Sometimes it’s incredible to think how you would learn a language if LingQ never existed. What would you do if this service became unavailable? Time and time again, I watch youtube videos of people and their tips on language learning but up until this day i still have not come across a more effective method than lingQ and generally reading and listening to content that is interesting. I agree that one can engage in other activities but as a bread-and-butter language-learning staple LingQ always wins for me.
Like people always say that in order to learn a language you have to watch lots of movies/TV and listen to lots of music, listen to the radio but at the end of the day these things are way more beneficial when you have reached the upper echelons of the language and are more advanced. To my mind, there is nothing more better than reading and then listening to that same content that you have read when you are out and about, exercising, shopping or travelling/walking through the city etc steadily building up your passive skills each and every day. I generally am so grateful to have access here as some people don’t even know about this site. Maybe people just study in different ways, but the more I think about it, the more it has pushed me recently to invest as much time as possible on LingQ.
There is only so much duolingo that one can do until you just simply won’t progress, plus that method is very tedious. Anki seems quite good but you often don’t have the context of the words/phrases and again it seems very tedious, too deliberate and dry. Italki/skype is very good but again, there is only so many words that someone can tell you in a short-time span and even then you still have to remember them and their meanings. Am I missing something?? People always state the obvious in terms of progressing, but most of those things are less useful until you have actually built up a very large vocabulary/oral comprehension skills so you are at least comfortable in the language and don’t have to rack your brain. So what do people who don’t use lingQ do to actually achieve fluency? I can’t help but think that their methods are more painstaking, deliberate and less efficient. I guess whatever someone likes doing will work as they will spend more time doing that.
I agree. I think the biggest problem with not having LingQ would be the lack of activity/progress metrics… You could read and get definitions in other ways, but it’s hard to stay motivated when progress isn’t obvious or measurable.
Exactly. Lingq gives additional motivation by measuring your progress which I find as the best incentive. It is not that difficult to find listening/reading content nowadays. I was amazed to find out that youtube automatic translation has improved a lot recently. If the speaker has proper diction it actually recognizes almost all words correctly which means you can listen and read at the same time, especially if you are not a total beginner so that you will notice obvious errors. But is is only a matter of time when there will be no errors at all:)
I don’t use lingq. The first reason was that I wanted to learn for free. However I don’t even use the free alternative that exist. Listening, reading, you can easily do out of lingq. So what are the bonus of using lingq ? The coloration of words, the stats on your number of known words, the only thing that could be of interest to me is the ability to get new contents that are close to your level. I prefer listening and reading to thing I like.
Good luck with that at beginner level. The most amazing Lingq feature in my opinion are shared hints. This way I don’t have to look up every word in a dictionary which saves a lot of time. I also tried free alternatives, and Lingq is much much better. 10$ a month is quite cheap even if you live in a second world country like I do and considering the advantages of using this website I am happy to pay.
Later on in the language learning you are free to do whatever you want, I myself prefer reading on my kindle because it isn’t as eye straining as computer, but that is just not possible until you are at least at intermediate level.
Looking up lots of words in a dictionary is itself a valuable learning task.
I’ve just joined here so am hardly committed. Here, I am most interested in Latin. Without LingQ, I would still have my side-by-side text. Basically serves the same purpose, except that I know the translation is actually reliable (and it’s not just translating single words). The “wisdom of crowds” as to what the definitions of new words should be — well, I don’t give it much inherent deference when the crowd is made up of other people who didn’t know what the word meant.
Cool. I think two amazing features here are the connection to online dictionaries and the displaying of stats!! Really helps with efficient and reliable learning that is measurable.
I think importing text is by far the most valuable feature - but then again, one of the reasons it’s so valuable is that you then have the connection to dictionaries and stats like you mentioned.
linqg is great but your question isvery strange to me because they are many other resources out there as well maybe not as cheap or thorough for as many languages like linqg the question you should ask what if there was no internet ?then you would be learning the old school way with a hand held dictionary and dusty grammar books
@Tourminator - I also think this is a strange question. Are you not aware of the many other free resources that do almost everything lingQ does? (Readlang springs to mind) Don’t get me wrong, lingQ is well worth the money for me. But if it didn’t exist, I’d just use free pop-up dictionary tools and I doubt it would make a big impact on my overall learning time.
The reason I stick with lingQ is mostly that I like the fact it remembers my words and colors them. I think the only other tool that does this is ***, and I’ve heard it’s installation is hard even for computer savvy people of which I’m not one. That’s the only unique feature that keeps me here, but there are other conveniences that are pretty rare among free tools. For example, I can study 6 of the 8 languages that I maintain here all in one place. The stats can be nice, especially if I’m doing a public challenge like I’m doing now.
Comparing lingQ to duolingo, anki, italki and skype also doesn’t make sense to me. lingQ is a reading tool, duolingo is a beginners program, anki is a flashcard program, italki is a website for meeting tutors and skype is a video communication tool. I don’t understand why you want to compare these. Maybe you could compare all these things as parts of entire language learning methods, but unless you detail out the methods we won’t be able to understand what it is you’re comparing.
Before we had internet just like now a day. To learn English was so difficult for many reasons. Traditionally, Learner should go to oversea for living in that country and acquires language. This was not available option for all of English learner candidates. But, now we are living in Technology society and most of us can easily utilized the services and product as end-users. Those technology background service are become very handy for learner, Especially, lingQ is the one good example that providing good product and service that make people achieve their target of goal without wasting lots of effort.
But are those resources as efficient and effective, connected to online dictionaries with a dedicated app and forums and the recognition of stats etc? I don’t think so…
Today, I had my very first 15 mins conversation over the Skype with tutor. After session, she post me feed back of our conversation regarding my talking, sentence, pronunciation. Every thing is so quick, transparent and easy. I hope that I would improve my tongue in English soon as native speaker:p
I normally just get a few popular books that I have read in English, then find a translation and possibly an audio book, and just listen and read it at the same time :). I do this for about 10 books or so, until I can now access other native content that is new! I don’t bother looking up words, since you already know the story and pick up the vocabulary quite fast
like i said linqg is a great tool for maintaining and starting multiple languages and i do like it so i’m not knocking it but they are others too and most people bon’t need forums or stats to learn a language either and every browser comes with a pop up dictionary
