Can see at least two meanings for a word (like if a word can have more than one meaning). If I select one or more different entries then it displays at least two when just clicking on the word. Before it was only one, so that often necessitated “drilling down” into the word to see what other meanings I may have selected. So this saves some time. I often would search for entries where people had nicely formatted multiple meanings to trick the old LingQ display into showing nicely formatted multiple meanings, but this new change allows for those cases where you can simply select multiple meaning entries.
In sentence mode, translate button is working for all cases. In old version, longer sentences, or where the sentence “split” for whatever reason actually encompasses more than one sentence, the translate button wouldn’t always work in the app. (It would from the website). In 5.0 on the app it does. Sometimes you have to click it a couple of times, but I think this is potentially due to a timeout where google doesn’t come back immediately? It happens on the old LingQ website at times…I have to go back a page, and come back and hit translate again. In my opinion, likely not an issue with LingQ, but with the speed that google translate is responding for longer sentences.
TTS working in sentence modes for book imports. For whatever reason, this never worked for me in the old LingQ android app. TTS simply wouldn’t play in sentence mode for imported books (no idea what would’ve been different necessarily).
Layout of lesson feed is cleaner and nicer. Admittedly, I don’t really use the feed myself, as I almost only care about my own lessons, so that’s mostly where my focus as in the old version. But hopefully it’s more helpful for those who prefer to be “spoon fed” content.
By far the biggest for me is that on the android version it will now - finally - translate a long sentence!! This did not work even in the old version - only short sentences were translatable.
You can get the translation of a paragraph within a lesson itself if you have already installed google translate extension on your computer. In older version, you could not select it within the lesson itself. Additionally, If you are adding sentences from the lesson itself to Anki I think it is more expedient now.
I don’t have any improvements specific to one platform, but overall here’s the best things I’ve noticed:
Obviously the UI is much cleaner and usable. Miles ahead of the previous interface.
Little bugs that existed in 4.0 (like selecting a word only for it to unselect by itself, translating a phrase but it says there’s no translation available, etc) are no longer issues.
The Library page is much more intuitive and smooth. It’s way easier to grab pieces of content and organize your own content
Little things like moving the Streak/stats page into its own dropdown menu at the top of the screen really helped clean up the clutter of the old design
Although this isn’t a thread for suggestions necessarily, I must say that one big change that would really tie everything together as a cohesive product would be to have an updated sign in page for the web and mobile versions. Maybe that’s already being worked on, but that would definitely make everything about the new style feel more consistent.
I don’t use this platform for a long time and I mostly look at it right now from the tutor’s perspective. So for now I can say the following:
I agree with previous notes that the layout of the lesson feed is cleaner and looks nicer. It doesn’t distract so much and doesn’t provide unpleasant feelings (both web/Android)
I like the control of managing audios to fit is to the particular sentence / phrase more accurate. Previously it was quite difficult to combine parts of the audio with parts of the text. Now it’s much easier and gives you control over the content (web)
I like the fact that now I can format the text for both lessons AND translations (again, I have more control of the content I want to create (web)
I saw an option there with the picture. It’s not working for now (doesn’t allow me to save the lesson with added pictures), but I really eager to try. I was thinking about that because we all love with our eyes and when there are no pictures to be a bit “distracted”, it’s not very motivating for students (web)
I just love the mode when you can listen to the audio and the text is scrolling down by itself with bold words that are pronounced in that particular moment. It looks like “karaoke for texts”. But I am also eager to try this option with the song lessons (both web/Android)
This thing about the control, I think this is why your platform was created in the first place: to give control over language learning in hands of students. This is why I love this platform and this is why I think that everything that relates to the user’s control over the content (the process of adding the content, manipulating the content, and choosing how it will be presented/viewed, etc.) is highly important.
Thanks AllanaSM! I have questions about two of your responses.
I like the control of managing audios to fit is to the particular sentence / phrase more accurate. Previously it was quite difficult to combine parts of the audio with parts of the text. Now it’s much easier and gives you control over the content (web)
By this do you mean when manually importing a lesson, you have more control over time-stamping the text & audio, so that the audio matches the text more consistently?
I saw an option there with the picture. It’s not working for now (doesn’t allow me to save the lesson with added pictures), but I really eager to try. I was thinking about that because we all love with our eyes and when there are no pictures to be a bit “distracted”, it’s not very motivating for students (web)
So previously in the Beta web app you were able to add pictures that could be viewed within the lesson reader, in addition to the Lesson’s thumbnail image?
“By this do you mean when manually importing a lesson, you have more control over time-stamping the text & audio, so that the audio matches the text more consistently?” - yes, exactly.
“So previously in the Beta web app you were able to add pictures that could be viewed within the lesson reader, in addition to the Lesson’s thumbnail image?” - Not exactly. What I mean is that there is a new option. See the screen here: LingQ.JPG - Google Drive
And after I use it I can see a picture added to the text. Like this: LingQ Picture.JPG - Google Drive
But if I have pictures added, I can’t save the lesson. So it’s not working. But I can see some potential here…
Thanks for sharing! A lot of the kinks are still being worked out, so the image function should be working soon That should be very helpful especially for beginner lessons to have visuals to convey meaning to new words
Thanks IraLund!