If I'm not creating new lingqs, am I not learning?

Yesterday I finished reading a book using lingq. Yoday I thought I’d read through some of the chapters again, to get a second exposure to the text and review all the vocab I’ve encountered during my first read-through. I find reading the same material more than once extremely beneficial. When I was learning English, I would read some of my favorite books over and over again, and it has worked wonders. (of course I was a kid back then and had a lot more free time)
So I started re-reading the book from the beginning. I quickly noticed that my “X days streak” hasn’t increased, and my “progress towards daily goal” hasn’t moved at all. I realized the only thing that counts towards this progress is making new lingqs. But I’ve already made all the lingqs on my first read-through. There aren’t any new ones to make!
In other words, if I’m not reading new material, I’m not learning. Never mind that I’ve read so much text, that had it been new material my status would have said “Fire :-)”. Or that I’ve moved many of my existing lingqs toward known words, and even marked some as known. It had no effect on my “progress”.
I would like to take a break from reading new material, but I can’t, because I don’t want to lose my streak. I find the streak indicator is actually a good motivator. It pushes me to at least do one lesson even on days when I don’t feel like doing anything. But if I go one day without reading new material, poof, it’s back to zero. No matter how much I’ve been using lingq that day. If I were to dedicate a week to just re-reading and reviews, I’d even get the annoying apple core.
Would it be possible to make activities other than creating lingqs, such as changing the “level” of lingqs, count toward the daily progress? If they only count as a fraction of a point, that would be enough.
Or am I actually not learning, if I’m reading something I’ve already read? :slight_smile:

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I also believe that it’s not fair to judge the progress only according to the number of new lingqs.
There are a lot of other indicators: how many words you read and really learnt, how many times you have read and listen to the same text, how much time spent you by learning etc.
That’s why I just ignore all these diagrams about our proigress.
We can and should estimate our progress on ourselves.
And such an estimation is much better and more correct than all the diagrams with making new lingqs.
But the most important is just to go ahead according to your possibilities and enjoying your language study!

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As for Italian I proceed as follows recently especially when I am pariticipating in 3 months challenge now. Every day I listen and read or just listen to some earlier material where I made lingq already in the past. Then I read and listen to new material (usually about 3 articles per day) and make lingq there.

@GreenAirplane, I do this too sometimes. A great win-win for me was to lingq phrases when I re-read texts. In general I am more likely to notice [useful/repetitive] phrases on second/third pass anyway!

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That is right. The streak scheme as it is only frustrates me because most of the days it is zero for me even if I invested one hour or more the day before.

Don’t worry about the bells and whistles used to track your progress here, just keep reading and listening. The rest is fluff.

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“The rest is fluff.”

Yes, scores, statistics, and roses are all, as the Chinese say, “flowing clouds”.

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I don’t worry about them. They could be strong motivators, though.

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It is really good to be on the winning streak especially when you are at a casino. -:).

I would look at the big picture in term of language learning. Consistency does pay off in the long run.

I would look at weekly and bi-weekly known words statistics as streak indicator to see if I work regularly toward my language goals. Plus i will look at number of posts I am going to make in terms of active language skills that I strive to achieve.

I used to do a lot of space repetition before. Right now I find lingqing all unknown words in phrases to be really useful, contextual clue really makes words stick in my memory. I would go to the extreme by resetting my language record on this website once I reached a intermediate 2 or advance 1 vocabulary level. So I can start off new, experiment with lingq and other approaches to language learning.

In terms of streak indicator, it is far more important to pay attention to the daily hours you put into the language than some other daily records. Working regularly is the key. By which I found “90 - day challenge” to be a really useful tool, I think you can really make a breakthrough in the target language in 90 days.

A cheer and best wish for you and everyone else. Present and future ployglots.

“Working regularly is the key.”

That is the point. A streak indicator showing me how many days in a row I have worked on my target language would help me do something even on days when there is little time.
I do not intend building an altar at home for worshipping my streak, I just want to use it as one of the many things that help me stay on track.

I loosely track my progress in learning by ensuring that my known words count continues to increase. Of course this measure slows a lot if I am reading new material and increases a lot when I am re-reading older material.

But I have a loose policy of reading something old and something new every day. So by having this split, I end up with LingQs created AND known words increasing.

I don’t do it for the stats though. I have this split because it seems to be working.

For the last few weeks, I have been setting an hour a day learning how to write Japanese Kanji. I’ve been trying to learn many of the common Kanji I see in newspapers and other resources.

However, my Lingq apple has not gotten any redder even if I tried to put 1000000000 words written.

I still learn when I don’t make LingQs. I review old content very often, and I catch things that I didn’t before. 99% of people here go through the meat grinder by saying you have make 5000 LingQs a day, know 50,000 words, and just rush through content in order to learn.

Apparently, activity score and streaks only matters the most when I’m making LingQs.

I do a lot of reading and listening, but that’s a drop in the bucket in comparison.

It is important to avoid becoming a slave of statistics. After all, the ultimate goal is to learn languages, nothing more. For example, if I found a great movie in a foreign language, should I watch it despite omitting one day of study at Lingq, or rather I should stick to Lingq so that I will pump up my statistics? In my opinion statistics can motivate a lot, but there is a risk of being trapped.

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You are absolutely right!
I like learning languages.
I enjoy teaching languages.
And I hate all statistics!..
I am not a mathematician and not a bankier to like figures!
They are so stupid and so boring!..

I do not worry about statistic.
Best reward for me is then I watch movie on my target language and understand. Today I watched Game of thrones one episode and understand without subtitles. I was really lucky.

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Still, it’s hard to calculate all the fun you’re having without a spreadsheet.

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Nobody CALCULATES FUN!!!.
Your phrase is nonsense!.

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I think it was above all ironic.

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Ever heard of “a dog is a dog”?

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