Who are some of the most successful / productive LingQ users of all time?

Open Forum
21

It´s obvious that the straight difference in ability between someone who speaks 50K words or someone who speaks 50,5K words is less of a deal than if it were 0,5K and 1K. It is much more interesting to compare proportions, as in the difference between 15K and 30K as opposed to 30K and 60K. I think in LingQ there is a bit of a point with the known words count where you are fairly fluent, around 40K for most Western-European languages perhaps. After that you are mostly adding rare words, names and such. So yes, having 66K compared to 44K mostly just tells you the one with the higher count has spent more time reading and/or read more varied material. That again makes it more likely they will retain more of their known words too, so it is of some value.

I understand you think talking about or especially glorifying people with high counts may encourage people to learn in ineffective ways. That is a valid point of view and probably true for most people. I however, feel I can do both: get high stats and learn a lot. I certainly don´t look at any of these users as my “idols”. I think some of them probably have a lot of ability and have done well and been dedicated, but I don´t really know them and I certainly don´t idolise any of them.

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Rokkvi, thank you for the post! And I don’t think you should have named it any differently - conversation is interesting so far))

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It has been interesting, but I agree that the amount of known words does not say how successful you are or have been in a language. I somewhat regret having come off as saying that.

Some great polyglots, like Moses McCormick have used LingQ just a bit, so they will not have high stats but are of course successful language learners. If someone was already fluent in multiple languages and only got high word counts in them, not in any new ones, you could wonder whether they were really that successful in learning anything new.

You could also argue that your success in using LingQ is really how that translates into you language ability beyond LingQ (real life), not your stats on LingQ. I´d have to agree with that.

You could also argue that your success is how much you were able to improve your language abilities considering your situation. So if a great polyglot used LingQ to become fluently literate in one more language and used that as a springboard to then quickly become fluent, you could argue that someone who only ever spoke one language and was already a bit older was more successful in using LingQ if they also just learned one more language through it to the same degree.

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Wow what a post! Very interesting to read about Goodhart’s Law. I’ve definitely fallen victim to chasing stats and comparing myself to others. I had a terrible experience with the fitness app Strava where I found myself obsessing about speed/distance/time and forgot that enjoying the activity is what is most important.

I do however think that it is good sometimes to have goals and have a way to measure progress…everything in moderation I guess.

David Sedaris wrote a funny article about his obsession with counting steps which I think a lot of Lingqers/obsessive types can relate too:

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I would say Ftornay he has a solid knowledge in a few languages and has dabbled in quite a few more obscure languages. Also thank you for mentioning me, these past couple of months has been very hard but that made me really happy.

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I think you can see something like LingQ or some fitness app as having 2 possible purposes: your enjoyment and your advancement. It could certainly be valid to use either a language app to get better at a language or a fitness app to get fit, even if you don´t enjoy using them. It is much better if you do enjoy them though and makes it much less likely you´ll quit or just use them in an unfocused way. I think the point about Goodhart´s law and the known words count is valid to a fairly good degree.

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I must confess that I fall into a few of the categories listed in the first paragraph. I started learning languages at community college (Spanish, French and German) a few years before I discovered Lingq.

In Finland we have two official languages Finnish and Swedish and should maybe have even three (Sami languages) according to some. I tend to be obsessed with stats as well, although in my situation it’s more that I put ridiculously high pressure on myself to succeed.

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t_harangi & ftonay, would you mind emailing me at rokkvi@gmail.com, cause I´m curious to ask you about something that should probably not be discussed in the open forum.

29

LOL they don´t let you put emails in the threads, my bad.

30

@pma04mts I very much agree about the importance of goals. My own solution is to set up activity goals, that is, how much I do, rather than result goals, how much I achieve ,because activity is under my control and is sure to give you results, sooner or later. Plus activity is much less likely to turn into an empty number. Of course, I also like to see results and I’m as exciteged as the next guy when I reach “advanced 2” or get to 50K known words but I try to appreciate more, e.g. the fact that I’ve read a wonderful novel, such as “Master and Margarita” in my target language or I’ve watched a great film (never mind if I missed a lot of it) or have engaged in an interesting conversation, even if I’ve made a quantillion mistakes during it.
Great link, by the way, thnks for sharing

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I’ve posted a private message on your profile

