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LingQ pros and cons | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Links & Internet Resources |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 57 of 116 17 April 2012 at 1:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Interesting. But then why isn't Swedish in your profile? What level did you reach?
I clearly remember Steve saying that he doesn't do listening and reading at the same time. I think audios with transcripts are overrated - if your studying is balanced, there's little need for them. They're mostly needed when you find that your reading is better than your listening or vice versa. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5667 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 58 of 116 17 April 2012 at 2:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I see LingQ (and LWT) as offering one tremendous advantage over other approaches: they close the gap between intensive and extensive reading.
Intensive reading is where you look up every word you don't know. This is very time-consuming with traditional dictionaries, so you don't tend to cover a lot of material. That is, you focus on depth of understanding at the expense of breadth of material. Extensive reading, on the other hand, is where you skip over things you don't understand. This allows you to cover much more material but leaves you stumped about detailed meaning. That is, you sacrifice depth in favour of breadth. By speeding up dictionary look-up dramatically and (perhaps more importantly) ensuring you only need to look up a given word once, LingQ takes away the pain and time burden of intensive reading, so you no longer have to choose whether to do an intensive or extensive reading session. It lets you get depth of understanding across breadth of material. Edited by Splog on 17 April 2012 at 2:07pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6314 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 59 of 116 17 April 2012 at 2:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
My comment about Swedish wasn't meant so much to validate my own level in it, but rather to point out the quality of what they offer in their library. I have studied it to probably a good intermediate level, but have put it on hold while I focus on Spanish. With Mandarin also in the mix, and a lack of discipline to study three languages diligently, I simply risk spreading myself to thin, hence it's current absence from my profile. Also, having both audio and transcript by no means necessitates their simultaneous use. I don't particularly like listening and reading at the same time either. Rather, it is simply the possibility to read what you have heard and listen to what you have read that makes the combination so valuable in my opinion. That way you can fill in gaps that exist in your oral comprehension by referring to the text version of that same content item. Is it absolutely necessary? No, but it has certainly been helpful to me. How you use them is of course up to you. Edited by ChristopherB on 17 April 2012 at 2:25pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 60 of 116 17 April 2012 at 2:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
LingQ simply has the same advantages as any pop-up dictionary does. In fact I think even if you love your pop-up dictionary, it's better to switch it off sometimes and just "swim" through the text. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Švejk Super Polyglot Newbie Canada lingq.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4604 days ago 29 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Japanese, French, Cantonese, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese Studies: Czech | Message 61 of 116 17 April 2012 at 3:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
I sometimes do listen while reading, for example on my iPad while on my treadmill using LingQ. Mostly I do these as separate activities. When I have dedicated time, I read. More than any activity, I listen, because it is possible to do so when engaged in other activities, running, cross-country skiing, doing the dishes, driving, etc. As to what is better for us as learners, that depends on each individual, mostly on what each person likes to do, in my view. Edited by Švejk on 17 April 2012 at 3:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Švejk Super Polyglot Newbie Canada lingq.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4604 days ago 29 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Japanese, French, Cantonese, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese Studies: Czech | Message 62 of 116 17 April 2012 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
Before LingQ I would buy two of three starter books, Teach Yourself, Colloquial, Assimil, etc. and spend a few months, mostly reading and re-reading, listening and listening over and over, reading the grammar explanations without trying to remember anything, and certainly avoiding any exercises, which I very much dislike doing. Then I moved on to whatever "readers' I could find, and whatever audio material I could find, and stayed with them for a long time. It was too big a jump to authentic content, since I found looking things up in a conventional dictionary too time consuming and frustrating in that I forgot the dictionary definition right away. After LingQ with Russian, Czech, and Portuguese, I still buy one or more starter book, but then just stay with content that is in the LingQ library, using beginner and intermediate material, but moving as well on to authentic content very early, for example for Russian, The Kreutzer Sonata, which is short, Fathers and Sons, and eventually other novels where I could find audio and text. Echo Moskvi was a a gold mine of audio and text. I definitely needed both. I would regularly refer back to the beginner books to review easier material, and to read, again and again, grammar descriptions. Re a couple of grammar books with lots of patterns, I think that Preview view threw me off, and I will add them in again now. Учебная грамматика русского языка, 53 модели (www.rus=lang.ru) Chcete ještě lépe mluvit česky (www.courseczech.com) Edited by Švejk on 17 April 2012 at 3:35pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Švejk Super Polyglot Newbie Canada lingq.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4604 days ago 29 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Japanese, French, Cantonese, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese Studies: Czech | Message 63 of 116 17 April 2012 at 3:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is absolutely true. It allows you to attack authentic material much earlier, even content with 50% unknown words. I have found that this works best if the audio is available. After listening many times to difficult content, it is a lot easier to read through difficult material. I now consider extensive reading to be reading easy content, either at the computer, on my iPad or in books, whereas intensive reading is working a text with lots of new words. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Švejk Super Polyglot Newbie Canada lingq.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4604 days ago 29 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Japanese, French, Cantonese, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese Studies: Czech | Message 64 of 116 17 April 2012 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
Intensive and extensive reading are probably subjective terms. What one person does in their intensive/extensive reading is probably different from what another person does. I certainly do not worry about whether "this is the Present Perfect Continuous" or "this is the past subjunctive, 3rd person plural"?), I just want to try to understand, more or less, the meaning. I am motivated mostly by meaning, since I have chosen content of interest to me. I want to acquire enough words to understand more and more of what I listen to and read. As I struggle to understand, the grammatical structures start to be associated with meaning. I do not mind that my understanding is often fuzzy, since I do not know what the case of the noun is, or the tense of the verb. Of course, in the occasional review of grammar, or review of phrases that I have saved, I increase my ability to notice these things, and the texts become clearer. When I save words and phrases in LingQ, I can use other sources on the Internet to verify the grammatical status, and add this to my saved LingQ card. I can also Tag this LingQ card with that status and review a bunch of different terms of the same grammatical status. I do this from time to time to increase my ability to notice the grammar, but mostly, in the time I have available for language study, which, other than listening on the go, amounts to maybe 30 minutes a day, I prefer to read ahead. To each his own. There are few absolutes in my view, other than the need for a positive attitude, time to interact with the language and the gradual development of the ability to notice the language. Edited by Švejk on 17 April 2012 at 3:54pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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