Sounds good. Update coming soon, so you’ll read what’s going on on my side.
When you learn the character, is that from looking at the LingQ every time you see it? I noticed when I started using LingQ for other languages, that I could still understand what was being said, but I didn’t need to look unless I was completely lost. Is that how it is for you?
I’ve seen people here in China with this kind of thing installed on their computers- a popup English to Chinese dictionary. Not sure what program it is, but I know it at least exists.
Not sure I understand what you’re asking, but once I don’t have to look at the lingq any more I already indicate that I know it. I don’t bother with the 2 3 4 shades of half-knowing the lingq. If I still need it, or it has a different second pronunciation or completely different meaning in another context I keep it, if I remember pronunciation and meaning I give it the green check.
For example, when you come across a blue LingQ, and you make it into a yellow LingQ, do you ever review it when you see it again, or do you just learn it by context?
Blue ones are ‘new words’. Only yellow ones are called LingQs. I leave them yellow until I know them. I never flashcard them or review them out of context. Either I repeat the lesson many times or I leave them till the next instant.
I myself, only review words when a big plateau occurs, then I start “zoom in” alot more on single LingQs, but always going back to the “just keep on reading” -mode. I think its a good idea to have flexible “LingQstrategy”.
I open every lingQ evey time when reading. That’s why I lingqed the word. Because I still need the translation. Once I’m confident that I’ll know the word the next time it shows up in a different lesson I move it to known.
I read the first line as “I open every window …” Blame that Germans and draft post.
With your motivation you can get far Tommy. Keep that motivation and if you get to the point that you feel like you are hitting a brick wall let me know and I will help you get over it
I don’t do the lessons over and over. I set my learning page to most important and then do the flashcards of 50 of them every day, A real quick review. If I know the word easily I put mark them as known, if they were a little bit doubtful I just scale them up. I do that only once every day with the 50 most important words. After that I just start reading more lessons and when I see a LingQ in a lesson that I know I scale them up (if it was because of the sentence I scale them up 1 level, if it was because I knew it instantly they go to known).
For me its something I do based on my own feeling. Sometimes I read a text and I see a word that I don’t remember, I click on it and set it back to scale 1, etc…
Usually these words stick this way and the only words I review by flashcards (only once a day) are only the most important ones, so they are not interfering with my learning too much
Update the 1st (at 800 known words): Until now my expectations hold true. I finished the lingQing (which for me equals first reading) of all the most basic beginner courses. That’s Greetings&Goodbyes, Eating Out, Who Is She, LingQ 101, Damn Simple Chinese and Slow Chinese. Now I’m in the process of solidifying this beginner level by listening to/reading the lessons until I mostly understand them, without trying to nail them a 100% down, and cleaning up a bunch of the lingQs made. This will be my task for the rest of the month and it will probably put me close to 900 or 1000 known words. After that I’m going to take little forrays into the most interesting intermediate lessons of Clavis Sinica and the lingQ homebrand podcast. October and November are going to be the slowest months for my Chinese. Big workloads and Brazilian and Russian friends visiting, which I’m going to let coincide with short intense bursts of Portuguese and Russian. From December 1st to Februaury 28th though I will do a herculean 90 days challenge by the end of which I want to stand at 7000 words min. and start speaking. If I encounter any notable difficulties or some of my expectations and thoughts are proven wrong, I will let you all know. I like to be halfway scientific and as objective and self critical as I can, fight confirmation biases and I have no religious allegiance to LingQ. So you can count on me trying to be rather honest and reflective. PS.: For cultural info, entertainment, snippets of Chinese and motivation I’ve been watching: Off the Great Wall (comedy, cultural info, in English), Strictly Dumpling (food, in English) and Lao3 wai4 kan4 zhong1 guo2 news and curiosities, in Chinese). Cheers to all and keep going! 
Hey Tommy, I’m late to your party (just found it), but I’m so glad you got your thread up & running. You’ve made such awesome progress! It’s a really interesting read, and good luck with the rest of your Chinese goals!
