We have a long list of fixes that we are going to make to LingQ but I would like to know what you would like to see. Please mention your “pet peeves” here and we will see how different members react to them.
Since now we have a forum and very good discussions, I think improve the forum is very important. The forum is not organized, it is becoming difficult to use because the number of posts is increasing. We need at least to be able to see the posts in some order and know what post is new and what isn’t. In other words, the should have the same Functionality of any standard internet forum.
I think the forum is primary, but besides the forum I would like to see the system working properly for japanese language.
I used to study vocabulary in a way somewhat different from the lingQ proposal, and I think my way is complementary to lingQ’s.
I had a small software I made myself which worked in a simple question/answer mode. The ‘question’ was a word or most frequently a phrase in my own language, and the ‘answer’ was that phrase in English. The program corrected my sentence automatically. It was very restrictive, of course, since it corrected my sentence letter by letter, but helped me a lot in memorizing words spelling and tipical sentences or expressions.
So I would suggest something similar to this in lingQ, because I feel that memorizing the translation to my own language is easier than memorizing translation from it to the language to be learnt, so I would like to have this extra help in that task integrated into lingQ.
We have had a previous suggestion to use the flashcards in the reverse order. That is from the Hint to the word instead of from the word to the Hint. This will achieve the same result as you are after and we will look at doing this in future upgrades to the Vocabulary section.
Mairo, we will gradually be making improvements to the Forum. I have started a thread in the Known Issues Forum explaining some of the things we are planning there. Any other suggestions are welcome there. As for the Japanese, and by extension the Chinese and Korean, improved functionality will have to wait until we have the time to look into some of the key issues involved with Asian languages. This won’t happen until some time in the new year. We just have too many other things on our plates right now.
Hi, this is Keith. I will tell you what the most important improvements are to make to LingQ. But I will mention only one because I don’t want to come off as that user who thinks he knows everything.
So, number one. The most important improvement to make, the most important thing to do, when programming, is to make everything user definable. Even if you don’t plan on letting the user decide something, program it so that it can easily be switched on later, because you might change your mind later. From my experience, it is a real pain to try to go back into the code later and update every place that needs to be recoded when you decide to change something into an option that the user can set.
Now, where would I like most to be able to set my own preferences? Well, I’ll tell ya. It’s in that word saving vocabulary tool. I’d like everything in that to be customizable. As it is now, there are four fields plus tags. There is the word, which is not editable, the Status, the Hint, the Phrase, and then the tags. As a user, I would like to set my preferences. Do I want to save a phrase, or do I want it to default to blank? Maybe I want to change the field label. Or maybe I want to add a field. When I add tags, I have to type them out every time. Sometimes, I forget if I abbreviated a particular tag or not. It will help when you add functionality like Vox.com has for adding tags. Next, when I edit the fields, I like to put in the info from the dictionary. If only I could do that with a click.
As it is now, I find the vocabulary saving tool to be too much work for what I want to do. I have to do too much typing, too much copy and pasting. I really want to set up my preferences, have certain fields from the dictionary go into certain places automatically (user definable), and get it down to a one-click operation.
I want to save all of my words! Not just my unknown words. I study Japanese which is an agglutinative language. As you know, every verb has 2 dozen forms. I’m not going to save every form of the word. That would increase my vocabulary count by ridiculous proportions. I want to save the dictionary form of the word only.
Keith
Keith,
Thank you for your suggestions. I agree in principle in having as many user definable options as possible, although we do not want to confuse the user either. Certainly letting the user define some of the widget functions to his/her own preferences is a good idea. There are limits in terms of the size of the widget.
On the widget as it is now.
You can save a phrase if you want. Or you can edit and save a longer phrase with the word or phrase that you saved. I do not understand what you mean by defaulting to blank.
We know that we have to have a list of “tags” that you create and pick from. It is just not at the top of our priority list right now.
Dictionary info now requires you to click and drag.We are going to offer the option of having the first word or words automatically fill the Hint space and allowing you to add or edit from the dictionary.
I often save words that I already know to some extent. I also save the many different forms of the words in Russian. These will usually appear together in my alphabetical list in Vocabulary. There I can batch delete or move to known the ones that I no longer want.
I find it useful to save the different forms of the words in order to see how they are used. It helps to reinforce the learning of them. We may customize this to allow learners to save only one form of the word. However, we are trying initially to have a system that works for all languages. We will define special language specific functions later.
Bear in mind that some of the functions do not yet work properly for Japanese and Asian languages. Your saved words to no appear on a list in WorkDesk and are not highlighted in the text. This all has to do with how words are divided, and that is something we will address when we do the Asian languages properly.
It should be possible to avoid “dozens” of forms of verbs by treating post-positions differently. We will see.
Keep the suggestions coming.
To explain what I mean by “defaulting to blank.”
If I decide that I do not want to save phrases, I would like to set the field to have nothing in it automatically. Currently, it automatically inserts words from the text. I have to put my cursor in the field and select the pre-chosen phrase and delete it every time.
Ideally, I determine the way it behaves for me. I set mine up for me so that I have less work to do when using the system. Less typing and using the mouse means less pain in my wrist and hands and then I could use the system longer.
