Perhaps I’m lazy especially when one considers how difficult it was in the old days without online dictionaries. I love lingq however I know it could be better. I find the suggested definitions by other users are often wrong or just guessed (and often wrong). Why not have an official definition for a word approved by Lingq. I know this would be a lot of work for any given language but it would definitely be worth it. A user wouldn’t have to type, saving them time, and would feel confident that the correct definition was selected. This would save so much time, a useful element in the journey of language learning.
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I think the issue with this as I understand what you’re describing is that words can often have multiple definitions, for example мир in Russian is both “world” and “peace” so it would difficult to pick an official definition, it would essentially just be a suggested translation by the LingQ team and could be wrong in the current context. But, then again, maybe I’m not understanding clearly what you’re saying.
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Yes, you are right!
Some words in every language have even three or more meanings! By the way, especially in English.
It’s a wrong idea - to have only one meaning to them.
But as a language teacher, I have to say that’s generally not very good only to use Google or other foreign tranlations, maybe only in the first stage.
Looking for necessary meanings of words is a very important part of every language study - it’s like walking in a new, unknown city!
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Can you explain a little more about what you mean in the latter half of the message, I didn’t quite understand what you meant. Do you mean that after we get to a certain stage we should rely less on dictionaries and use context in the language we’re studying to understand new words?
You are right, but I mean not only it.
I mean if you just quickly skip the content of the texts using Google translation and other foreign translations without trying to cope this text yourself, without going through the text, you undestand perhaps the gist of the informnation but it is far away from the real language study!..
Oh, ok, got it! Yeah, I agree. I only use such translations when I’ve tried but I can’t figure out the meaning myself, or if I want to check that I understood something correctly. Lately I’ve been reading news articles in Russian, they’re still a bit tough and I have to use the online dictionary quite a bit but they’re getting easier to read all the time and I’m understanding more and more without having to resort to automatic translations.
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Nope, that’s what I am saying. It would at least give you the confidence that this is the definition for the word. If the definition that lingq provides doesn’t make sense in the given context then you would then know to do more digging. I think it’s a confidence issue in the way the definitions are presented now.
For those of us who are dieters there is an app called myfitnesspal. Similar to lingq it allows users to input the calories of foods so that you get a smattering of answers for how many calories a given food contains. More recently, they have official myfitnesspal calories, they’re starred. That way you know that this calorie amount has been verified. I think a similar thing should be done with lingq. A verified definition giving the user confidence that they have the right one especially if it makes sense in a given context.
By the way, you can use a lot of my Russian lessons and articles here in Lingq. And you can ask me if you don’t understand something.
Good luck!
I do not use LingQs at all. I prefer to use Reverso Context, which gives multiple definitions / translations along with example sentences. If I am not confident that I understand the meaning of something, then I make my best guess and then get a translation from Bing or Google, compare my translation with theirs, and try to understand why they translated it that way.
I am also starting to use a Monolingual Learners Dictionary, because a translation is only an approximation of the true meaning.
While I have heard “comprehensible input” defined as 70 to 95%, I prefer materials where my comprehension level is at least 90%. If I have to look up too many words, or figure out too much grammar, it probably means I am choosing materials that are at too high of a level.