Exactly, any member who would upload content like this would get criticized like there was no tomorrow, and nowadays it’s even possible to charge points for lessons (like the provider of the PDQ courses does).
If they just had edited out all the fluff and kept just the pure dialogue, everything would be fine.
Side note - is the price tag anywhere different than if you buy a PDQ course outside LingQ?
It does seem rather unfortunate that LingQ have launched their partnership with Linguaphone by uploading PDQ. As Imyirtseshem and jeff_lingvist have pointed out, the PDQ courses are nothing at all like the older generation of Linguaphone!
Having said this, I still stand by my opinion that PDQ is not entirely bad for complete square-one beginners who are starting out in their first foreign language.(I myself used a VHS-video based version of PDQ when I was first starting in Italian.)
BTW
If anyone wants to get a feel of what the older (and vastly better) Linguaphone courses are like, they can go to Youtube and check out the reviews of them there by Prof Arguelles.
I think this is an interesting discussion. I will definitely invite the people at Linguaphone to read this thread and comment next week. I would like to understand the pedagogical principles behind these courses.
I suggest you also look at the Notes provided for each of the free lessons in order to be aware of the full range of resources provided with each lesson.
I am hoping to also hear from people here at LingQ who are less expert in language learning than those who have commented so far. As an experienced language learner, I am in agreement with many of the comments here. As should be obvious from what I say about language learning, in my book, on my blog and on my videos, I would not use these courses. However, there must be a demand for these kinds of courses, or Linguaphone and others would not produce them.
You and I may not represent the majority of language learners. I don’t know. So let’s wait to hear from Linguaphone, from inexperienced language learners and let’s continue this discussion.
Let’s see, as well, if we can get some of the old Lingaphone courses at LingQ as well. In any case, courses in the Store are not presented as better, just an alternative to what we already have. I think the vast majority of our established users will prefer our existing courses for a variety of reasons.
However, the more traditional courses provided by established publishers may bring in a new kind of learner to LingQ, one who is intimidated by LingQ, but who may feel more comfortable exploring LingQ after using these materials. We would also hope that the vendors who sell their material at LingQ may talk about LingQ to their own user base, and thereby spread the word.
Could someone please explain to me the British humour in the 1st PDQ Spanish lesson? Because I didn’t see it at all. I saw a lesson which was inferior to most LingQ free content.
I don’t wish to be mindlessly negative, but erm…LingQ lessons are generally better than this.
There might be a demand of these kind of courses elsewhere, obviously, but I don’t get it here. Most of the lessons that can be found in the library are better than this courses. So why do we need the same (obviously worse) that we already have for free, but this time, paying?
Of course there is a demand of this kind of courses, but the philosophy of this courses, in my opinion, doesn’t match with the language learning philosophy of LingQ. I don’t have statistics and it’s too early to assess this, but I don’t see either how this will atract more users to LingQ. The users of these vendors will use their products in their own website, I don’t see them coming to LingQ because you can find the same you get in their web in another web. I don’t know, time will tell.
However, even though I believe you when you say that you don’t consider them better and “tecnically” are not presented as better. But it looks like they are. There are 2 categories in the library, the LingQ Store (which just for having the name on it, LingQ, is already kind of official) which is paying premium member (everywhere the premium paying options are considered the best ones), and then there’s the 2nd category, the free stuff, the content that in any other place on the Internet is used to atract users to buy the premium content.
That’s the reality, that’s how the world works on the Internet. Event at LingQ, you have the free accounts, with which you can use the system and all the lessons in the library, but obviously what you really want is people who arrives at LingQ using a free account to convert to a paying account (Basic, Plus or Premium). That’s the real goal of the free account, let people try the system hoping they will convert to paying members. The same applies to the library and this LingQ Store paying content. (not because that’s what you want, but because that’s what it looks like)
Alsuvi, is your concern that people will choose this paying content rather than the free content in our library?
