I’m trying to read and listen to the audiobook at the same time. However, it’s tough because there are so many blue words that I have to look up which makes me have to keep pausing the book. I bet if there weren’t so many blue words to slow you down one would go through a book super fast!
7 Likes
yeah I find it’s hard. I sometimes can do it if there are not too many blue words. otherwise sometimes I read a little before, then read again with audio. I would like to know what others do. another thing I have considered doing (but havent really done) is read along in the audio-only play mode, trying to tolerate ambiguity. (Otherwise Lingq will just convert all those blues to known faster than I can link them.)
2 Likes
Listening and reading along with an audio book or Text to speech is truly the secret sauce! Keep going even if all those words are blue, eventually they don’t show up as much… I am now in the habit of using LingQ’s TTS function if I don’t have a real voiced audio since it makes reading so much faster (and gets in those hours and hours of necessary listening practice).
If you using LingQ on PC I highly highly recommend getting a programmable multi button mouse (I use a Logitech G600). I’m not a fan that LingQ doesn’t let you remap the key bindings, but if you use a programmable mouse it’s super quick to make and grade LingQs 1-4, pause media either playing outside or inside of LingQ, page to the next unknown word and turn the page quickly.
3 Likes
I would suggest going back (or do it first) and read the lesson and the audio completely without stopping. Perhaps after you work out all the blue words and review the yellow words as you’ve been doing. For a LingQ size lesson, this is only 12-15 more minutes depending on speed off the audio so it’s not much added time AND I think it could help push your comprehension speed…or at least tax it in a way that it has to adjust…but this would be more like listening to a native speak at normal speed. Or simply do the reading/listening a 2nd time without pausing just to reinforce the visual of the words to the sounds your seeing.
You can change the automatic blue words to known in the settings so it won’t move them over unless you tell it to.
I know this! But when reading most of the time I do like them to move to known automatically. There are a lot of cognates I dont need to look up. But at the same time too fast to read along with the audiobook-- I guess it just depends on the specific material. I can change it back and forth but I’m lazy, haha
1 Like
Maybe not the “best” option, but what I have been doing (I am still Beginner 2 in Italian) is for part of my lesson time I set an audio playing on a (for me) difficult book. I listen while I add all the blue words to my LingQs- and as one of the books I am working on is advanced 2 it is A LOT- when the audio finishes I am done with that section for the day whether I “read” the entire section or not. I will repeat the process until I have “read” the entire section, then do one more read through where I am reading along with the audio.
After completing the audio on the section each time, I do at least one of the quizzes to help with the comprehension of the words.
BEFORE I do whichever book I am doing that day (I am currently doing 3- 2 at intermediate 1 and the one at advanced 2), I do at least 1 lesson that is at my level, I also have 3 different courses that I am working on and I do at least one lesson from them and do 1 review lesson quiz, and all of the review due quizzes for that lesson.
I also replay my audio from my lessons while I am doing other things to help with my listening comprehension. Do I understand 100% of what I hear? NO, but I am noticing that I am understanding more and more as I keep following this- and my speaking is improving.
I will add that I moved to Italy this year to marry my Italian husband, and I am living mostly immersed in the language so LingQ is NOT my only resource for learning, but after finding LingQ I have noticed big jumps in my vocabulary compared with before I found it.
2 Likes
I used Autohotkey for a while to automate and remap keys. It is powerful, but has a bit of a learning curve. A google search for “windows macros” will show plenty of other tools to help automate.
2 Likes
For simultaneous listening + reading I usually do it like that:
- Choose content that doesn’t have TOO many unknown words (that’s new words + lingqs). For me that’s around 20-30% as at my stage I still mark most of the unknown words as known. As I keep getting closer to my actual vocabulary level, which is probably around 8000 words, that percentage keeps going down. I think that around 10% of unknown words will be a perfect number since that’s only a couple of words per paragraph that I haven’t encountered before.
That’s great because it makes going through paragraphs much smoother. A lot of the vocabulary you’ll recognize or understand right away, and you’ll get maybe a few actually unknown words per paragraph. The most annoying thing during listening is having to stop, so if 10% is too much I’d go even lower.
Keep in mind though that’s just for non-fiction. Fiction typically uses a lot more varied and descriptive language (more % unique words, more adjectives and adverbs). For me personally it’s a huge drag to go through a piece of fiction with too many unknown words and I would prefer the number of unknown words here to be at <5%. That’s the main reason I still stay away from fiction, as I’m only limited to boring graded readers or books that are too hard for now.
-
I listen to a couple of paragraphs, then stop and review any unknown words. No solid rule here how often to stop, do it when it feels like a good moment to stop. I’m fine with not understanding every detail as long as I get the gist, but every 1-3 paragraphs I’ll go stop and check whatever I didn’t understand before I continue listening.
-
Not completely related but now that I think about it it’s pretty useful for the #2. I keep my “turning pages moves words to known” setting turned off. So the words are only moved to known if I do it manually or complete the entire lesson. That keeps many words blue even if you recognized them and helps you visually to choose when to pause and review previous words (because maybe a “tougher” piece of text is right ahead). Most importantly you can move through the lesson and even do longer stretches of listening without having to check all the new words before you turn the page.
1 Like
So I finally sat down and got Autohotkey working and oh Thank You! Thank You! Thank you!
This is what I’ve been looking for, my poor right wrist thanks you, I can now use LingQ one handed (like who decided to have the “k” key all the way over???)
1 Like
Yes, there is a get-around if you do a little bit of preparation beforehand. Keep aside a few hours in a day just for creating LingQs and finish creating them all the way to the end of the book. Then go under your profile and manually set the reading countdown to zero. This way your reading stats will start afresh. So go back to the first lesson and then start doing L-R. If you do not remember the meaning of a word while doing L-R you can simply click on the word for quick access. It is way better than doing three things simultaneously and it disrupts the flow of reading. A little bit of preparation in advance goes a long way at least that’s how I do L-R in German.
5 Likes
You are welcome! It really is an amazing tool. And the support forums are terrific.
1 Like
I do like this idea, and this way your overall “LingQ quality”, if that is a term, can be a lot higher than mine :).