.I’ve read many posts and watched videos, but I’m getting even more confused about how to use Lingq effectively.
I plan to start using this app for reading a book soon. My understanding is that I shouldn’t aim for 100% comprehension on the first read. Instead, I should go over the text multiple times until I reach 70% - 80% comprehension. This is he recommended practice form Steve (I believe)
With this in mind, how should I use Lingqs? When I read the page, should I only select a few blue words to turn into yellow Lingqs and leave the others in blue? Or should I mark all the words I don’t know as Lingqs reviewing them one by one?
if you have a link to a specific video on how to use the software would be great
Hi, used LingQ to get over 100k words in Russian. Here is the advice for you:
Unless something is super interesting like a book or very compelling article (or episode of a TV show), don’t bother re-reading. Better to spend your time looking at more, reading more, learning more. Re-reading a few select things may make you an “expert” on those specific things, but you could instead just read a lot more and come across a lot more examples that form an even better idea in your head.
With this in mind, how should I use Lingqs? When I read the page, should I only select a few blue words to turn into yellow Lingqs and leave the others in blue? Or should I mark all the words I don’t know as Lingqs reviewing them one by one?
If you don’t know, click it and choose (or make) a definition (yellow). Big benefit of this site is you have all the knowledge of everyone before you. A grammatical structure you may not understand may have lengthy definitions by others who do. That’s the power of LingQ and that’s what makes it the best “app” for language learning. Eventually you can “guess” some words. If your guess is solid, 4 is fine, but if it’s a true “guess” and you just happen to be right, no higher than 3.
Also, don’t go into it expecting to have fun. Learning isn’t “fun”, learning is learning. The fun comes in what new things you’ve learned and how that reflects on your understanding of the world.
Hi i’m learning russian too but i have a problem every word or lingq are by default in the “known” category, so i have a hard time to search for translation every time.
Do you know how to put every word in the unknown category (or “i’m learning”) but that the word are in blue and i can see the translation ?
edit : i think the problem was that its imported lesson
You should mark all words you do not know as LingQs. If you do not then they will be marked as “known” when you finish the lesson (note: by default the app will mark words as known as you change page, there is a setting to turn this off which I highly recommend doing), and they won’t be in your vocabulary for later study. You can always make a known word into a LingQ later but it’s easier to focus on the words in blue when they come up. Yes, it can be time-consuming.
I suggest thinking of LingQ as a tool and experimenting with ways to make it work for you. I get the impression no two users do the same beyond the broad strokes of read, listen, pay attention, do some stuff, next.
I think the LingQ idea is to check the definition of each blue word, mark it to Yellow 1. Then each time you later encounter that yellow word you increment it to the next number, until you hit 5 and then mark it Known.
Be aware that when you reach the end of the lesson and click the checkmark on the last page, LingQ will automatically and stupidly mark all blue words to Known, which no normal user expects.
I say, don’t worry about using LingQ “correctly”. Find a way to use it that works for you.
Thanks for helping.
I never came across a grammatical explanation as I use the Lingqs. They are usually just vocabulary translations
Is it this a functionality I am not aware of?
Pierpaolo
Since I am Italian, I have an intuitive understating of a lot of French words, even if I come across them for the first time. I might not be able to use them in context, but I can still guess reasonably what the mean. I am also not probably able to spell them correctly (with accents and so on). Should I still mark them as known?
LingQ is not a structured grammar resource. IMO I would never use LingQ if I’m at level 0 with a language, for exactly this reason. It is designed to give you exposure to a lot of content in the target language, and that’s it really. I’m using it to work on my listening and expanding my vocabulary.
Unless you truly know the word and can use it in a sentence I would make it a LingQ. But what you can do is increase the status to 2 or 3 if it’s a word you can intuitively guess.
There isn’t directly in the reader, but if you click your profile (in the lessons area), then you have a dropdown with profile, settings, but also a grammar guide. There are basic grammar concepts here that if you are just beginning are helpful. I personally think it’s best to keep grammar focus “light”. i.e. don’t study it for hours. If you see something curious, like a verb is in a strange place to you, or something else that catches your eye, THEN look it up. But grammar guide could be good to look through as it’s probably pretty basic things and not too heavy.
You can also use chatgpt (or similar) for help. Copy the sentence as a whole, ask chatgpt to "explain the grammar in this sentence: . It can help if you’re curious about it. Maybe one day LingQ can incorporate this.
I don’t use LingQs as they don’t work. If I set some words as known, level 1 say, while doing a German lesson, I usually end up with a negative word count. And if I review a lesson previously studied, the word count does not increase. Well I’m sorry but I disagree with LingQ, reviewing a lesson DOES increase word retention i.e. it helps you to learn words. So in my opinion the LingQ marking and word count score needs rethinking as it doesn’t work.
As far as I am concerned LingQ is simply an assisted reader, with built in dictionaries and a words read counter which gives a rough idea of your progress.
I suspect we all have our own preferred way to use LingQ. I dislike most of the built in content. In the case of German, the built in content just isn’t suitable for beginners, and there isn’t enough. For French I import films from YouTube. For German I import simple lessons from YouTube, for example an Easy German video where they do a tour of their home. The level is modest, the language simple and clear. The key is repetition of input that I can mostly understand, albeit after looking up some of the words. Maybe I’m a slow learner as my German is progressing very slowly, but this approach does work.