle to get beyond the Intermediate mid level that I was stuck in. If LingQ had existed in the 90ās, I have no doubt things would have been different.
Sno, any recommendations for books in the low / mid Intermediate range in Russian? Ń.Šµ. Š»ŠµŠ³ŃŠµ ŃŠµŠ¼ ŠŠ°ŃŃŠø ŠŠ¾ŃŃŠµŃā¦ ŃŠæŠ°ŃŠøŠ±Š¾)
I would also like to take the Š¢Š ŠŠ test. Have read through some material for the Š¢Š ŠŠ I and it seems fairly easy. But I can only write block lettersā¦
A most detailed description of your experience with LingQ. I even read it too the end!
I remember the day my aunt showed me a letter she received from family in Germany. I read it at once. She was astounished because she studies german from several years and had difficult on reading, and I was just a year only reading at lingq.
I recently took a formal course conducted by a reputed private language school in Dortmund, Germany. It is also an official test center and also prepares foreign students to pass an official test and be eligible for their studies and citizenship requirements.
I scored 100% in reading and 80% in writing aimed at the B1 level and the teacher complimented me for writing good essays in the official exams as compared to the other 15 students in the class.
All of this with zero preparation, just winging it.
By Luck, I got a chance to read test samples for reading aimed at the C1 level. At my current statistics, I could understand them with 80% understanding. Reading passages were directly taken from an academic journal, so to speak. I think if I reach 6 million words read I should not have any problems securing a C1 level in reading in the official exam under timed conditions. At least for the German language.
The biggest surprise for me was how minimally I had used Anki for vocabulary memorization/acquisition perhaps a couple of hundred sentences at best.
LingQ definitely played a great role in achieving a 100% score in reading.
I honestly think that 7-10 year thing is probably accurate. Iāve been watching lots of Disney/Pixar movies lately, and although theyāre for kids, theyāre not for beginners. Same with the Harry Potter movies and audiobooks. This is content for native kids, it isnāt dumbed down (although they donāt translate the slang into slang which makes it easier).
I kinda start to feel like Iām getting fluent if I spend too much time watching that kind of stuff, same with YouTube videos from people who speak clearly and donāt use difficult vocab/sentence structures. Then I go and try watching a soccer match with TL commentary and I can barely pick out half sentences, let alone understand whatās being said. Itās taken me many hours (probably 1500-2000) of listening to understand what I can understand, yet Iām still unable to understand more than about 25% of sports commentary, and itās the same with native shows/movies. This language learning business is definitely a very long term project, haha.
Agreed it did not happen overnight even for natives. I recently took a German language course in a private language school in Germany for the sake of having experience. Our teacher told us the kind of speaking fluency you were witnessing from her it did not occur overnight. She was 29 years old, born In Germany, studied it until high school, studied German language as a degree now she was teaching it.
I would say Iām at about that level of comprehension as you have stated. The things I miss in speech are extremely mashed/fast sentences with 5-10 words
(this is hit or miss depending if I know all the words or not, but at times I will know all the words and still miss half of it)
If I donāt know the words in something I will miss it.
Loud background music will make things a lot harder.
The weird part the I see though is you have listened for 1500-2000 hours? Is this mostly passive? I have recorded everything Iāve listen too in lingq and I only have 150 hours (I donāt count dead time so if something is overtly hard I minus that from the time or if there is a chase scene I donāt count that) basically I count most tv show episodes for 80% of the time I watch them so a 20 minute episode would be 15/16 minutes (the amount that they talk is another thing I consider) so maybe Iām at about 250 hours on like a normal persons scale, but your hours are incredible. My main problem I see is acquiring sound files for all the words I know (knowing how they are said in real speech) like podemos = said as poā emoāh with the d basically silent and no s etc. Then it just comes down to how many words, structures, and sayings I know which take forever to learn lol there are ridiculous amounts of ways to express the same thing.
I can hear a lot of the words etc but with fast spanish if the meaning doesnt immediately pop in your head then it gets skipped over this is in contrast with slow spanish. So I would say it goes from noise > hear the sounds > the sounds give meaning > hear the sounds and get meaning with background noise > and maybe a terrible quality phone conversation is the hardest (in english it would one of those you have to ask what at least 5 times) these are like the levels of listening (vocab can reset any of these down to 0 if not all words are known etc)
I agree with the sports casting (ufc in Spanish besides obvious stuff is pretty out of reach for me. I guess it would also help to know all the vocab which I am currently too lazy to look up atm but still background noise + excited speed from commentators + having to follow visually what is happening while listening to it etc.
