I just became a new subscriber to LingQ. It seems that a new version has been released? It all seems very clunky and the functionality does not feel fluid or intuitive. How can someone learn and become eventually fluent and enjoy the experience of learning a language, if the functionality doesn’t seem like there was enough detail paid attention to?
I love the Youtube language talks by Steve and felt it would be a good match for learning Spanish.
There are function problems and other problems of not clearly explaining the features. Also are the avatars really necessary for Adults? Can we have a feature to just turn them off?
LingQ will not appeal to everyone. Not every feature will appeal to users of LingQ. I get far more extremely complimentary comments than negative comments like this one. Yet we appreciate all feedback. Perhaps, though, you cold be more specific about what you do not like. You can choose to display your badge instead of the Avatar, by the way.
I find it odd that an adult can’t ignore an avatar. Is seeing its smiling face affecting you so adversely?
I find it ironic that your last sentence of your first paragraph doesn’t have “enough detail paid attention to.” The LingqQ staff has obviously put in tons of effort and it shows. They are fixing bugs at a very high rate. I’m confident that the kinks will all be ironed out soon enough.
I cannot find where you brought up the difficulties with long lessons. I am a long lesson user and this is a problem. For now I LingQ (convert blue words to yellow) on the computer, which goes quickly, and then read on iLingQ on my iPad. I would prefer to do more reading on the computer since I find it very useful to save phrases on my second pass through the lesson. Right now this is too slow since all mousing on long lessons is slow, as you have noted.
I can assure you that this is a high priority for me, and I don’t want to fall down on my “Five Days to Fluency Challenge” in Czech. However, in view of the fact that most people study shorter lessons, I have to accept that it is not at the top of the list right now. I hope, however, that it will be resolved shortly.
@2fluency - I have to disagree with the new update being clunky. I think if you give it a chance, you will be very happy with the way it works now. Please do watch the update video here: - YouTube. It explains the changes and the way the site works now. If you were just trying to create LingQs, I apologize since that functionality was temporarily not working for half an hour. It is working again now.
Regarding the avatar, you can click the little x in the Avatar or Badge tab to hide this from your profile and Learn page.
If you have long lessons that you need to go through, you might want to copy the text from the print page, break it up into shorter sections and then re-import the sections as different lessons. This takes time, but I think it would make a big difference.
The only problem I have with the avatar is that he is not appropriate for a professional setting, such as when I am using LingQ at work. At home he can smile at me all day and show off the things he has earned, but at work he must stay hidden behind the badge, as fuzzy pink creatures are frowned upon in the office. The one place you cannot hide the avatar, the one place I most need to be able to hide him, is on the actual lesson page itself, where the avatar is ever present in the LingQ pane under the LingQ suggestions. Yes, I realize I can collapse the whole pane, but what a pain! (See what I did there?) I like the expanded view while LingQing on a computer, but for now I must use the collapsed view to LingQ at work.
Use adblock or similar browser-side tools to hide the avatar and any other undesirable sections of web pages. I use it to hide many of the logos and instructional text on dictionary pages, which makes LingQing faster.
I am not studying languages here at lingq because the ones I am interested in are not offered (yet). Based on the feedback I get from other users with whom I’m in contact though I have the impression that it is a system that works very well for many people. Besides, it seems to have done an immeasurable amount of good for putting out the message that anybody can learn a new language. I must say that I also find the way lingq’s staff is reacting to criticism and bug reports highly professional.
ad odiernod (…) …but at work he must stay hidden behind the badge, as fuzzy pink creatures are frowned upon in the office (…)
I’m surprised your boss allows you to use lingq and study languages while you are in your office. He is either rather laid-back or sees the benefits of you getting better at languages and is ready to “sacrifice” some office time for that. Wish there were more bosses like that (and I assume he is happy with your job performance otherwise he’d probably not let you use lingq).
@Robert: “…I’m surprised your boss allows you to use lingq and study languages while you are in your office. He is either rather laid-back or sees the benefits of you getting better at languages and is ready to “sacrifice” some office time for that.”
I believe Odiernod recently said that he is now working for an Italian firm, and spending some time actually based in Italy?
I guess it’s in the interest of his bosses if he works on fine-tuning his (already excellent) level in Italian?
@ Robert
I do not think it is unusual for an international company to allow study during work. I used to work for a company in France that organised my French lessons during worktime. My current company sends people abroad on courses all the time and we have several teachers coming in who provide private tuition in several languages. In my experience this is normal for an international company. The provider needs to be audited though and Lingq would probably need more of a track record before it would be considered.
ad JayB: Yes, Odiernod already has achieved an excellent level of Italian (judging by what I have read so far in the Italian forum and since he obviously got his new job also thanks to his knowledge of Italian). Even if it is in the interest of his boss that he makes further progress, I don’t think it is quite the rule for companies to allow their employees to use office time for that. By the way, I hope my comment did not create the impression that I was criticizing him. Quite on the contrary, he ought to be applauded for his commitment.
at Marianne10: I know of quite a few companies that organize courses and/or tutors for their employees but they do so at fixed times. From odiernod’s posting I got the impression that he can sort of decide himself when he works with lingq during his office hours. I guess it all depends on the company’s policy and I’m certainly very much in favour of allowing people to use such learning tools. I guess as long as they get their work done, a smart boss won’t be against it either.
I import my own lessons, like Steve, and I like them as close to the 10 000 word limit as I can get them. I found new LingQ terribly slow at first, but I’ve learned to minimise the right hand pane and work through in the old-style, mouse-over mode. It’s then no slower than before.
When reviewing lingqs, on the second pass through the text, the right-hand pane is useful because it helps me find blue or yellow words that shouldn’t be blue or yellow.
When editing lingqs, which I do as part of the learning process (adding genders of nouns and suchlike) I do that old-style too, on the vocabulary page.
@ Robert I use my flashcards too during work hours and listen to stuff on the radio. I think in today’s workplace they just equip you with Blackberry’s and give your the possibility of working from home. They then expect you to manage your own time. And if you are at home nobody can check you anyway.
If you don’t like the Avatar, you can just install the browser extension ABP (Ad Block Plus Firefox/Chrome) to block the image.
Also, regarding learning curve. A really big “Add” (open) lesson button and a really big “Play” audio button would work wonders.
Information overload. You can have advanced features and loads of statistics, but keep them somewhat discreet and organized.
And while at it, make the “+” button next to LingQ’s bigger as well. …Those are the main features of the site. Open, Play, Read, and Add words.
Also, why so many links to Facebook, etc? Leave these at the bottom of the lesson, I can’t imagine friends on Facebook wanting to see Jane Doe’s lingq lessons all the time.
The learning curve must now be huge! I’ve been using LingQ for years so my learning has been incremental over various upgrades. I must admit, after several days of playing with new lingq I’m still struggling to find features I’m used to using - never mind learning completely new functionality.
HAving said that, I would challenge you to show me a tool anywhere (on the internet or elsewhere) that’s even a tenth as useful for anyone trying to teach themselves more than one language. There are some tools available for learners of some languages, but nothing I’ve found has so much functionality across so many different languages as LingQ.
AS for information overload, LingQ 2.0 has dropped a couple of statistics that I’m missing. I was thinking of proposing a few more for each lesson, discreetly hidden behind a “for obsessives only” button.
@yirtse - In terms of organizing and presenting help/tutorials for LingQ using the LingQ wiki, please go ahead. The LingQ wiki is there to be used as you like. We appreciate all the help!