Mini Stories - Strategies and Guidance

Open Forum
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Hi everyone,

I’m currently working my way through the Levantine Arabic Mini Stories and I’m up to Story 22 of 62.

I think I may be spending far too much time trying to perfect each story before moving on. I also spend a lot of time listening to all the stories I’ve already completed because I’m trying to consolidate everything and make sure I fully understand them.

I’m starting to feel that this might not be the most efficient or effective way to work through the course.

I’d really like to hear from people who have completed the Mini Stories in any language. Looking back, what do you think is the best strategy?

Should you aim for near perfect comprehension before moving on to build a solid foundation? Or is it better to keep progressing, knowing that unknown words and structures will appear again in future stories and other content?

How often did you revisit completed stories? Did you listen to all of them every day, rotate through them a few times a week, or mostly focus on new and recently completed stories?

For anyone who has finished the Mini Stories, what advice would you give to someone still near the beginning?

TIA

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I haven’t attempted Arabic and probably never will, but I think these concept are more or less universal for language learning

IMO - the mini stories are just for getting familiar with the structure of a language.
From what I remember each story tried to cover a different grammatical principle and repeated the concept several times throughout. It felt like a brick by brick scenario where by the end I had a pretty good idea about how the language works and was confident to try more difficult content.

I did something similar to you at the start, spent a large amount of time just repeating, memorising and perfecting the beginner slow spoken content. Looking back it felt like a trap more than anything else.
Some users on this platform have 10,000+ listening hours shadowing advanced content, the mini stories are ~3 hours of slowly spoken and simplified content. The comparison could be like drilling 2+2 for months on end and then finding out you need skills in abstract algebra.

I think what I’m trying to say is you don’t need to spend large amounts of time on beginner content. You want to absorb and try to understand relevant content as much as possible. TV shows, Native books, Movies, Sports, Podcasts, History, Work related stuff - whatever.

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The right answer is whatever feels interesting and motivating to you as you read, but I think most agree that aiming for perfection is never the right or efficient way to go about it.

Steve (creator of the mini stories and one of the LingQ founders) has a bit to say on this specific subject:

Would suggest worth having a browse around the ‘learn from scratch’ podcast also for similar such perspectives.

That said, early on it should feel really fun to work through the early stories and repeat many many times (like 10-20 times through the first 10 or so stories) as there will lots to learn from even a few sentences. But the benefit from repeating should diminish as you move away from beginning material, and you’ll probably find yourself naturally spending less time repating the same stuff.

I progressed like this somewhere until about the 30’s, when I started to lose really interest and change over to podcast I started to get lots of value out of.

After a month or so working through about 60 episodes of the podcast, I found I had only maybe worked through 1-2 mini stories in the meanwhile. I started the first Harry Potter from there and never really felt the need to do any more of the mini stories since.

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personally I wouldn’t obsession over the lessons being comprehensible. As you progress and review them, they will become more comprehensible.

If I were to start another language with LingQ, I would go through all the ministories, and the other basic conversational lessons.

I would listen to each at few times and go over them intensely in sentence mode. Synced with the audio.

Then randomly go back and listen and go over each one randomly over time. Maybe I would keep a google doc to tally each lesson.

I would also do some flashcards the next day only for the lessons themselves. Which is what I do now.

One thing I like to do when new with a language is to upload the Olly Richard’s “30 days” and have 30 mini lessons that are more upper beginner/intermediate. Where I still have these small chunks of the language to master but are harder than the LingQ beginner lessons and more interesting.

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I would keep progressing. My understanding is that it is better to see words/phrases in multiple contexts for your brain to make the necessary associations than to study the same words/phrases in the same context over and over to try and memorize them. I’ve been using that method and I find that it takes me several exposures over time to learn a word but when it happens, it just happens. I’ve seen it enough that I just know it without trying to memorize it.

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I suspect I am one of the few people here who thinks the whole Comprehensible Input dogma is misguided. Ideally one needs a guided course, that introduces concepts gradually, using authentic material, graded appropriately, with frequent repetition of words and grammar, and explanations of the grammar concepts. Ideally the material should be structured to provide multiple examples of each grammar concept. As it is Comprehensible Input just throws material at you in a rather hotch potch manner with no thought or organisation. The whole mini story concept is rather amateurish. I believe the German mini stories were created by a native speaker with no experience of language teaching. Would you do a yoga course led by someone with no training ? I found the stories dull, but I recognise that others may disagree.

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I saw a review of his French stories by a native French speaker, the language is very unnatural and not a good example of French. Amazon reviews of his Spanish and French story books also indicate that the language is very strange and unnatural, and definitely not created by native speakers.

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I just started German and I’m doing half an hour a day of the Teach Yourself Complete German book and I listen / read the mini stories in German on Lingq. If find that combining the two approaches is really fun. Both in the book and on Lingq, the vocabulary, at the beginning tend to be similar and I usually find examples of the grammar points I have studied when I read the stories, or vice-versa, I will get an explanation after having read something in the mini-stories. I don’t know if I’m “maxxing” my learning as the kids say these days, but I find it fun and motivating.