Even if that is so for some people, do you then think that they will not then try some of the free content as well?
I can understand that many people do not agree with the style of theses lessons. I do not understand the opposition to having them available for people who want them.
I’m not worried about what people will choose. People is free to choose whatever they want even though to me the quality difference is obvious. What annoys me is that these lessons are considered better than the other, when indeed, I consider they are far worse than most of the content you can find in the library, at least in the Spanish one.
When you offer two kind of services, one for free and the other payed, it is obvious that you consider the payed service better, that’s the reason why you should have to pay for it. THAT’S what really bothers me, that LingQ considers this awful content better! Maybe you don’t consider it better, but it looks like you do. And that’s what any newbie arriving at LingQ will think. Otherwise, why should this be paying content if it’s not better than the free content?
I asked my wife Carmen to listen to the Linguaphone Spanish material, including the attached audio file. Then I asked her to listen to the recently created course Spanish for Absolute Beginners, and a few episodes of Who is She Spain’s version created by Alsuvi or LIDE. I am not going to tell you her reaction at this point. I am going to ask a few other non LingQ users I know to do the same. I will come back with a summary of their views. I do not want to influence the discussion in any way at this point. But it is an interesting discussion, for sure.
It would be interesting if some of you members do the same with people who would not ordinarily use LingQ, friends and family members, in any of the languages offered. Tell us what they say.
I
I hope that all the Spanish learners on LingQ will be able to find the excellent lessons from IDEL in the library. Before they spend money on other lessons…
You can use IDEL’s for free!!
j;-)
I’m the main provider in the Spanish library and of course all this affects me, but when I say that I consider the Linguaphone lessons worse than most of the content in the library, I’m not just talking about my lessons, but in general. In my opinion, even some of the lessons I consider very poor lessons in Spanish or English are far better than Linguaphone ones (at least the first one, which is the only one I’ve listened to).
Just for the record, Whos is She is not a collection created by me. I just did the Spain’s version of this famous story.
I didn’t see there was a full audio, but anyway it’s useless at LingQ. The key point of this method is to have the audio and the transcript (that’s the reason why the system doesn’t let you creat a lesson without the transcript). So if there is audio not transcribed, it’s useless to the system and it shouldn’t be considered part of the lesson.
Couldn’t some of this problem be “solved” by changing the wording?
Let’s not call it “premium content”. Maybe something like “commercial content” would be better.
Then to balance that out, you need to change “Member Created” to something like “Content created especially for LingQ” That wording would attract me if I were a newcomer.
I was thinking the same thing: I do kind of wonder whether some of the folks here who have been most hostile towards the new courses are motivated (at least in part) by a fear that future beginners at LingQ might use these commercial courses rather than their own lessons…?
In my opinion it doesn’t seen very reasonable to review an entire course on the basis of just the opening lesson!
That being said, I would agree that PDQ is clearly not the best Linguaphone, and I would look forward to seeing some of their classic courses too. (And Assimil courses as well - if that’s possible!)
I don’t have any problem with the actual dialogues - after all, they may very well give the learner a chunk of colloquial language as well as a good grasp of that dreaded thing known as “grammar” - it’s the mere format that I find annoying. So much teaching language, the trade mark (I believe the name “Linguaphone” itself equals some kind of quality for the average language learning Joe) and finally the price tag.
How long before Rosetta Stone “lessons” get uploaded…?
Rank said: “… I was thinking the same thing: I do kind of wonder whether some of the folks here who have been most hostile towards the new courses are motivated (at least in part) by a fear that future beginners at LingQ might use these commercial courses rather than their own lessons…?”
Yeah, sure, the folks here are very hostile towards this wonderful new courses because of that. I’m really frightened. I was planning on finishing paying my mortgage this year with the insanely huge amount of points I’m getting from LingQ with my lessons and now my plans will be ruined. You hit the nail on the head. You got me, this is exactly the point of all this discussion!
Wow, Albert. Tell us how you really feel.