Thanks for the links! Nice resources. I watched the French one until the end and had a few good laughs
I saw asadās numbers and was surprised too, to some extent (mostly that I hadnāt seen that many hours recorded by anyone On Lingq, except maybe one person). Asad is in Germany though, I believe, so he probably has lots of opportunity to watch and hear a lot of things and I think heās mentioned he watches hours and hours of German TV.
Iām also surprised at the low number of hours you have. Iām at 350 or so hours for reference at 25,000 āknownā German words. Itās actually probably quite a bit higher as I have two German TV channels and so Iām watching at least a half hour to a few hours a day on top of whatever listening Iām doing. I do sometimes record the hours/minutes if Iām fully attentive. So Iām probably well over 400 hours. I try to listen whenever I can, which is usually while doing chores (cleaning dishes, cleaning litter, feeding cats/rabbitsāthings that donāt require decision making). Or listening while driving. Usually not much where Iām 100% focused on listening (Iād probably fall asleep).
In any event, if youāre comfortable where your at (still improving listening) then I might not worry about it, but Iām guessing a lot more listening may help (if you can fit it in). Which is always the trouble, finding time.
You have a lot of words read though, compared to myself so I think that can help tremendously. I know people say you have to listen to get better at listening, which I agree, but I also think it makes sense that if you can read and understand the words quickerā¦āspeed comprehensionā, then that would help with listening too, as you know the words better and quicker.
I started using LingQ back in January 2017 after trying so many other methods to learn German. Nothing seemed to work until I stumbled upon a Steve Kaufmann video one day that changed everything. One problem, more than anything, was the cost of using LingQ. However, I used the free features and eventually ended up winning one of the LingQ challenges which allowed me free premium access for 90 days.
Within 90 days, I understood more German than ever. I quickly reached a B1 level and eventually transitioned to B2. After that experience with German, my vigor did not stop for language learning! I later learned six other languages, mostly through LingQ, in addition to regularly meeting with tutors.
Now, I am a C1-C2 level German speaker, and I am studying law in a German university (in German). These languages, learned through LingQ, have already opened up so many doors for me, becoming an integral part of my life. I know think, live, and dream among a plurality of languages, many of which I would have never though about learning previously. The comprehensive input method really works, and LingQ simplifies the whole process. I will always be grateful for Steve Kaufmann, the LingQ team, and the volunteers who have contributed to make these lessons.
^^
Well, I read the other posts and felt like I donĀ“t have anything to add.
Hi all,
compared to the other āsuccessā stories with AudioReader software (LingQ/ReadLang), SRS (Anki, Memrise) and the input-oriented method , my results in Brazilian Portuguese are āmixedā.
I started with Br. Portuguese on LingQ from scratch in spring 2020 and Iāve invested 1300-1500 hours in Portuguese so far.
I can understand
- podcasts for intermediate learners such as Revisteen (for teenagers), Fala Gringo, etc.
- non fiction text / audiobooks, e.g. āHistĆ³ria da riqueza no Brasil [History of Wealth in Brazil]ā (https://www.audible.de/pd/Historia-da-riqueza-no-Brasil-History-of-Wealth-in-Brazil-Hoerbuch/B09W9Y71F1?ref=a_library_t_c5_libItem_&pf_rd_p=86298143-6994-4968-8277-2e2391d86bbd&pf_rd_r=5RT5SQ9DHNDSXN0NKS8X#) unassisted
- the news of BBC Brasil
- more academically oriented talks such as these on (international) āsecurity policyā by Heni Ozi Cukier: Professor HOC - YouTube
without any problems.
However, I still struggle āa lotā with Netflix shows, YT vids, etc. where a lot of everyday language is used. And my speaking / writing abilities are completely underdeveloped because I wanted to test a pure āinput-oriented approachā.
From a language learning and teaching perspective, Iāve come to the conclusion that a āpureā input-oriented method in itself is not convincing because the level of intensity / engagement with the L2 is far too low. And itās also not a good idea to postpone more intense speaking and writing activities for more than 1000 hours of input.
