There is a way to restore a streak! Log in the next day (at least on the phone app) and it will offer for you to pay in coins to repair your streak.
It’s a bit buggy, sometimes it tells me I don’t have enough coins to repair my streak despite that I do, but when I check back later it did actually repair it.
There will always, eventually, be something that disrupts your streak, even if it’s just a power outage. I wouldn’t quit using the site just due to that.
I’m intrigued by your comment. Why do you think LingQ is not suitable for learning languages? And what do you use instead?
Why on earth care about the streak in the first place?
You did lose the streak, but you want LingQ to fix, as in falsifying, some digital numbers so your streak, which you did indeed break, even while not on purpose, says something that isn’t accurate? Otherwise you feel you aren’t motivated?
Your motivation should be to learn the language and get good at it, not to have numbers for you or other people to look at that look good, to the point of wanting to falsify them even. Why on earth would it matter whether someone had a 10 year unbroken daily streak or had studied for 10 years, but dropped a day of study each year? It would matter how good they were at the language.
If you want to use numbers to motivate yourself, there are also plenty of other metrics on LingQ. The known words, words read, hours listened, words of writing and so on are great motivators and better indicators of progress than the streak. If I were to look at someone’s stats and get a feeling of how well they had done, I’d much rather look at that than the streak, which obviously can be broken at any time if someone falls ill, gets injured or is offline for a day.
My condolences on the experience, and also on the fact that you also get to endure negative and even insulting comments from posters who do not understand human behavior & motivation & emotion very well.
I’m curious, which remarks were insulting?
I totally agree with you, with one exception – I never had any intention of “falsifying” the streak. I was simply hoping the system would be smarter and allow you to regain your streak through extra work, like Duolingo does. But the way LingQ has set it up, the streak is basically useless for me now, and it will no longer be a motivator. As you said, being able to keep a streak for 10 years and then losing it all because you were off for just two days is a completely absurd system.
The day streak should never be the main motivation for learning. The true reason you are learning the language is what motivates you. I have long streaks but I don’t pay any mind to them. The streak just helps maintain consistency so the person keeps doing something in the target language even if it’s small. Some users treat the streak like a job and will ultimately become unmotivated in the language. In the beginning I lost a 46 day streak for Tagalog because I didn’t understand how the streak repair work. But it’s not a big deal. Now I’m at 495 days because the language and culture itself has become immersed in my lifestyle. LingQ only gives you up to 24 hours to repair. I suppose they won’t make exceptions. I’m assuming that they feel the streaks aren’t that important.
@Leif Goodwin
I probably didn’t express myself clearly. I should have said: not suitable for learning languages from scratch.
What I use instead of LingQ: Preferably Assimil, if available for the language in question. Otherwise, I use conventional textbooks with CDs, mp3s, etc.
I am currently learning Greek and Turkish. Once I have reached a certain level in these languages, I will definitely use LingQ as a supplement. But I feel that I’m not there yet.
As I understand the meaning of a streak, it is the number of days in a row you have done an x amount using the system. To me that means the options to “repair” a streak are basically falsifying it. If you would like to have the streak mean something else, as in it meaning you were active over a time period where you did something an x% of the days, maybe 97-99% of the days, that’s fine, it’s just not how I would have understood the term.
I’m sorry you lost your streak. Short of a feature change, this will likely happen to most long-term users. I have a 474-day streak in German, and at some point it’s going to break, for whatever reason. When that time comes, I’m going to have to play a psychological trick on myself not to let it demotivate me. What comes to mind at the moment is, I will tell myself that I had a perfect streak for “Phase 1”; now I want to beat that streak for “Phase 2”. I will also probably make a mental note of how far I advanced in my German skills during Phase 1 and seek to beat that degree of skill advancement in Phase 2. Things like that, so a sense of loss is itself used to motivate a future, greater win. I think athletes need to play mental games like this to stay motivated when they lose.
