There are some lessons I can simplify, and others I can’t. What does that depend on?
You can’t simplify lessons that are beginner level.
The lessons I want to simplify are imported Wikipedia articles. And they are certainly not beginner level.
@DJTembo After you imported them, did you set a lesson level? You need to set a level to intermediate or advanced in order to be able to simplify them.
I have set the level to advanced 2, but the “Simplify” menu item still does not appear in the drop-down menu when I click on the three dots in the upper left corner.
Meanwhile I have noticed that it does not work when the lessons are longer or when there are more unknown words. For shorter texts with few unknown words, it doesn’t matter whether I set a level. In this case, it usually works regardless of whether I set a level or not.
Could this be the reason? If so, could this be changed so that every advanced text can be simplified, regardless of its length and the number of unknown words it contains?
Can you please send over lesson URL? Thanks.
Sorry, I’m apparently too stupid for this. The address of the lesson within LingQ was in the edit window, but you can see what’s actually in the post instead of the address.
I also tried to send the address of the original Wikipedia article but that doesn’t work either.
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks, we will investigate this.
It usually depends on how deeply you understand the lesson. When you really grasp something, you can strip it down to its essence without losing meaning. If you’re still trying to piece it together, you’ll probably find it harder to simplify because it still feels complex in your head.
@dave847
What would be the point of simplifying a lesson whose language is already simple enough for me?
Is it possible that you misunderstood me? My problem is not that simplified lessons are still too hard for me. My problem is that in some lessons, the “Simplify lesson” menu item is simply missing from the drop-down menu at the top left.
@zoran
I tried to send you the URL for one of the lessons where the simplification doesn’t work. What was actually in my post was a kind of advertisement for LingQ.
However, I have now realized that the link in this “advertisement” actually leads to the lesson whose URL I wanted to send you. This lesson is just one of many examples where the “Simplify” menu item is not available in the drop-down menu. In other lessons—and there are also many of them—it works perfectly. I would just like it to work ALL THE TIME. Or at least have a rule for when it works and when it doesn’t.
@DJTembo I checked this with our team and they reminded me that in order to simplify a lesson it needs to be:
- Intermediate or Advanced level
- Less than 3000 words.
The problem in your case is that your lesson is longer than 3000 words. So you will need to split your lesson as it is too huge into approximately 3 parts, then simplify lesson will show up.
Thank you, Zoran.
This is exactly the answer to my very first question in this thread. 
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@zoran simplifying makes more sense with long texts. 3000 words is not very long.m (A typical news/blog article in Spanish clocks in at 1000-1500 words).
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@zoran Zoran, you remember that I reported the same issue about 10 or more days ago, and you promised to investigate this?
@zeltser59 Did you see my reply above? Or do you have a different issue?
@zoran I’m following up on an issue I reported about two weeks ago regarding the “Simplify Lesson” function. I provided two practical examples — one lesson where the option appeared and another where it didn’t — and was told the team would look into it. Since then, I haven’t received any update.
Today, by chance, I found a forum thread where another user described the same problem. After several guesses were ruled out, support finally confirmed that the option doesn’t appear when the text is too long — which matches exactly what I observed.
Frankly, I’m frustrated by how this was handled. I raised the issue early with clear examples, yet the only way I learned the explanation was by stumbling on someone else’s post. When I reached out again today, the reply — “Do you have the same problem described here or something else?” — felt dismissive rather than helpful.
Two main concerns:
-
No follow-up. If an issue is “being investigated,” a direct update to the original reporter is reasonable once causes are identified.
-
Undocumented, narrow constraints. As I understand it now, “Simplify Lesson” is available only for content at the Intermediate level or higher (which makes sense) — and, in addition, it won’t appear for texts that are too long. In practice, many texts that actually need simplifying are both intermediate-level and lengthy, so the feature’s real-world utility is very limited. None of this is documented in the product or help materials; users only discover it piecemeal through support threads.
If this limitation is intentional, it should be clearly documented and reflected in the feature’s description, so users know what to expect upfront.
I truly hope that going forward, support can handle similar cases with greater transparency and timely follow-ups — users who invest time to report issues deserve nothing less
@zeltser59 I completely understand your frustration, and I apologize. This one is completely my fault.
Yes, I do remember you complained about the same issue, and I did ask our team to investigate the problem. However, I must admit that 3000k words limit has slipped my mind too and I was waiting for my team members to help me with the issue. I was reminded today by my colleague regarding this limit (which is intentional, btw) and posted on this thread. I should have posted the same update on the thread you started, so, once again, I apologize for the delay.
@zoran Apology accepted — we’re friends again 
Thank you for the clear explanation and for acknowledging the oversight, I really appreciate it.
I do have a follow-up question, though. In my case, the lesson isn’t just a text I imported — it’s a YouTube video imported via LingQ. LingQ automatically pulls the transcript and attaches the YouTube video to the same lesson, so I can read along while following the audio.
Given that setup, how can I split a YouTube-based lesson into two or three parts if it exceeds 3000 words? Is there any way to do it within LingQ, or does the video have to be manually divided before importing?
Thanks again for your help and for clearing things up!
Best,
Judy
@zeltser59 Glad to hear it! 
Unfortunately regarding importing from YT, splitting there is done automatically on 6k words. The only thing you can do is to manually cut the part of the text and create a separate lesson for it. Open a lesson > Edit Lesson > Regenerate Lesson (whole test will then appear on the right) and from there you can cut the part of the text and import it as a separate lesson.