Instead, itās important to increase the level of intensity and discomfort as early as possible by speaking / writing / āactiveā recall activities using authentic material and getting early feedback by native speakers. In short, the idea based on deliberate practice is :
ādo more intense / uncomfortable / harder things with less using appropriate feedback mechanismsā.
I compare this to my teenager years when I wanted to become a pro basketball player.
I could run 10 km at a slow pace without any problems. And one day, I ran even more than 40 km on a beach in France - just for fun.
However, for an intense basketball game at a higher level, simply running more is useless. Instead, you need to run less and focus more on uncomfortable exercises like regular short sprints, hill sprints, high-intensity interval training, explosive jumps, etc. - at least if you really want to be well conditioned for high pressure basketball games. Otherwise, youāll collapse within minutes!
My thesis is that itās the same in SLA: just listening / reading more and more (being comfortable) is like jogging at a slow pace and then hoping that youāll survive a highly intense basketball game (well: you wonāt!).
That is, itās probably better (at least if a high level of fluency and / or literacy is your L2 goal) not simply to increase the exposure time (in the sense of a āmass immersion approachā), but to increase the level of L2 intensity (as early as possible).
IMO, thatās why Will Hartās approach that Michilini presented here a few weeks ago (see: https://www.lingq.com/en/community/forum/open-forum/full-interview-this-medical-st) is successful for reaching a high level of fluency in Mandarin in a relatively short amount of time: itās intense deliberate practice!
Personally, I still think that āultra-reading while listeningā (URL) is the most time-efficient input-oriented method there is , but Iād couple it with such an intense deliberate practice - and maybe start with the latter first before switching to URL.
Considering what I wrote above about the relation between āexposure (time)ā and āintensityā, I wonder - at least if you want to study at a university in Germany and/or work as a knowledge worker in a German company - if it would not be a better use of your time to focus much more on speaking and writing.
Interesting post
Some thoughts:
-Even if doing hard and uncomfortable things was better, the biggest problem most people have is being consistent. When I correct my students, write down corrections and turn them into flashcards, they usually donĀ“t touch them and tell me they were busy when we start our next lesson. When students start getting compelling comprehensible input (LingQ, graded readers etc.), they invest more time more regularly, simply because itĀ“s less of a pain the neck.
-Getting input is easier to do while doing chores, exercising, getting groceries, going for a walk etc.
IĀ“d argue that unless weĀ“re talking about highly motivated people with a lot of time on their hands, you almost automaticcaly end up with an input-heavy approach. If I remember the post you mentioned correctly, even the author said sth. like āHow many people actually do this?ā
IĀ“ve used deliberate practice to work on my Englis pronunciation (learning the IPA, learning about pronunciation, usually monitoring my pronunciation while speaking, feedback from natives etc.) but it was a lot of workā¦ probably not good advice unless youĀ“re aiming (unnecessarily?) high.
Before (2013):
After (2022):
Whatever you did it worked. The first video you sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger. The second video you sound like a university educated Euro-dude who has been in Canada/US for several years.
Itās not like we can make an unbiased comparison when he has his gorgeous German mug splattered all over the second video.
Iām definitely fluent in Spanish. I have more than a decade and a half since I first learned it. I can understand any given book and guess the meaning of words from context with almost 100% precision every time. I can think in Spanish. I can tell jokes in Spanish. I get most humor: I can understand standup comedy. I have an almost Mexican accent. I can understand all youtube channels. I think Iām probably functionally equivalent to a Mexican 9th grader.
BUTā¦ I canāt completely understand everything in every movie and canāt completely understand every single speaker in netflix shows (e.g. ecuadorian speakers) even though if I met the same person in real life I would have no trouble understanding them and them understanding me on any topic. I do, however, understand 90% of what is said even in the case where I miss some things. Otherwise if itās e.g. a Mexican I understand them completely close to 100% all the time.
So what gives?
I think once you reach an acceptable level of fluency and you feel fluent then you stop pushing for more vocab and more exposure outside your already large comfort zone.
Thereās also the thing that even in native English speakers, when hit with someone who speaks a different dialect of English (e.g. Welsh or South African in my case) it is sometimes hard to follow just because they are far enough off of what you are used to.
Anyhow, yes, it is not really possible to get to native level in a single year (of a couple hours a day). Though it is very possible to get to low intermediate in a year.