To be fair. it’s not all of the text in the mini stories that is unnatural. It’s just some parts. Most of the parts are probably fine. I stopped using them, because in a new language I won’t be able to distinguish what sounds natural and what doesn’t. This is really important to me. I still used a lot of them for Turkish and also learned plenty of things.
Exactly.
Although, I just looked at one of the German stories again, and for German in particular, most of the stories don’t sound very natural. Besides the forced use of certain tenses, the problem in German is the lack of modal particles. These are extremely common and hard to grasp for learners who are not used to them. They require a lot of input to learn. Because the stories have been translated from English (and not by professional translators), they don’t use modal particles at all, which makes them sound like translations rather than natural speech or writing.
Exactly! This requirement for mini-stories is ridiculous, who needs them? I couldn’t care less for them. As it was already pointed, they don’t correspond to a natural usage in each language and are full of other mistakes. We basically just need a dictionary and the memory slot for the language.
To be fair. They are for beginners. If you look at any beginner material, it is fairly unnatural. Very simple sentences. Modal particles are really an intermediate/advanced thing imo. The mini stories are meant to teach the basic structures of a sentence, the basic tenses and a decent chunk of beginner level vocabulary.
If modal particles are hard to grasp (and I total agree they are), it’s best not to confuse the situation for beginners by introducing these right off the bat. There are enough confusing elements to German =)
Very well said! I would call it a Gamma category, since it’s not even Beta. But just to allow people to pool their resources (time) by looking up vocabulary and save it publicly so that other people can see it, and we end collaborating and finding out words’ meanings.
I guess there are hidden costs for Duolingo that we do not yet understand, perhaps they explained it before
I think total transperency about the status of each new language should be the goal. Something like “we have ministories in Lituahian/Hindi/… but the quality is not good. It should proabably take annother 2/3 months to have theam ready, but they will be released etc, If anything about this chages, I will let you know and update the information on forum or by private message”
Indeed miriamblanca,
This is a serious problem with LingQ, and a problem that has never been properly addressed. The website sells languages and targets language learners, yet is full of errors.
The odd mistake, here, there (and everywhere) if corrected in the long run is fine. The problem is this is hardly ever the case. Errors abound and persist and persist, until observant learners like yourself stop using material they cannot judge because of the errors observed in their mother tongue.
It is essential that beginner material is 100% correct and 100% natural.
Most unfortunately I don’t think the mini stories in German will ever be corrected such that they sound natural (despite the fact that German modals are learned at beginner A1 level).
EDIT:
- Edited out polyglot bit as irrelevant.
- ericb100, as I cannot respond to your post below as there is no “reply” tab option only an “import” tab, please note miriamblanca’s response to your question about modals.
@Maria2
Luca, Benny, and Moses are and were selling their own systems and advice (not sure about Richard). So they don’t stand to benefit by telling someone to just go use LingQ. I don’t think Benny’s or Moses “style” really fits the LingQ model. Luca more closely maybe, but he’s probably also just ingrained in his own ways.
Who knows, maybe they all use it behind the scenes. =)
As for modals…are you referring to verbs or particles? Miriam mentioned particles which I don’t think are “A1” at all, and probably not “A2” (although I have never taken a class in German so I will certain accept being corrected on this statement. Modal VERBS on the other hand are most definitely level A1 or A2…certainly beginner level in general.
@maria2 @ericb100 Sure, there are serious problems with LingQ. I also have my own ways to learn languages. I am however a paying member and LingQ is useful to me when I import content from other sources. It makes looking up words very easy. Plus, since I don’t usually use flashcards or anything like that (I find it boring), having the LingQs gives me peace of mind. I know the words and expressions are there and I can do the rare flashcard review after seeing them in a text. I also found a few podcasts and books through the platform that were really good.
So, I do find LingQ useful and that’s why I’m still here as a paying member. It’s just that the contents they produce are not great. So, it’s very frustrating for me when languages I really want are not added with the excuse that these contents (I don’t care about) are not ready and as far as I can tell will never be ready within the next 30 years. Like many people here, especially like many paying members here, I just want to be able to import stuff, maybe see what other people import, or what native content creators provide, and create LingQs. I mean the content can be accessed for free. We actually pay for importing and creating LingQs. So, I’d hope that we’d be able to do that in the languages we want as well.
Having alpha languages without contents just for paying members may also be an option since free members can’t import contents anyways.
By the way, I already completely switched to DuChinese for Chinese. You can’t import contents there, but they actually do have a well-organized library of high quality content, written by people who understand how to teach Chinese and write engaging stories, rather than translations of rather boring stories by non-professional translators. So, right now for me LingQ is neither for Chinese nor for Hindi, and I’m not focusing so much on other languages now. So, I’m simply using it less and less. It makes me wonder how much longer I’ll keep up my subscription. Not sure. As I said. I still find it useful. But their weird decisions just always make it a little less so.
@ericb100 Regarding, modal particles, you should definitely learn them from the beginning. That doesn’t mean you need to fully master them, but the texts you read should use them as they would be used in natural speech. I teach German and speak/learn Dutch. Materials for both languages will make use of modal articles since lesson 1 or maybe 2. This is where any old textbook is actually better and much more natural than LinQs own contents, although LingQ will try to tell you that textbooks are somehow bad. Lesson 2 from my Dutch book has sentences like “Zegt u het maar”, “Geef mij maar een pilsje.” “dan moet u even wachten.” “maar” and “even” being moddal particles. Any simple (natural) sounding conversation will have modal particles. Like I said, beginners don’t need to master them, but they need to get used to them and hear their use from the beginning.
