LingQ was instrumental for my language learning. When I began studying French, I would do cold reads of various stories. I knew NOTHING except “merci”, “bonjour,” and that’s about it. I remember reading the stories and being clueless as to the vocabulary. Through these cold reads I began to assess the language. It’s something I often do with other languages. I did it with Italian and Portuguese, and after French, with Catalan, Norwegian, and Indonesian.