Hello,

I have a few questions related to vocabulary acquisition at the beginning stage and others related questions that I would want to ask Steve but also others users of LingQ and this forum.

Before I write down my questions, I think it will be good for you guys to know that I will learn Spanish. I started two weeks ago. I got 1100 LingQ and 48 know words. I had use LingQ in the past for English but it was only to improve my listening skill as I had achieved a satisfactory level in English (in my opinion at least). Also, I am learning it only using LingQ so it's my first time really beginning a new language with this 'method'. I will not try to study the grammar, at least for a while, since I discovered, will trying to learn Russian (I will return to it later), that I can get suck-up in little or insignificant points of grammar and it slow my progress down and lower my enjoyment for the language.

1 - I know that without a context, I find it incredibly hard to remember a word especially if it's a conjugated verb. For noun and adverb, I find it really easier at it doesn't have many form or none at all. You said that you don't use review flashcard often without the lesson and you don't really use the SRS as well if I am not mistaken. So, how do you judge you have learn passively a word ? Do you pass from 1 to 4 or you review your flashcard with your lessons and they gradually get to 'know' over a period of time?

2 - Do you often increased the statue of a word by one point as oppose from 1 to 4 without the use of flashcard, just by reading and listening to a lesson and by judging that you know that word better now that before ?

3 - As I stated above, verb seems way more difficult to learn than other types of word. When you try to learn them at the beginning stage, are you satisfied if you got the meaning right but the correct tenses or conjugation wrong ?

4 - As I speak French (my mother tongue), I find a lot of words easy for me to understand and remember (yeah!). That also means I got bored really quickly from a lesson. On the day I start a lesson, I often don't listen to it more than 3 times. At that point, I understand more than 70% of the lesson when I see the script. I try to listen to again a couple of time the following days but at some points (fairly quickly to be honest), I don't enjoy it anymore and it's more a torture than anything else. Should I just continue to listen and LingQ new lessons as long as I understand them and enjoy them and review the older ones from time to time ?

5 - As written above, as I don't listen often to the same content my listening time seems low if we use the LingQ statistic system. Is it a problem now or in the future ?

Thank you

.

Grunts

Here are my answers based on my experience.

I don't really worry about whether I have learned a word or not. I change status somewhat irregularly, sometimes in a lesson and sometimes at the vocabulary page. I also changes status on the flash cards as a way to move them along, rather than using Oops and Got It. I might change status to 3 and then back to 2 and back to 3 again. I find that a combination of a lot of reading, checking up the meaning of the yellow highlighted words, occasional flash card review, and occasional review of examples in the LingQ card, all gradually enable me to understand more words. I find that I now know most of the yellow words I see in my texts, as well as most of the underlined words which have moved to known for whatever reason. I really do not ask myself the question as to whether I know them, or don't know them. I just note that I understand more and more.

I agree that most of my flashcarding is done in the lesson. Before or after, or both.

I don't worry about getting the tenses or cases etc, right. I am mostly motivated to understand what I am reading or listening to.

I listen to lessons as long as I find it interesting or challenging to listen. Once you are at the stage where you understand 70% you should probably move on. It may be beneficial to listen many times but I agree it is too boring to do.

If you do things that you find interesting, and interact with the language you will improve.

Eventually you have to start to talk and write more in order to make more progress.

One other suggestion with regard to verbs. Try to save examples of the tenses, and persons that give you trouble. Save various forms of the same verb. The use Tags to collect examples of the same tense, or , for example, the third person singular of a certain tense. You can review them in flash cards together as a group.

Grunts, another thing I thought of regarding verbs. Make sure you select Word Reference as one of your dictionaries in the LingQ widget. You can select the language of translation as French or English. Word Reference provides a conjugator for each verb. You can even copy parts of this and paste it into your Notes in the LingQ widget.

Thank you both for your input.

@steve I was already using Word Reference but I didn't see the conjugator option. It's quiet handy.