LANGUAGE LEARNING | PROGRESS REPORT | EDUCATION
My Language Learning 4: LingQ, The Stepping Stone!
Learning Italian, Chinese, and Finnish in 2023.
Missed any of my past language-learning stories? Find them here. 👇
Over the past few weeks, I’ve tried a variety of approaches with the goal of learning easier, faster, and more enjoyable. In the process, I’ve found that some methods are particularly suitable for getting started with a language, while other methods become more efficient in the long run.
So how you ultimately go about learning languages is not set in stone at any point, but is sometimes related to your own preferences as well as your own disposition. 👩🎓
For example, I was recently told in Discord that I should focus on one☝️ language only.
And yes, that’s right.
Of course, you’ll make faster progress if you focus your available time on one language rather than dividing it among several.
And for someone who works full time and thus may only be able to devote one hour in the evening to learning, that makes sense. Because you don’t get very far with one hour if you have to divide it by 3.
The situation is different at German Gymnasiums (high schools), for example. 🏫
If you want to study at a university in Germany, you usually need the Abitur. The Abitur requires 2✌️ foreign languages. Thus, 2 foreign languages are taught in German high schools.
👉 If you now additionally take a study group in which a third foreign language is taught, you will end up in a similar situation as I am in right now.
When I was still a teenager and attended the Gymnasium, we had English and French, or alternatively Latin. The voluntary study groups offered Spanish and Russian. Theoretically, a student could learn up to 4 foreign languages at the same time.
However, it’s no secret that classroom education fails miserably when it comes to foreign languages. We learn most of it anyway only when we actually interact with and immerse ourselves in the target language.
Anyway — whether someone learns more than one language at the same time, everyone must weigh and decide for themselves.
1☝️ Fun Fact:
Actually, we never stop learning a language. There is no “done” when it comes to language learning.
Even in our native language, there are usually still quite a few words we don’t know.
Add to that the fact that languages are alive. They are constantly changing and evolving.
LingQ, The Stepping Stone!
Often, the name LingQ came up in Discord servers dedicated to language learning. And at some point, curiosity got the better of me.
What was this “LingQ” all about? 🤔
LingQ is a platform that collects online content from podcasts, videos, or websites. The best part: you can also import your own pieces of content!
They are then displayed as texts.
Imported media usually requires a transcript, which is available in most of them nowadays or can be auto-generated.
In the picture, you can see the page of an Italian podcast whose episodes I am currently listening to and reading: “Licia domanda” (Licia asks).
Here, a father shares conversations with his daughter. For example, the two talk about the barbarians and about legionaries. In another episode, he tells his daughter who Galileo was.
Another time, I read the transcript of a YouTube video in which someone was trying to get to the bottom of the story about Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and find out if any of it really happened.
There is some really great, interesting content in there! Time well invested. 👍
The process in LingQ is as follows:
- When you have your first text in front of you, all the words are blue. That means they are new words; you haven’t encountered them on LingQ yet.
- If you click on a word, you will see the translations on the right. If you select one, the word will be yellow and added to your own “LingQs”. These are words that you are learning.
- Alternatively, you can search for a suitable translation yourself. For this purpose, a whole series of dictionaries are integrated and you can choose your favorites.
- The words you already know can be left in blue. When you turn the page, these words will be added to the known words, as you can see in the following picture:
So over time, the number of known words grows, which is very motivating!
The yellow words, on the other hand, can be learned directly in LingQ’s integrated SRS (spaced repetition system). Alternatively, they can also be exported to Anki. Personally, I learn them directly in LingQ, which saves time.
The SRS system in LingQ offers various query options:
- Flashcard
- Reverse Flashcard
- Cloze Test
- Multiple Choice
- Dictation
I have disabled everything except Multiple Choice. It is the easiest option, but it also leaves little room for similar interpretations of the term. But again, everyone has their own preferences and must decide for themselves.
I think that naturally, over time, I will learn exactly the words I need. And should I ever not recognize a supposedly familiar word, I can always mark it again.
There are a total of 5 “levels” that a word can have. If you mark a word, it turns yellow and is on level 1 — unless you manually assign it to a higher level.
In the quizzes, the word then moves to the higher levels after a few correct answers. In the process, the highlighting color in the texts becomes weaker or changes to gray until the highlighting finally disappears completely, and the word becomes “known”.
There really is a lot of material on LingQ! And the nice thing is that even at the C1 level, the tool is still viable.
I tested it in both Spanish and English.
Of course, a lot of the content is under copyright, which is why most of it is external links. But with the LingQ Browser Extension, you can import the content for your own use. — Even Medium articles!
So if like me, your native language is not English, this would be a way to read the stories of our co-authors and directly track still-unknown words — which otherwise we often wouldn’t have noticed at all.
My Progress in Finnish
Duolingo Unit 14 (of 23)
- 🎓 Experience: 18900 XP (+ 3084 XP)
Do you also learn with Duolingo? Add me: Henryetha. 👫
Anki
- 🟢 Young Cards: 128 (+ 5)
- ✅ Mature Cards: 59 (+ 35)
My Progress in Mandarin
TOFU
- ✍️ Characters learned: 75 (/na)
TOFU is an app I’ve been using for a few weeks now to practice Hanzi writing. And since my focus in Mandarin is on writing and reading (and less on speaking), I thought this would be a better indicator to record progress.
Anki
- 🟢 Young Cards: 60 (/na)
- ✅ Mature Cards: 16 (/na)
I removed the pre-made 1k deck and now only create my own cards. It’s slower, but I find it easier that way.
My Progress in Italian
I have now decided to move away from both Memrise and the GCSE deck in Anki. While both were helpful for getting started, progress has been comparatively slow by now.
I’m investing the extra time I’ve gained in LingQ.
LingQ
- 📚 Known Words: 4010 (/na)
The amount of known words seems high in LingQ. However, they are not individual words but also include conjugations, etc. In fact, I currently rate myself somewhere between A1 and A2. More is probably not doable after only one month.
Video of the Week
Steve Kaufmann, the founder of LingQ, talks about “The 5 Stages of Enjoyment in Language Learning”. I found the video inspiring — maybe you will too.
Steve himself is proficient in over 20 languages. Respect!