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johnfoy21:

The French mini-stories put my brain to sleep immediately. I switched to Easy French News, “The Little Prince,” “Harry Potter” then Hemingway and Simenon. I never looked back.

However, I understand Arabic is a higher bar. I can see sticking with the mini-stories for a while to get the hang of the script and basics, but I doubt it’s worth spending much time perfecting the mini-stories, as you suspect.

My take is that learning a language is like learning a musical instrument. It comes together very slowly in a global way. It’s not like you master the C scale, then you never have to think about it again. You’ll always be coming back to C, playing it better and understanding how it works with other keys.

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I doubt you are one of the few skeptics of Comprehensible Input here. CI seems to get a bad rap from many commenters here.

However I’ve taken four years of Latin, two years of Spanish, a semester of Russian, and made numerous self-study attempts in Russian, Spanish and French using the guided course approach you recommend with the typical failures often reported for that method.

Based on those experiencers I gave up on ever learning another language.

Then 3 1/2 years ago I got a strong urge to learn French, bought some flash cards, looked around the web for a method, and found CI and LingQ.

It’s been great. I read French fiction slowly with about 95% comprehension. Subtitles and wiki articles are a snap. This is not a result I could have reached with a guided course.

I’m sure people learn with guided courses, but it’s not a guarantee and clearly many people learn without such guidance.

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Should you aim for near perfect comprehension before moving on to build a solid foundation? Or is it better to keep progressing, knowing that unknown words and structures will appear again in future stories and other content?

How often did you revisit completed stories? Did you listen to all of them every day, rotate through them a few times a week, or mostly focus on new and recently completed stories?

When I first started learning German, I began with mini stories. As a beginner, I found them to be an excellent way to get accustomed to the sounds, rhythm, and vocabulary of the language. That was my goal from the very beginning, and in that respect, the stories met my expectations.

My Three-Step Study Routine

Step 1: I listened to the German audio while reading the German text twice . My goal was simply to connect the spoken sounds with the written words.

Step 2: I listened to the German audio while reading the English translation three times . I translated the stories using DeepL. The purpose of this step was to make the audio comprehensible by linking what I heard in German to its meaning in English, thereby improving my listening comprehension.

Step 3: Finally, I listened to the German audio twice without any text . By this point, my goal was to understand the audio on its own without relying on written support.

In total, I listened to each story seven times before moving on to the next one.

I didn’t strive for perfection because I knew the same words and grammatical patterns would appear repeatedly in different contexts. Rather than obsessing over mastering every detail, I kept progressing to the next story.

Don’t wait until you know everything before moving on. Language acquisition is not a linear process. Your subconscious mind continues to absorb patterns and make sense of the language in the background, often without you realizing it. Trust the process.

The most effective approach is to expose yourself to as much comprehensible input as possible across a wide variety of materials. The more contexts you encounter, the more naturally the language begins to click.

Once I finished the course, I never went back and listened to the lessons again. However, after logging a couple of thousand hours of listening from other sources, I decided to revisit them and was surprised by how easy they had become to understand.

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I think when most people do a guided course they don’t do anything else. Most badly designed guided course also don’t push you into consuming or using the language. Learners end up not applying what they learn into practice.

During my school days my 2nd language teacher always encouraged me to do more reading and watching the news. Which was good advice. I never did it though. So unsurprisingly I did badly for my 2nd language, well I got between 48-50 /100 every year. I just wasn’t interested in the language too.

Remembering my teacher advice, now when using guided courses, I also consume a lot on the side. My current Guided Course is Paul Noble a speaking course. While doing that I also read LingQ/kindle + Netflix (languag reactor). Paul Noble course actually teaches learners how to watch TV series at the end of the book.

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I had only done Alice Ayel stuff and apps during my early days of learning french. When i tried to read petit prince (kindle) it was painful can’t even go past 1 paragraph.

Frustrated, later I did 10 lessons with a tutor + completed 1k refold deck + couple of graded readers (kindle). All done in 2 months.

Close to the end of the 2 months, i was able to read a whole chapter of Petit Prince comfortably with look ups, it was not easy but was substantially more enjoyable to read. I was actually surprised by it. I also went back and tested apps that I used to do and I was able to get quizzes 100% right at first attempt. It was then I realized apps teach too slow/badly.

From then on, after I realized I can read, I switched to LingQ. I occasionally go back to tutor and read up grammar for stuff that bothers me to give me that boost forward. I also started on Inner French at some point.

Instead of Petit prince, I switched and completed reading Le Grand Cahier and the other 2 books in the trilogy, later started reading Percy Jackson, still reading it. All these books read on LingQ.

For me a mixed approach, Guided + Using the language works best.

I think the constant is that no matter the methods, everyone eventually has to use the language a lot to get more fluent at it.

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You’ve found a method you like which is what matters. However, what we are doing with LingQ is not the Comprehensible Input method described by Stephen Krashen. We are actually doing a form of study. I have often used incomprehensible material which became comprehensible through study. Obviously as we progress, the texts become more and more comprehensible. I find LingQ effective but with German I had to find material that was better structured in the way that I suggested earlier. What I would like - and this is my preference - is content for LingQ that is more ordered, which introduces concepts gradually, with side notes that guide the user. I now use news videos in simple German by tageschaue which come close to my ideal. However I would like more grammar explanations and some exercises. Whether this would be useful for others, I know not.

with the typical failures often reported for that method.

