I’ve been using the LingQ browser app for around 3 months or so to learn Vietnamese - not intensively for the whole of that time but in concentrated bursts. Here are some initial thoughts:
In a nutshell, LingQ is a really powerful tool with so much potential, but has constant frustrations.
I was pretty much a complete beginner in Vietnamese, what you might call A0 level (I know that’s not an official designation, but it’s a useful label). So my initial journey is trying to progress from A0 to A1.
Why Vietnamese? I have some good friends there who speak little English. We chat regularly online using automatic translation tools (mostly Google Translate, at a guess, linked automatically to eg Telegram) but it seems only polite to try to learn some of their language, much as they are starting to learn English. Plus I’ve always been up for the mental challenge of learning a new language but never made the time until now.
To be honest, I’m not convinced that LingQ is a good tool for complete beginners, ie to make the AO==>A1 transition. Once you have made it to A1 then LingQ has much more to recommend it - you have the basic platform to make further progress. But as a complete beginner, you have to try to learn the writing system, the alphabet, the sounds of the alphabet, some basic rudiments of the grammar and any other high-level aspects specific to the language - for example, Vietnamese is a tonal language and so it’s essential to learn the basics of the different tones and how they sound.
I’m not sure how most beginners could ever pick up all these basics from say the ministories in LingQ alone. Or even if a few are able to do so, I doubt that it’s a very efficient or motivating process. I’m sure that a key factor is how different your target and native languages might be. I could imagine that as a native English speaker I still have enough schoolboy French to enjoy LingQ from the word go, for instance. But attempting an Asian language from native English (or vice versa) is a different proposition altogether. My suggestion is that LingQ should try to partner with some other teaching institution/channel to create some sort of mini-course to make the A0==>A1
jump, from where LingQ could be used much more productively.
Even when you’re familiar with the basics of writing system, alphabet etc, I’ve still found the ministories hard going. Difficult to know exactly why this is, but I suspect that it’s a combination of reasons. One is that the initial ministories are basic but maybe not basic enough. The content words seem to be drawn from a vocabulary of a few thousand words, whereas perhaps they should start with just a few hundred, maybe even 100-200 initially and then gradually increase. And there’s not always that obvious an overlap in vocabulary between the simple words and constructions used repeatedly in messages sent to me from friends and the ministory content.
Personally, I want to learn everyday conversational Vietnamese and I’d probably find fictional dialogues based on simple everyday chat more useful as learning material than the current ministories. It also doesn’t help that ‘official’ Vietnamese is Northern dialect and is what I want to learn and am used to hearing, whereas the default LingQ voices are Southern dialect. I’m sure this issue isn’t unique to Vietnamese, but more choice and clearer labelling of voices in LingQ would be a big help. (I’m not talking about offering dozens of different voices, but where there are major dialects in a language then examples of each would be good.) And as a specific suggestion, for lesson imports it would be good to have a specific user field where a note about the specific voice could be added.
As to other frustrations with LingQ, these are regularly raised in other threads here, so I’ll only mention two types. One is that, IMHO at least, the web interface needs a major overhaul for better usability - simpler and more logical menu structures, better navigation eg between sentences, more consistent use of controls like audio playback. It needs perhaps an external usability expert to take a long hard look at the user interface and to suggest rationalisation and improvements. I’ve not personally had any issues with stability of the browser app, but as a beginner I’ve only been using fairly short lessons and YouTube/audio imports.
My single biggest frustration with LingQ is its poor handling of Vietnamese (and maybe some other Asian languages) because, in writing, Vietnamese is a monosyllabic language, ie each word is essentially a separate syllable. So anything other than simple nouns, verbs etc are combinations of 2/3/4 separate words. LingQ really needs to be able identify the combination as a potential LingQ target rather than the individual words. A couple of 4-word examples from early ministories: homework is: bài tập về nhà; petshop is: cửa hàng thú cưng. Yes, I know that I can create a LingQ for these ‘phrases’ (except they are not really phrases, but words) manually, and that is indeed what I do. But this is an unnecessary and distracting chore and it thoroughly confuses an initial reading of the sentence when all the component words show up as individual unknown words. Plus the page/sentence vocabulary list becomes confusingly bloated because LingQ still shows the individual words in the list as well as the combination. As a result, the list becomes eg 3 times longer than necessary and one has to really hunt for meanings.
Finally, one other general comment: LingQ is great for improving reading skills and, to a lesser extent, listening skills. But it doesn’t help writing skills so much and personally I find that having to generate text myself forces me to try to remember all the diacritics (especially tones in Vietnamese) for words; reading alone does little to reinforce learning of such vital details. And virtually nothing, directly at least, for speaking skills. Yes, I know that with enough listening immersion then speaking should eventually come. But I actively want to try speaking so that I can hold at least a very basic conversation. Of course LingQ does nothing to stop me practising speaking, but it does nothing to encourage me either.
In summary, LingQ has so much potential, but could do better. I will certainly persevere with LingQ because I can see its potential despite the frustrations, but the initial experience could have been more positive. And apologies for such a long post!
and there are several things I’d suggest. Some are to do with LingQ itself; some with the A0->A1 step in general; and some might well be more language specific.