I’ve gotten back on the Chinese bandwagon myself, but I won’t jinx myself by talking about health issues, haha! Anyhow, 我支持你！(I’m “barracking” for you, though the Yanks say “rooting”, lol)
Boom 1000 known words cracked. November goal: 2000 (Yes, it’ll be an intense month of unrelenting learning and studying madness, not only for Chinese) I’ll try to wrap up the beginner stage with some review of the A1-2 stuff here, a Chinese Reader textbook I’ll buy and chinesepod101 and get into position for intermediate purgatory with yoyochinese (YangYang Cheng), learnchinesenow (Ben Hedges), and the intermediate podcasts on here. From December 1st to February 28th I’ll then do a 90days challenge, with more diversified content and speaking at the end. My goal there will probably be 7000 words and roughly enough lingQs to buy the Great Wall, clothes and chopsticks for my little yellow avatar. (LingQ will still be 70% of the game)
One problem I’ve faced was getting in enough listening. The reason for that was that I couldn’t help but listen to the daily 3-5 hours of very interesting, but language wise useless English content that comes up on my feed. I now put a regulation in place to get rid of English distractions for the benefit of more Chinese listening.
Thanks again to LFJ for pointing out Zhongwen, which is making all the difference.
And Julie, watch out for me!
Good luck. From my pov - you don’t really need to do an “intermediate purgatory” Particularly with those mentioned. I had a file of about 1200 mandarin only dialogues (20sec-1min) from cpod and popup (beginner, elementary and a few selected intermediate dialogues). Listened and read them literally dozens of times, then just went straight onto native content, starting with wolf and hua hua. To me, there is only A2-ish content and C2-ish content. Everything else is unnecessary, and slows you down. But you only really understand this in hindsight…Mandarin is such a steep mountain at the start that it is really tempting to stay with graded content. I’ve seen so many people never really get past their anki decks and cpod subscriptions etc.
I agree completely. What you call A2-ish, I refered to as baby stories (Who is she, eating out, etc). Wolf&Huahua is what I would call intermediate purgatory (B2). Basically real, but a little bit slower and more controled. Maybe that’s already native content, but the intermediate push I have experienced as that 2-4 months where you’re doing roughly native content, painstakingly plowing through, because it’s still heavy lifting, but not quite C2 ish news, literature, and reading Tang poetry, the pre-Qin 7 and the oracle bones in the original. 
As I wrote, I agree many people seem to dandle along at a slightly below Wolfhuahua or at a Wolfhuahua level. Without pushing that.
Like I mentioned earlier; in my opinion your second part is going to be the hardest part, so brace yourself!
You will be able to do it for sure. It is only 30 new known words a day…
Falling embarrassingly short of my November goal of 2000 words - reaching 1300 and that’s not even reviewed that well 
- due to my chaotic lifestyle, unexpectedly dense coursework and still being distracted by consumingly fascinating material in other languages.
BUT… Killing this winter one month ahead of the hopeless new years resolutioners…
The whole months of December through February will be the probably too intense, ultimate
90 days challenge!
with a steady increase of intensity from beginning to end
MINIMUM per day during my personal week of Saturday-Thursday:
(Friday is my free day and will be my ‘cheat day’ for binge listening to interesting stuff in other Ls)
2 hours of dedicated reading+lingqing+listening
2 hours of rereading+relistening on iLingQ (I do this mostly during my many meals)
about 2 hours of just listening during deadtime (transport, domestic chores, workout)
Other than lingQ I’ll do a tiny bit of character writing in the reader I bought and listening to Mandarin themed YT channels. If I feel like it and get a list of words or characters that won’t stick for too long, I’ll maybe do some goldlisting (© David J. James).
GOALS:
-2015 words by 2015
-3500 words by Jan 31
-and an overreachingly ambitious 7000 by Feb 28
-The 10.000 Li Long Wall, decent clothing and chopsticks for my little yellow guy
-listening comprehension and speaking roughly checking the B1
-setting up input methods and producing the required amount of digital text
Reading I actually find easier than listening comprehension so far.
After this challenge I look forward to turning back the voltage and interleave Chinese with some Spanish, Dutch and Russian.
I hope my crazed desciption gives you something for your own projects.
See you in March with the report!
I don’t know if you’ll still be alive in March! :)~