Questions about managing my LingQs

Hi, I’m new to LingQ, I’ve only been here for about a week - and so far I love it. I’m using it to learn Japanese. I’m not exactly a beginner when it comes to Japanese (Obenkyo claims I know about 4000 words). Therefore, so far it’s been mostly about teaching the system which words I know - I’ve added about 1900 in the first week. But there’s still a lot of words I don’t know yet, and I’ve accumulated a lot of LingQs. And by a lot I mean 465. At first I was unconcerned, because the “Due for Review (SRS)” view in my Vocabulary said “zero”, and I could easily keep up with reviews of the 25 daily LingQs. (I use Cloze exclusively. I’ve been doing flash cards for a long time, and I feel like Cloze is just what has been missing from my reviews. It makes me read whole sentences, providing invaluable context for my vocabulary. I actually use the language while reviewing. Doesn’t get much better than that.)

But now, a few days later, the system says I have 195 terms for review. This makes me worried that I might have been going at it too fast for my own good. I would therefore like to ask a few questions about LingQs:

  1. Do I have to keep up with reviews of the “Due for Review (SRS)” LingQs? Or is it enough to review the 25 daily LingQs, provided I maintain exposure to the language through reading? It would seem the answer is simply “Just review it all”, but I know that with the amount of materials I want to cover (I plan to read whole books on LingQ) I would get over 100 LingQs for review every day. So I’d either have to spend hours reviewing every day, or slow down significantly - which brings me to my next question.

  2. Is there a maximum number of LingQs I should be keeping? If I reach a certain number, (say 100, or 300, or 500), should I wait till I get rid of some by learning them, before I start adding new ones? This would once again slow me down and would be against Steve’s philosophy - lots of exposure through reading and listening, as little reviewing as possible.

  3. Does the system turn LingQs into know words on its own? If I’ve repeatedly answered a LingQ correctly during reviews, will the system assume I’ve learned the word and make it a known word? Or do I have to do it manually? So far the only way I know of getting rid of a LingQ is by clicking the green symbol that says “Known - never in SRS”.

  4. What’s a good rule for when to mark a LingQ as known? Like I’ve said, I’ve made many LingQs. I’ve learned many of the words since, but I’m reluctant to mark the LingQs as known when I encounter them, because what if I forget the word as soon as I remove the LingQ? :slight_smile: When would be a good time to mark the LingQ as known? Should I wait until its status is 4? (that won’t happen very often if I don’t review the LingQs in SRS constantly). Or can I just go ahead and remove the LingQ if I’m fairly sure I know the word?

Most of the answers boil down to your personal priorities for listening, reading, flashcarding… what do you think works for you the best, next best etc… I believe most people prioritise listening ,then reading, and lastly flashcarding, but to each his own.

  1. the reviews or LingQs of the day are not a priority for some people. Many actually just flashcard words that are unknown in the reading they are about to do and that’s it. Some people just mouse over the yellow LingQs in the text as a form of flashcarding. To each his own

2.There is no maximum. In fact Steve often says that making LingQs, whether or not you review them, is the single most important thing to do because they highlight words you need to work on when it is time to read another text. THere is no penalty for not reviewing the LingQs you make. Many of them may remain yellow for a long time.

3 If you correctly review a given flashcard over 4 consecutive sessions it becomes known. Of course you can move it known manually or take it out again.

  1. You have to trust your own judgement. Many people take words in and out of ‘known’ several times.

I am not an active LingQer at the moment so I hope any mistakes will be noted by others.