Besides, the mini stories are meant for beginners but can include complex structures early on, as they follow what’s easy in English. They use relative clauses right away. These are a bit tricky in Turkish, for example, and are usually considered B1, the more complex ones even B2. That is because understanding the tenses and cases is necessary to even consider making a relative clause. Past tense and future tense on the other hand are A1 in Turkish, not really that hard. That is another disadvantage of having translations to learn from rather than authentic text in the target language.
Either way, I don’t mind if other people want to use the mini stories. It’s their choice. I just don’t use them and don’t like them being a requisite for new languages to be added/excuse for them not to be added. It’s not what I’m here for.
@miriamblanca
I definitely do agree with that. I think if there’s a decent online dictionary that covers the language (and maybe not even that), they should open up particularly requested languages. Call it a beta language or whatever.
After all, that’s one of Lingq’s main selling points is the ability to add your own content, so what does it matter if there are mini stories or not.
yeah, i find the mini-stories to be somewhat boring myself. But I could see them being useful in languages where there is not a lot of beginner content and where the sounds are very different from my native language (English.) Actually what would be useful is a forum of compiled resources that other users have found helpful. Then we could import it ourselves.
@mbilsker I’m German and I don’t see this problem. The MS are totally fine for what they are. Basic language, a lot of repetitions and you get exposed to different accents of German. You can easily supplement it with other beginner material like the free course Nicos Weg from Deutsche Welle.
@miriam re: modal particles
Thanks for the information regarding teaching of modal particles. My understanding from other’s experiences was that it was considered “intermediate” and from my own experience I’ve tended to agree (not textbook oriented, unless you count Assimil German, which btw DOES start introducing some of them fairly early).
I agree, though, you certainly need to be aware of these early (especially if importing your own content), and I remember in earlier stages I would look up, what are all the weird “extra” words and learned to quickly more or less ignore for the earlier stages as it was rather confusing to try and remember them. I think that’s what much of the learning material I’d see would say…“hey, this is am modal particle…you’ll learn more about these later”. OK then, I’ll wait until later =)
Modal particles I agree are something that should appear even in beginner texts. Learners will not use them correctly, except in fixed expressions, but, because they are so important for natural speech, learners should be made aware early that they exist and to watch for them, but not to worry about them for a few hundred hours (at least).
So, Zoran or anyone from the team, if you are reading this, can’t you consider changing your pre-requirement for mini-stories, which isn’t well regarded by the members in general?
Also, Zoran, can’t you be transparent about the status of Hindi and other languages as it was pointed by other users? I know you said it won’t be added soon BUT
for example, could you say if the first 5 Hindi mini-stories my acquaintance provided are of bad quality so I could have an idea on what to request from possible new contributors? What about the other two contacts I sent you, did they produce anything? How many stories do you have now?
I think Norwegian was released before you had the mini-stories ready, so why can’t you do the same with such a major language as Hindi?
Like others have said, the problem of language usage in the mini-stories is a serious one. It’s not just a question of being oriented towards beginners or not.
I would add a lack of cultural reference too. Since they are translated from English, besides the grammar level problem already mentioned, there are things that become totally irrelevant or important things that are missing in a different cultural context.
Stories adapted to each country would be better, including local names. For example I find a bit silly to only use and translate English names in the Chinese mini-stories.
My friend who contributed with the first 5 mini-stories in Hindi was having difficulty with things like that. On the other hand, modern Hindi has many English loanwords and many things like “shopping cart” are just said in English and my friend didn’t even know how to write that in Hindi. Probably the quality of the translation wasn’t much accurate and that’s another reason LingQ shouldn’t rely only on the good will of contributors. If they don’t want to pay and provide a professional service, then why does LingQ require them as a pre-requisite to start a language? That’s actually quite a nonsense.
names are translated, aren’t they ? I’ve used them in a couple languages. But i think you have a good point-- if we just translate from English we may lose things that are common things to do/say in that particular culture. So it makes sense for one’s first lessons to have things very common in that language, not just translations from English.
On the other hand, even though I said the mini-stories are boring, they become less boring when the language is unfamiliar. Then the repetition is useful. So I am happy to have them there, if they are good quality. But it’s not like the stories are very engaging in themselves .
Here’s an example from story 20 part B.
“Ich versuchte, mein Auto zu starten. Aber es war draußen zu kalt. Also konnte ich nicht mein Auto starten. Ich habe zuerst den Busfahrplan überprüft.”
Sounds right? I mean, aside from the fact that there is absolutely no flow and it sounds robotic, they teach Imperfekt here, which is not usually used when speaking. Nobody says, “Ich versuchte, mein Auto zu starten.” But ok, maybe they want to simply teach the tense, fine. Except they don’t because they switch tense three sentences later for no reason. I also don’t usually “überprüfen” a bus schedule. That’s just not a verb I’ve heard anyone use in that context ever. Sounds like a bad translation of “check the bus schedule”. And “Also konnte ich nicht mein Auto starten,” is simply incorrect. The “nicht” is just not in the right position. It’s “Also konnte ich mein Auto nicht starten.” I’ve seen this a lot with adverbs in the mini stories as well. They’re just not in the right position.
I really didn’t cherry-pick this passage. I just randomly opened a story and stuff like that is right there.
Here’s a more natural text for the same content:
Ich habe versucht mein Auto zu starten, aber draußen war es sehr kalt. Deshalb konnte ich mein Auto nicht starten. (or better: Deshalb wollte mein Auto einfach nicht starten.) Also habe ich mir erst einmal den Busfahrplan angesehen.
Hi Atlan, we don’t have any approved mini stories for Hindi. unfortunately the samples I received were not good. if you please send an email to me at sahra @ lingq.com I can send you the instructions for the possible new contributors you might know.