32

Btw, reading Sedaris’s article, it occurred to me that the main problem may not be the measure itself (although considering more multi-dimensional variables is certainly important) but our obsession with “top ten” lists and the like.
Consider number of steps as an indicator for fitness, as in the article. Let’s accept that it is measured properly, that it is the main form of exercise for a set of individuals and so on, and that it is the only available variable. Ok, we want to predict which individuals are likely to be “fittest” (most “successful”) based on that piece of information.
I would argue that it would be those in the upper middle range, not the top ones!!!
Why is that? Well, those with very low counts are not moving, so they are not fit. As for vocabulary size, this is an excellent predictor for low level.
But those with insanely high counts are probably not very fit either! At this range, this is mostly a measure of obsession, rather than fitness, because someone who is walking the whole day is either “gaming” the system or all they do is walk, which is not healthy because that means that they are missing out on key components of fitness such as:

  • Rest: for fitness you must push your organism, stimulate it, and then rest so it can recover and get stronger
  • Other activities/normal life: you get fit to do something, to carry out a more fulfilling life, to play with your friends/sons/grandsons, achieve great things, not just for the sake of it. You can’t have a fulfilling life just by walking all day.
  • Other physical activities: walking is all right but you still need more, you can be the best walker in the world and have an atrophied upper body. You need to do more (strength, mobility, …) even if it is only occasional and is not your main physical exercise.

So, succesful stories are in the middle-upper range: these are people than take walking seriously ad even push themselves over the average but still have time for other key components of fitness and general success.
Word count and other Lingq stats are similar. Low counts show low level but the most successful stories are those of people who took Lingq seriously and even pushed themselves a bit for some time but also engaged in other activities and eventually “graduated” from Lingq and went on to use their knowledge for something meaningful. Depending on the goals, they may either discontinue Lingq use or come back after some time for a new language.
Btw, the OP also implied that learning more languages would be more “successful”, which I also dispute. I am much more impressed by someone mastering a few languages than
I think that this idea of “upper middle” supremacy makes sense also based on particular examples for this community. For example Steve has a huge word count, of course, it is his product, he is supposed to test it hard and it is his “job” to some extent. That is all well and good but it would be naive to expect others to have the same type of commitment. His word count in Russian, e.g., is very high (not the highest) but, as a Russian learner, I can assure that there are other Lingq users, with a substantially lower count and who have taken the word accumulation way slower and who have a much, much higher level in the language. I try not to mention third parties but I have some examples in my head. This is no criticism of Steve, he can communicate in Russian well, which was his goal, but he himself admits that his level is so-so, it is certainly not his strongest language.

One last point: participants in this thread have argued that well, ok, maybe known words can’t predict overall skill in the language, but at least, they predict high reading ability. I even dispute this. Just as in the stepping example, language learning is a synergistic set of skills. Even some degree of engaging in other activities (media watching, conversation) can dramatically improve your reading comprehension because you engage with the culture, you meet familiar words in differente contexts and wordss that are rare in writing are common in speech, so you may have missed or misunderstood those.
J.L. Borges has a wonderful story about how Averroesjust can’t understand Aristotle’s “Poetics” , although he has a wonderful command of the language, because his lack of experience with theatre doesn’t allow him to “grok” tragedy. He simply lacks cultural context so he can’t understand a text. At the time, that obstacle would’ve been impossible to overcome. Nowadays you can add to your understanding through direct contact with the culture of your target language. You’ll never get that is all you do is add word counts: La busca de Averroes - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

33

Thank you. I did not know you could post them as private.

34

Whilst I get OP is just seeking an accurate list of users with highest known words, I’d also like to echo other comments: it can be counterproductive to solely focus on this, or benchmark against it.

I’ll go a step further and throw out the following: the most important lingq user stat, BY FAR, is total number of hours of native content produced and shared with the community.

That’s the stat that really separates lingq from everything else., and it is what the real communities within lingq are built around. The 5-10% of users who, over a decade or more, have added to the community libraries, and have created pathways for specific languages to grow here.

I’d encourage everyone to give back to the lingq libraries and think how others new to lingq can more easily go through the learning path.

Lingq should consider highlighting this user stat, and incentivise and encourage it.

35

Yes! In particular, it shows who is most productive, a term used in the OP

36

I agree. Honouring those that contribute the most in some way is not a bad idea.

37

You are right. The topic is terribly worded, as I´ve already admitted.

38

Nice suggestion :slight_smile:

39

" As a measure they are not “reliable” because different people will declare a given word as known based on very different criteria "

Ha, this is true. I’m learning Japanese and most of the time, if I can READ the word I automatically make them known…it’s a habit that started in the beginning and I’ve just gone with it. Even if I don’t fully understand the word itself hehe.

40

Good question! To me, the most successful LingQ users are the ones who enjoy using LingQ the most.