@ Rank
I am not a content provider, I just was surprised at the lessons. I do believe, as others pointed out, that if it were a free content provider, the lessons would have been quickly deleted from the library.
My two cents.
I just don’t see how new members are going to prefer these lessons, or even find them for that matter. On top of that, I can’t see them paying $29.99 to find out how good they are. I understood that LingQ was having enough trouble convincing new members to pay $10 for a membership.
I thought the first lesson was quite disappointing. So, so, so basic. Even if I were a complete beginner, I’d much rather at least have sentences, not just: “Sir? A coffee, please. A coffee.” or “Hotel XYZ, please. Hotel XYZ? Yes, Hotel XYZ.”
In my opinion, it is fair the LingQ effort to grow using commercial courses. But I think they are careless in the form which they released. I mean, it is clear which they don’t made any kind of tests previously, causing a shock among their customers, because the quality of pay does not make sense if we think in Steve’s method.
How he can explain about “learner attitude” if LingQ released one content which is completely out of date (at least for most part of us)?
There are many tools which we will don’t find out (lingQing words, pace of learning, a ton of contents and fellows which really want to learn).
I’m looking forward to follow the future posts, and the complains of PDQ.
Steve, I’m sure wife is a wonderful woman. Whether she likes Linguaphone PDQ or not, we won’t hold it against her. 
My view on Linguaphone PDQ: if noobs want to buy it, then let them be noobs. Ask Linguaphone to add their old courses!!! (I know I’ll be importing them…)
I have a lot of critical things to say about just about all commercially available language courses. I don’t like Pimsleur because I don’t like English on my recordings, and I don’t like to be asked to answer questions. I don’t like Assimil because they don’t provide a glossary per lesson, but instead give a full translation and a lot of notes, which I don’t use. I don’t like Michel Thomas because I don’t like listening to students struggle along with Michel Thomas in the language they are learning. I don’t like the beginner Living Language courses with a lot of disjointed phrases. I open a Teach Yourself Czech book and in lesson one they tell me about the use of the comma in Czech, as if this is something I need to know at the beginning and have the slightest chance to remember.
I don’t like the amount of English in these Linguaphone courses. I don’t like the attempt to get the learner to complete the words. I would not do it. I do not think that any of the words introduced in any lesson can be mastered. Mostly they will be forgotten, no matter what the course tries to make us do. Eventually, and in due course, if we read and listen enough and encounter them again and again, they will stick.
I do not like to do “shadowing” like Professor Arguelles. I don’t do SRS systems like Anki. On the other hand, I like to review my flash cards when I am studying a lesson, and occasionally using roots, suffixes, and Tags, when I feel like it, and not when pushed by a system.
I love the kinds of courses created by our members at LingQ, for listening, reading and the gradual absorption of the language. I started with these in Czech and now I am loving my Czech learning although I have not spoken nor repeated, nor shadowed, any words, and have not answered any questions, let along speak with a tutor.
After 3 months I am reading and listening to The Good Soldier Svejk, and reading about Czech history in Czech, and following the news in Czech. This would not be possible with any commercial product.
This is how I do things. I even tell people repeatedly on my youtube videos and elsewhere that I do this, and I advise people to try it my way because I think it works.
But in the end this is only me. Other people learn differently. Some people like Assimil, Pimsleur, Michel Thomas, Anki, “shadowing” and even Rosetta Stone and Linguaphone PDQ. I think we need to be a little tolerant and wait to see what happens.
We have approached a number of commercial publishers and so far Linguaphone has been the most cooperative. I really appreciate that. I hope that we can grow from the PDQ series to their older series. It will be up to each learner to decide what he/she wants.
We can all comment and provide our opinions but the decision is up to the individual.
As for the PDQ lessons in the Store, the text is only in the target language. It may be possible to limit the audio to just the target language. However, it is not clear that the kind of learner who will buy these lessons wants that. So let’s wait and see.