Using LingQ for intensive rather than extensive learning

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I just wanted to share how I’ve been using LingQ for many years.
It’s normally sold as simply “a reader” and there are other readers out there, so why use LingQ when the concept isn’t original anymore?

Well, despite the bugs and the controversy over this new expensive tier plan, I still find LingQ to be far superior for my methods of learning than even other apps I like, such as anki, language reactor and migaku.

So what I have been doing with LingQ for about five years is intensive study in sentence mode. I rarely if ever put it in page mode and just read.
For me, I’d rather extensively read a book over using an app and being in front of a screen all dya.

So I virtually always have it set to sentence mode, always have audio time stamped with it ( know it doesn’t always work but it works well enough to learn for me).

I go line by line mix intensive reading with intensive listening.
I may listen to the audio or read the sentence many times over. I may listen and read or close my eyes and try to see if I can understand the audio segment.

I did this for years with my Spanish, but what I should have done of which I’m doing with my German now is repeat old lessons. As I like the idea of an SRS but the “natural” SRS just doesn’t work unless you’re spending all day in the language and I cannot get myself to stick with Anki.

What I do with German is have 1-3 minute audio clips of something, go through them intensively, listen to them later, like on a walk over and over again, and everyday choose random old lessons of these small chunks and read them over then listen to them several times again. This way I get a random SRS, just like how Steve talks about repeating the ministories.

With my Spanish of which is advanced now and I spent a lot less time on LingQ for it, I should have repeated material like this, even choose random pages from long lessons and read them over again. It would’ve accelerated my progress like my German.

Then I spend the rest of my time just immersing in the language.

So despite its flaws, I find LingQ to be a fantastic way to intensively study so that you can extensively immerse outside of the app.

It also has a great onramp of the ministories and the lessons of which one can repeat them until they’re mastered and progress pretty quickly.

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So what I have been doing with LingQ for about five years is intensive study in sentence mode.

I do exactly the same. I think SRS is a working method when you repeat the words in contexts: in sentences eg. Anki didn’t work for me when I tried word flashcards. But this works.

I use the page view when I link the meanings first time. And when I listen only the text.

always have audio time stamped with it ( know it doesn’t always work but it works well enough to learn for me)

You can adjust the audio timing sentence by sentence if the app cut it at wrong places. Maybe I’m a nerd but I find entertaining to do it at the first sentence view reading.

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thank you for the ideas

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Same here. I’m slowly working my way through the Harry Potter books.

I’m using Anki for my challenging words and phrases. I bought a single epub that includes all 7 books. Then I can do a search and find suitable in-context sentences for verbs/adj/nouns that I’m having difficulty remembering. Then I add it to Anki and I either make a cloze card where I have to type in the word/phrase only, or I type in the whole sentence.

It’s kind of fun to clear an entire page of yellowed words and know that it also clears them from the rest of the book. :slight_smile:

I really need to do more listening though.

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Thanks for sharing.
I also mainly use LingQ because of sentence mode. I find rereading useful too.

I think sentence mode is more comfortable to read because I don’t have to move my eyes around too much line by line. My eyes mostly stay at one part of the page/app to read.

But… the audio syncing issues bothers me especially when it cuts off words mid way. So after importing a book and its audio. I fix the time stamps while reading, (it is pretty fast with shortcuts) using @roosterburton Lesson editor. I just try to get the gist of the story at this stage.

The next round I read the chapter in normal sentence mode more intensively.

Once I am done with the whole book I may reread it one last time at a later date. This can be motivating because I notice how easy and fast the book become to read. And of course there is the SRS effect of seeing the phrases/words again.

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Could be fun to translate those spellwords.

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When I first started using this app, all I did was create new words and keep repeating them over and over again. However, I eventually reached a point where I was overwhelmed with 300 or 400 words to revise each day, and that was when I realized that relying solely on this platform for word revision wasn’t actually very smart.

At that point, I switched my approach to focusing more on reading and listening to the texts as much as possible, while still creating new words and trying to immerse myself in the language as much as I could.

I’m doing this with German, and I should mention that when I first began with the platform, my German was not at a complete beginner level, which is why I didn’t really make use of the sentence mode of this platform.

I feel that the sentence mode might be useful for someone who is starting a language completely from scratch, but for me, the page mode is more effective because it simulates the experience of reading an actual book.

In the end, if someone is preparing to take a language exam or aiming to use the language in a real professional setting, then they will most likely need to read documents, and naturally, those documents are presented page by page rather than word by word.

But again, this is what worked for me personally

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Like many learners, I’ve tried lots of study methods. Vocabulary lists get boring because they lack context, and isolated sentences feel the same.

Over time I realized language is like an ocean: so vast that you might sail through an area, forget it completely, and only remember when you return. If you sail without direction, you end up in places you don’t care about—topics too technical, too literary, or simply irrelevant.