I lost a similar streak because I took a wonderful three day hiking trip and climbed a 13,500 ft mountain. It was planned and we could not even call our wives. Every once in a while the app says I am good, but the next morning I lose my streak and it costs me 5K coins. Not my fault, I say, but if I was really paying attention, it probably was. Streaks are for you and an app helps you. I am am glad you are healthly to start a new streak and I hope you beat your last streak.
For those who are annoyed, seeing the streak visual elements and want to remove them. You can use uBlock Origin → Create custom filter then click on the element to remove those elements.
Thanks. Why do you think LingQ is unsuitable for absolute beginners? And what level should someone be when they start LingQ?
I suspect I agree with you and I bet I can guess what you will say!
@Leif Goodwin
Of course, it’s also possible to learn a language from scratch with LingQ. Sort of. But it’s quite frustrating because almost nothing gets explained. (Contrary to the mainstream opinion, I believe that grammar is important. You don’t have to memorize all the forms, but you should at least be able to recognize them.) At the beginning, it’s more of a guessing game than a learning method, even though you can at least look up vocabulary. In my opinion, this method is only useful if you know how the language works and if you have a certain basic vocabulary.
But what level? Hard to say. I’d say at least A2 (the really adventurous could try upper A1). But everyone would have to try it out for themselves to see when using LingQ becomes enjoyable. That depends on various factors. Personally, I would find it annoying, for example, to have to click on 75% of the words in a new text to find out what they mean. Someone else might not mind that so much. They could start using LingQ earlier than I usually do. However, the person in question should still have a basic understanding of how the language works.
Thanks. What you say makes sense, and I don’t disagree. It certainly chimes with my experience. I also believe grammar is important.
As a beginner in German, several years ago, I needed curated material, that gradually added new words and grammar, and repeated them throughout subsequent lessons. The material in LingQ, for German, does not satisfy those requirements. It is a hotchpotch. I’m sure it wasn’t created by experienced language teachers. I have previously followed traditional language courses in French and Welsh, which were far more effective, contrary to what the hard sell marketing techniques for LingQ would claim.
Why do you care about the “streak”? That’s a “duolingo thing”. I would rather get rid of that feature. What statistics are more important.
I’ve been following real polyglots on YouTube for some time now, and it taught me one thing: there is no single best method. They each have developed their own method by combining various practices because “it works for them”. Anki/no-Anki, speak-from-day-1/acquire-vocab-first, study-every-day/study1-lang.-per-day, etc, etc…
Most of them even adapt/change methods when they start learning a new language.
SO, why on earth does it bother so many people in this thread that this particular user likes streaks, because it works for him, and because it helps him staying motivated?
Btw, my streak is 236 days long and I’d hate seeing it reset for reasons out of my control.
I think some people develop an unhealthy emotional attachment to their streak. It happens on doulingo as well. I read posts on reddit where people were seriously sad about a lost streak.
A badge is worthless if it does not reflect an actual achievement. The moment a streak can be repaired it loses it’s meaning. Doulingos streaks are worthless. You can slack multiple days and still keep your streak if you have enough streak freezes. You can have a 1000 day streak and still be A1.
Yup. Also when someone or new tutor asks me how is my Language learning going, I never tell them about my streaks. I will tell them about actual language goals that I have completed or yet to achieve. Those are more meaningful. Example I tell them I have completed reading these books in French and I am current reading this new book and I tell them I have yet to practice speaking.
If it is a tutor, they will carry on with testing me anyway… to assess my real level, lol. Even telling them I have read this list of book don’t mean much to them but it is more useful than streak.
I used to stress a lot about keeping a perfect streak in anything. I still remember smashing my keyboard when my character died for the first time in a game. I wanted zero deaths! Sounds silly now, but that’s how perfectionism works.
These days, I don’t break my stuff anymore. Mostly because I’m just too tired of doing that. I’ve had so many failures in my life that one more isn’t enough to stop me from moving forward.
