I have put loads of new material into the Icelandic library now, but I will be taking a break for at least a few months from adding any significant amount of material to the library.
It seems to me, by looking at which lessons have been opened the most, that by far the most users who are using Icelandic are at the very beginner stages. I hope as many of you as possible will stay consistent and try to put in a little work every day and not give up. Don’t be afraid to try material that seems a little too hard, at least a little bit, because it will challenge you. You can always go back to easy material again when you get too tired.
I think if you really want it and really have the discipline, you can read most of the beginner 1 and 2 material in the library and then move on the the intermediate material. You need loads and loads of reading and listening at that level to get good. More is more in those regards and it may take years. Your goal should be to read enough beginner material to be able to move to intermediate material and then to advanced material. Don’t underestimate the amount of time and effort this will take and stick with it.
If you live in Iceland, don’t hesitate to go to libraries and pick up children’s books to read. If you are very much a beginner still, just get books with lots of pictures. Watch some youtube videos of children’s material as well. Attend events where Icelandic is being practiced. They have some at the libraries and in other places.
If you are a more advance Icelandic learner, there is a lot more material in the library now for intermediate and advanced learners. Go for it!
I have already translated both Steve’s book the Linguist and the French novel The little prince and next year I hope to go over the proofreader’s work and read them and add them to the library as well, but for now I really, really need a break from this. I hope my work will be useful to all of you.
Great job! Beautiful to see what you’ve done with Icelandic over the years. One can only hope to find more people for other languages as invested in making language learning accessible for their language.
Well, not really, it depends on the country, because not all countries agree to the same concept, or the same amount of years. . So, it’s always better to check the law in general, copyright is a tricky beast!
I am pretty sure each translator, or the publisher who paid them, owns the rights to the translation of each book or work. There are translations in Icelandic of that book already, but I’m pretty sure none of them are public domain and I don’t think any of them are publicly accessible in digital text form.
Is it time for Icelandic to reach supported language status?
I was looking up the new languages on LingQ today when I noticed that Icelandic was still in beta/incubation status. This is weird, because @rokkvi as we all know has been working diligently to make Icelandic one of the most supported languages on this site.
The requirements for a language to reach the status of supported is to have 5 hours each of intermediate and advanced material. As well as 2 hours of beginner material.
Icelandic already surpasses these thresholds significantly.
Söguyjan 1520-1900 is roughly 4 hours long, Njóttu ferðalagsins, Guðjón Svansson - 95 minutes. So this covers intermediate.
Föðurlaus sonur níu mæðra 7 hours
Með skör járntjaldsins 13 hours
which more than surpasses the requirements for advanced.
The smallest portion of Icelandic is understandably beginner material, but the mini stories alone cover the threshold there. Is it time to move Icelandic up then?
I’m not learning Icelandic (although I have a big interest in Germanic languages and will likely study it one day), but I’ve got to say: well done @rokkvi! Amazing effort!
One day, I hope to be able to add materials for languages close to my own heart. What you do inspires others to do the same.
I had already been talking with North about updating Icelandic to count as a supported language on the forum for librarians and LingQ staff. I sent him a list of courses that should go in the “guided courses” section for example. So that was already underway before you made this comment. I still appreciate you pointing it out.
There were already enough hours of all levels of materials there, even before I added the extra ones. Now I think someone with great determination and time could potentially (at lest theoretically) use the library to go from zero to fluently literate in Icelandic. I would like to have a lot more material in there, especially beginner and intermediate level material, but I’m taking a bit of a break like I said.
I would like to express my heartfelt thanks for the tremendous amount of work you have put into creating and developing the Icelandic library. I’ve been dreaming of learning Icelandic for years now; but it wasn’t until I discovered LingQ last summer that it started to feel like I could actually realistically learn to speak the language (at least at an intermediate level), if I just put my mind to it. That wouldn’t be possible without these great materials to learn from. It must have taken a ton of time and effort to put all of it together, and I genuinely feel grateful every time I open the app, for having access to this wealth of materials. So thank you!
