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.

Is French hard to learn?   You could say that. Most people who try to learn French will give up.  But it doesn’t have to be that way.   When …