Next, let me address the “we do not want to confuse the user” issue. The administrator would set up the “default” behavior for new users. That way, users need not adjust their preferences. But if they find something not behaving the way they would like, then they can go into their preferences and set it up. You can go even further and call some options basic and some advanced. Users decide if they want to look at the advanced settings or not.
I find the captured phrase very useful when I review my saved words, whether in lists or on Flash Cards. The remind me of where I encountered the words. I sometimes edit them and sometimes change the phrase by going to Examples.
How about other people. How useful is the captured Phrase fragment and the examples? Should we also allow the learner to drill from the phase fragment to a sentence, rather than to the text as now?
Please tell us how you use this field, if at all.
I think the phrase is field is essencial, I almost always take time to enhance the suggestion. It could be better on capturing the phrase where the word appears. I would like to have the whole sentence, which is easily defined by the punctuation marks.
Ana-paula,
We just take the phrase fragment now since we can control the length. In future I think we should let you drill from the “examples” to the whole sentence, rather than to the content item as now.
What do others think?
At most I correct the phase fragment in this wise I have profit with by review in other words I reduce the sentence perhaps in a special wise.
For me the most important point would be to edit the word I saved.
If that is not possible I would have the possibility from LingQBox all over (WorkDesk, Flashcard in Overview and so on). Very often by review with Flashcard I would save the word in another wise but I cannot change the word self. So I would like save of new in desired manner.
I would like to see an option that will highlight “known” words in the text. I mean, of course, words that are marked as a 4 in my vocabulary list. That way, I can know which words I have already saved. Without that, I cannot tell the difference between unsaved words and words which I have saved as “known” words in my vocabulary.
I am making the extra effort to add spaces in my Japanese text that I import so that the system will work more properly for Japanese. I also am making the extra effort to save all of my known words, not only the unknown words.
Keith
Keith,
Thanks. We can look into having a “Highlight” function: None, Saved,Learned.
Does the system work when you separate the words in Japanese? If so you could share some of the texts with others by just emailing us the spaed texts and we can edit our master versions of these texts.
Yes, it basically does. If you separate the words in Japanese with spaces then it works like any other language. All of the texts I have done it with are news articles that I imported from a news website.
It’s too bad that the news is copyrighted. After all, they don’t make up the news, they just report it. I import all my news from http://news.tbs.co.jp/
They have the text with video. A lot of good short articles.
Keith,
I’m wondering why you want to identify the difference between unsaved words and words you have saved and learned or “learned words”? Our approach is that any words that are not highlighted right now are either New, Known or Learned. Learned are a subset of Known, of course. Therefore, our assumption is that as you read through a text you either know the words or you are unsure and LingQ them. If the word is New a LingQ is created for it. If it’s Known, a LingQ is created for it and it is subtracted from your Known words list. If it is Learned, the existing LingQ card opens up. My point is that either you know the word or you can LingQ it and I’m not sure why you need to differentiate between New, Known and Learned words.
We have talked about showing all New words in the past and that I understand but I’m just wondering why you want to see your Learned words identified separately from your “unlearned” Known words. (Those Known words that the system identified for you.)
Hello Mark. Thank you for your interest.
There are a couple of statements that I don’t quite follow which I will point out here and then while reading my answer, please keep in mind that information which I didn’t understand.
If it’s Known, a LingQ is created for it and it is subtracted from your Known words list. If it is Learned, the existing LingQ card opens up.
The reason I am saving all known words is because I want them in my list on the vocabulary page. I am adding tags to my words such as noun, adverb, adj., city_name, prefecture_name, and so on and so forth.
Then I will be able to know how many nouns I know. I will know how many verbs I know. I will have a tally for each category. I will know how many nouns are also suru verbs.
So currently I see a word in my text that I know, but I do not know if I have added it to my vocabulary list and tagged it. If I remember saving it, then I know. But if I don’t remember, then I check.
I do not care if the “learned words” are highlighted the same as the unlearned but saved words. I just am wanting to know if I have them in my vocabulary list. It is an accurate counter if I am the one who has saved them.
I do not know what the system is saving. I cannot see a list of what the system calls known words. Is this different for the other languages?
Keith
Keith,
As I understand it, we will create a separate list for "Learned " words, Status 4 words. When you review your words in the Vocab section you will normally only see Status 1,2,3. You can then choose to look at your Status 4 words.
As to the words that you have been given credit for, the incidentally learned words, we do not at present keep track of them. We have not had any other requests to do this. I do not know the implications for the system and our many calculations of doing this.
We will be introducing testing at at some point and at that time there will be an opportunity to test your known word level and confirm it.
The stats are an indication of progress over time. I have over 20,000 known words in Russian, another language with a lot of different forms of essential the same word. I do not know what I would do with a list of 20,000 words. I have enough trouble focusing on the words that I know that I am still trying to learn.
But that is me, and let’s see what others have to say.
Honestly, I would disable the Japanese section entirely until you have it working properly. It’s unusable in its current state, and your willingness to put it out there anyway makes me likely to avoid your site in the future.
kewms
You can appreciate that we cannot disable the Japanese section just because one person does not like it.
We recognize the shortcomings and will improve it. Meanwhile we have learners who are happy using it for Japanese, free of charge.
As to the use of Romaji, here again we offer this option to those beginners who need it. No one is obligated to look at the Romaji.
What, beside the dictionary, do you find so off-putting in the Japanese section?