That is the only phrase in your post that I disagree with. Many people do learn a language at school, or in evening classes so I believe your phrase is misguided. I attended evening classes in French and benefited although I was lazy and did not work outside class. Don’t forget that there are countless language schools that get people to a B2 level, the American FSI is an example, and the French Foreign Legion has its own teaching methods. The difference is that a diplomat who enrols on an Arabic course is going to be motivated, unlike a kid in a school class. If the kids in their school French class were motivated, they would work, discover French material outside class, and do well.

The truth is that most people who start learning a language as an adult, give up. I’ve met countless Duolingo users who gave up after a few months. I know people who attended evening classes, then gave up. I am sure most LingQ users give up although we have no data to tell us how effective LingQ is in terms of user outcomes. We only have the hard sell marketing by Mr Kaufmann, with his grandiose claims that it is an amazing new modern method far superior to anything else. People such as you, and I, are probably completely untypical because we are motivated and prepared to work hard. It would be very interesting to see the LingQ statistics, how many users there are, how long each users stay with LingQ and the estimated level in their target language that each achieves.

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I agree. I also find using the language to be an important part of learning and something I do not do enough.

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Hi,

I used Spanish mini stories in the beginning. Before LingQ I did a bit with Duolingo and for the first steps it may not be 100% efficient, but it was an entrance ticket for me. With this I understood some words and then I started with mini stories. The first 5 stories were hard to comprehend, but it helped me to get a feeling for the language which I never got with Duolingo.

I never tried to get perfect in these stories, this is way too boring. The best part was trying to answer the questions at the end. I heard the question and then I tried to answer them with many mistakes. But it helped me. I don´t like the space repetition system in LingQ too much, to be honest. It´s a bummer. Anki is way better.

After the first 5 stories I went faster and faster through them. There were many new words, and of course I didn´t understand everything in the beginning. I included the words in Anki and I have no clue how “perfect” I am with all these words. I assume I understand most of them excluding the more seldom ones.

But I didn´t do only minis stories. When I was around story 20 I also started with other random material. I looked at Youtube, at the library in LingQ, imported this and that with topics I´m interested in. With text I´m interested in I have more motivation and even when it´s far above my level with 60/70% new words (I don´t have this very often today, but 40/50% ist still possible) I simple started reading and looking for the words. You will learn many words just reading/hearing the text without doing a lot. I have tons of yellow words I easily understand today but I´m too lazy to convert them into white.

With this, when you achieved story 22, add some different material where you are interested in to your mediathek. There is one point I think different to Steve Kaufmann, that´s grammar. I bought a book with complete Spanish grammar where I look from time to time. I don´t take it too serious with grammar, but it´s useful to have a source where you can find the information why this or that structure is used.

I also observed: The better you get in a language, the faster the progress with words and structures. Be lazy with perfection, just read and hear a lot. I also talk with Chat from time to time, this is always fun and Chat is patient with me correcting my mistakes. Use Mini stories as a tool, especially answer the questions to get some practice. For this they are nice to have.

Best regards

Oliver

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I should perhaps explain that when I refer to a guided course, I’m not thinking of a school classroom scenario. Rather the idea is not unlike LingQ, the student would have a large number of videos, each with a short and hopefully interesting story. Where this differs is that the videos would be designed to start from zero, and then gradually introduce words, phrases and grammar concepts, with lots of repetition. In addition, and here is where it departs from LingQ, there would be occasional grammar notes to help the student understand the texts. Thus negation would be introduced over a series of lessons, with loads of examples, so ideally it would make sense. And there would be some exercises so that the student could check that they had understood the concepts.

I agree with the LingQ conceot that we need a lot of input to help build the language. But I find LingQ a bit like throwing mud at a wall in the hope that some sticks, it’s a bit random, and I can’t help feeling that more structured content would help.

Of course I might be mistaken, but since finding more structured content outside LingQ, I feel I have progressed more rapidly. A subjective impression for sure, and others might disagree.

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Some of the mud might hit the hyphenated words and cause them to stick together.

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Some excellent comments here. Thank you.

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Using, for me, it is just trying to do my usual activities in my target language, whenever I can. Speaking has almost no actual genuine use for me. Using writing is also limited. So far only reading, listening receive the most use/practice with normal native content.

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Is there a specific ‘pass’ criteria I should use before moving on from a particular mini story?

My criteria currently is that I should know every word when reading. (Not to have moved the word to known, but know its meaning in the context).

Then to make sure I know the meaning of every word when I read along in karaoke mode.

Then, only move forward when I listen without text and understand at least 90% of all words.

It’s taken me 41 relentless days to complete 34 stories so far.

I heard recently in an old video from Steve that he did 30 mini stories in 5 days, and I just can not understand how all of these words can be learned that quickly or easily.

So I’m very confused. :face_with_diagonal_mouth::sweat_smile:

Any thoughts (other than my perfectionist personality will be the death of me…)