It sounds like a good thing for beginners, who previously had no Pinyin to view in Chinese, making it very difficult to start reading with LingQ.
However, I still don’t know how much the word splitting has improved, or if it’ll ever be 100% accurate, which is pretty essential for learning material! Imagine a book on the market with incorrect Pinyin and translations…
If the word splitting is not 100% accurate, the Pinyin will possibly also be inaccurate, leading to more confusion than it’s worth.
As an example, I came across 中国传媒大学 which was phoneticised as zhōngguó zhuàn méi dà xué, It should be Zhōngguó Chuánméi Dàxué. If you pronounce chuánméi as zhuànméi, you will not be understood. Zhuàn is an alternate pronunciation for 传 with a different meaning. But more importantly, you will be learning neither the individual words nor the name as a whole even if you figured out the individual words. This is not good for a learner…
What I’ve always done and recommended others do with LingQ is use the popup Chinese-English dictionary Google Chrome extension called Zhongwen. With this tool, one can hover their mouse over the first character in 中国传媒大学, that is 中, and what will pop up is the following information, including the simplified and traditional characters, the Pinyin (with tone marks and color indications), and the English translation. Notice it will also accurately detect long phrases, words, and individual characters, listing the information as follows:
中国传媒大学 中國傳媒大學 Zhōng guó Chuán méi Dà xué
Communication University of China (CUC), the highest institute of radio, film and television education in China
中国 中國 Zhōng guó
China
中 Zhōng
China; Chinese; surname Zhong
中 zhōng
within; among; in; middle; center; while (doing something); during; (dialect) OK; alright
中 zhòng
to hit (the mark); to be hit by; to suffer; to win (a prize, a lottery)
Then if you move your mouse over one character to 国 you get:
国 國 Guó
surname Guo
国 國 guó
country; nation; state; national; CL: 個｜个
And again, if you move your mouse over to the next character 传, in 中国传媒大学, it recognises:
传媒 傳媒 chuánméi
media
传 傳 chuán
to pass on; to spread; to transmit; to infect; to transfer; to circulate; to conduct (electricity)
传 傳 zhuàn
biography / historical narrative / commentaries / relay station
So there at the bottom you see the alternate pronunciation and meaning of 传, but because the program accurately detected 传媒 (chuánméi - media) and earlier the entire name 中国传媒大学 (Zhōng guó Chuán méi Dà xué - Communication University of China), you know that’s not the pronunciation or meaning you’re looking for, but now you know it’s there. Instead, you learn the entire name and the individual words and characters that make it up.
It is far more accurate and useful to hide the splitting on the Lesson page and use this tool for learning Chinese. If you want to see the Pinyin for everything as you read, simply hover your mouse over it as you go. Or if you think that’s too much of a crutch later on, but still want to see the Pinyin and quick meanings for words, simply hover over them as you wish.
This extension uses the dictionary from MDBG.net, and it obviously works everywhere on the internet, so including the LingQ forum and not just the Lesson page. However, it’s only an extension for Google Chrome. So, perhaps not everyone can use it.
What I would suggest then, is for the LingQ team to contact the developers (of the Zhongwen extension and MDBG.net) to see about integrating it into the LingQ system, so people no longer have to fool around with clumsy word recognition, splitting, and incorrect Pinyin. Accuracy is essential for a learning tool so learners aren’t getting poor, incorrect information.
There is also now a German version of this extension which works in the same way. Since German and Chinese are the languages I study, I find it useful to use the German version when reading Chinese too.
☆★☆★☆:heart: ★☆•♫♪