New user: Super confused on how to get to the actual lessons???

[BaronBTC]

Just signed up for the 12 month premium for learning icelandic, but I am super confused, it wants me to click on a lesson. Which appears to be a short story or text where I can click on each word individually to have that word read out, and each word it tells me has like 60 different meanings. I can also have it play the full story.

But where are the excersizes? where are the lessons where it introduces words, maybe with pictures, and gets me to pronounce things? At the minute I am just clicking on words and they turn yellow after clicking on them.

I am not sure how I am supposed to learn from that, but couldn’t find anything on the publicly visible website about exactly how it works before signing up.

[roosterburton]

There is a review button in the bottom right corner if you want to review the page with SRS exercises. It’s ultimately a much slower way to learn than just reading and listening to massive amounts of content though.

You can have a squiz at some of the topics in the open forum or search PeterBormann’s posts to find a faster way to learn.

You create cards (turn words and phrases yellow) if you want to add them to your review list.

There is also the Lynx feature where you can have a written conversation with the robot about the lesson.

If it’s not what you expected you can always send an email to support to cancel as LingQ offers money back in such cases.

[abparris]

You’re not missing anything. This tool is really at it’s best when you import material at the level you’d like to read, and then just read it while marking difficult words yellow. Over time you will develop a library of material and a list of problem words to review on your own. There are no traditional interactive or progressive lessons but they have easy material pre-loaded for you to consume. Go grab yourself Magic Treehouse or something like that in your target language and load it in.

[seratra]

Fellow Icelandic learner here, hi!

Firstly - I’m not sure if you were aware, but Icelandic is one of the languages that you can learn for free at a premium subscription level. If you have already paid for a premium subscription but do not need it to learn any other languages, you can ask the developers for a refund by posting a request in the Support & Feedback forum.

Secondly, the main idea behind LingQ is that you learn through exposure to your target language, not so much through exercises. There is a review feature that you can use to reinforce learning, if you want, but the method is mainly based on consuming large amounts of content. As you read and listen to materials in Icelandic, you will soon start picking up vocabulary and sentence patterns. You can also find a short Grammar Guide in the menu (in the lower right corner of the mobile app, or upper right corner in the web app). If you want to practice grammar, I can recommend the LanguageMaster website by @roosterburton.

There are a lot of beginner-friendly materials in the Icelandic Library, thanks to the efforts of Rökkvi Vésteinsson (@rokkvi). If you are learning Icelandic from scratch, I would recommend the following courses:

Íslenska með myndum 0.0 (for learning basic vocabulary) - this course, and the follow-up courses Íslenska með myndum 1.0 and Íslenska með myndum 2.0, have pictures to help you learn. Note that the pictures are only visible in Page View, not in Sentence View.

Íslenska með ljósmyndum 1 & Íslenska með ljósmyndum 2 - more basic Icelandic, this time with photographs.

Einföld íslenska - very simple texts in Icelandic. There are also several follow-up courses such as Einföld íslenska - Dýr (with short lessons about animals) and Einföld íslenska - Matur (with lessons about food).

Íslenska fyrir alla 1, 2, 3, and 4 - a traditional beginner’s course in Icelandic consisting of four textbooks and their audio materials.

[seratra]

I would like to add that LingQ is based on a completely different idea than apps like Duolingo, for example. I have used Duolingo before and I think it’s fine for learning some basic vocabulary and sentence patterns, but I never felt like I could get very far with it. It felt like an endless repetition of isolated sentences that wouldn’t be of much use if one wanted to read a book or have an actual conversation with someone.

I have been learning Icelandic on LingQ for a year now - and I’m sure I had learned more Icelandic in the first three months of using this app than I ever could have learned using Duolingo (assuming that Duolingo offered Icelandic, which it doesn’t). Over the last year, I have read over 1,1 million words of Icelandic, including eleven novels and dozens of lessons and newspaper articles. I don’t think I could have gotten this far in a million years using a Duolingo-type learning app.

[rokkvi]

I was away on vacation in a remote area in Iceland and I don’t look at the forum when I’m on vacation. I am sort of the father of Icelandic on LingQ. Seratra has pretty much answered your questions already, so I’m mostly repeating her statements but:

1. LingQ is not really about language exercises, at least not in its original form. It’s meant to teach you vocabulary (and eventually sentence structure / grammar) through exposure to authentic texts and speech. The automatic translations bridge the gap in making the material comprehensible, although you may of course have to repeatedly read and listen to the same texts when you are a beginner.

2. Start with really easy lessons. Íslenska með myndum, Íslenska með ljósmyndum, Hvernig á að læra íslensku í LingQ and Íslenska með málverkum are super easy and have pictures to make the texts more comprehensible, but due to a bug, some pictures may not appear, at least not in browser mode. Just go to “print lesson” without eventually printing the lesson and in that layout all pictures will appear. Courses like the different versions of Einföld íslenska, Getting started, Kidda kind, Íslenska fyrir krakka, Icelandic golden, Íslenska - A1 - Ylhýra and as you progress: The LingQ 60 mini-stories, Eating out and the Íslenska fyrir alla courses will be good material to use as a beginner.

3. I absolutely second the notion that LingQ is by far more efficient than Duolingo. Just let go of the fear of not having a set course that is being spoon fed to you or exercises you have to complete. Just read, re-read and listen like there is no tomorrow and you will eventually gain a better and better understanding of the language. As you progress you will even start getting a sense of the grammar by absorbing it. You can certainly add other things later, like studying grammar, trying to write Icelandic, taking courses in the language and at some point trying to converse with Icelanders.

[rokkvi]

If you really prefer to do exercises and keep that a part of your learning approach, in addition to what others have suggested, the books “Íslenska fyrir alla” don’t just exist in LingQ as texts and speech, but are also actual books that have been in print and on the internet for quite a while and they actually contain loads of exercises if you use the originals. Find them right here: Íslenska fyrir alla - Fræðslugátt