That’s why I choose a clear starting point, like a YouTube video or podcast I actually enjoy. From there I “fish out” only the words and sentences that matter to me, and they become part of my core. I store them in a tagged database and, once I have 100–200, I use notebookLM to generate dialogues with them—no new vocabulary, just my material reused in fresh contexts.

The key is that those same words keep reappearing in different, interesting ways. I prefer dialogues (never monologues), with two voices like a real podcast, and I add TTS so it feels alive. This turns my database into new study material—texts and audios that help me reinforce vocabulary and stay on course.

Instead of drowning in endless YouTube videos that often don’t match my goals, I focus on the lessons I’ve generated myself. The result is amazing: I keep integrating more words and phrases, and when I go back to “open sea” (a new video or podcast), I notice I understand more and more.

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I have found very very little written on HOW people do comprehensible input. I mean at the level of “I may listen to the audio or read the sentence many times over. I may listen and read or close my eyes and try to see if I can understand the audio segment.” . Thanks for sharing.

I’m learning Greek mainly and I find it hard. Only sentence mode works as I need translations. I am motivated by reading books, so I read in a mix of Greek and English and travel further as I enjoy the plot. I find it hard to get texts at the right level.
@Lingq, your recent developments aren’t helping.
I find sentence mode very valuable though.

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Look up Comprehensible Input (target language) in youtube and see if you can find something that is like Dreaming Spanish for your target language. It’s the easiest way. Like someone drawing/acting out the langue, going through vlogs, simplified stories and so on. If there’s enough material it can serve as a great bridge to immersing in native material.

Yeah and what I’m talking about is intensive study using LingQ but I still use a lot of CI material outside of the app. Apps like LingQ also accellerate your time to not need CI material and eventually graduate to native level input.

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I do the same with the translations of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time in different languages. The study is always entertaining, the sentences have engaging complexity, but knowing this book very well shortens the time necessary to decode a new language and internalise its syntax.

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I thought Harry Potter was ambitious. With Proust, you’ve taken it to nose-bleed heights!!!

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Can you please write down how you use notebook lm to generate conversations from a bunch of words?

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The most direct way to generate a conversation in text is by using the chat feature in NotebookLM and giving it specific instructions.

Here are the steps to do that:

How to Create a Text Conversation

  1. Upload your sources. First, upload the documents, text, or vocabulary list you want to use. You can upload a simple list of words or phrases in a Google Doc.

  2. Use the chat feature. Once your sources are loaded, go to the chat in your Notebook. This is where you can give the AI instructions to create the conversation.

  3. Write your prompt. Write a detailed instruction for the AI to create the conversation you need. For example, you could write something like:

    • “Create a conversation between two characters about topic ‘X’ using these words: [list of words].”
    • “Generate a dialogue in a debate format about ‘Y,’ incorporating the concepts from my documents.”
    • “Write a script for a podcast about ‘Z’ using the vocabulary from this list. Make sure the characters introduce themselves and provide a conclusion.”

This method allows NotebookLM to use the text you provide to create a written conversation, which you can then copy and use with your text-to-speech (TTS) service.

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fora more detail check my post

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Thanks for the detailed response. I’ll check your other post!

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One way to find comprehensible input is to pick a topic you’re interested in, and then search YouTube for kids’ videos. For example, I put “ancient history for kids” into Google Translate, got “Αρχαία ιστορία για παιδιά”, searched YouTube, and turned up a bunch of videos.

When you have the basic vocabulary and information on your topic, you can mix in some slightly longer videos for adults. Eventually you know enough about the topic that a full length video for adults isn’t so much of a stretch.

If you are working on multiple languages, going back and forth between them using simple videos is a great way to get comprehensible input, make the grammar feel easier, and firm up your knowledge of your topic.

Kids’ videos are designed to be entertaining and hold your attention. You can watch them just for fun, and still get some of the repetition that makes the language feel more “native” to you-- just like when you were a kid yourself.

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I’ve pretty much given up on importing audio.
The synchronization of the text and audio is very poor when using audio samples longer that two or three minutes.
Importing longer lessons isn’t worth the time it takes to set all the time stamps manually.
Sentence mode makes more sense for beginners, but not if we have to spend such a huge part of our time manually synchronizing text and audio.

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I have found that the synchronization works best if you manually create the lesson - adding the text and the audio before clicking the “Save and generate the lesson” button,

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Yup the lack of tool/shortcuts to easily do post edits while in sentence mode makes using sentence mode annoying.

LingQ should at least add some buttons to quickly nudge the in/out point while consuming lesson in sentence view instead of going to edit sentence mode every time or improve edit sentence mode such that we can also consume a lesson while in edit sntence mode, updating stats lingq and etc.

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I currently use @roosterburton lesson editor which he built really fast. It is much faster to edit timestamp in this tool visually with the Waveform but it still takes a bit of time. So I consume lesson extensively here while editing. I use TAB and Shift TAB to jump around sentences and up down arrow key to adjust the time.

If you have any suggestion to make the process faster you can suggest to Roosterburton in the thread below.