Deactivate automatic reading
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I see that youâve changed the Vocabulary/LingQ section (I canât say Iâm very much satisfied with the changes). How can I deactivate the automatic reading? I need to be able to say the translation out load and click on the read button only when I need it.
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Guys, the more I use the new interface, the less I like it. Now I need many more clicks to do the same things. Iâm sorry to say that what youâve done only encourages me to look for other tools. Donât you have a quality team to go through all changes before publishing them?
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I also, at fist, was not happy with automatic text to speech, but have found it really effective, a big part of my language learning. I am learning Greek faster than any language in part because of automatic TTS. But if you donât like it, I suggest you turn your volume down or off on your device, at least for now. We will see what others have to say.
Can you provide some examples of âmore clicksâ. I find the new interface much more engaging and easy to use, but that is just me. The more specific your comments, the easier for our technical team to respond to the different ways people use the site.
Everybody uses the page differently. What exactly is it that you are doing?
I donât fully understand your flow. Are you just reviewing the terms in the list on the page or are you using the Review activities? If you prefer the old view, it is still accessible using the url -
Login - LingQ.
Hi Steve,
First, thank you for providing this site, it has been a great tool for language learning for me as I study Chinese, so I want to agree with the criticism of danielburrueco with all due respect. Please start by going back to the old look and feel of the Vocabulary, it had so much better functionality and ease of use. Let me list a few things that was lostâŚ
- Ability to choose whether you wanted to hear the word or not (this really should be a setting)
- Ability to click anywhere on the âcardâ to flip it, instead I need to navigate to the button which takes longer
- Ability to have multiple lines of description per word/Chinese character. As you know many or most characters can have many different meanings depending on the context and how they are used. One line of text feels very insufficient to handle all these, and the previous ability to easily have multi line descriptions (with bold text and all) was a strong selling point for me
The suggestion to lower the volume is unfortunally not helpful as I would like to hear the audio âafterâ Iâve had a chance to guess the word. I recognize that your learning preference is different but I would humbly ask that you consider supporting other learning preferences as well. Perhaps I am simply not as mature or experienced in my language studies yet, but I know what feels to be working for me.
Again, you have a wonderful site and I really appreciate that, but it became a significantly worse experience for me with these last few changes so please roll back to how Vocabulary worked before.
With respect and thank you,
Tommy
Dear Steve,
thank you for your response and please forgive me if I wasnât clear enough. Things I didnât like at all:
- Once I choose how many words I want to practice with, I have to click the selection box that stands at the top if I want to select the whole list (which is what I do 100% of the time). The way I see it, all terms should be checked by default. Of course, if you donât click that box, you canât check the âReview nowâ button.
- For some reason now I canât select terms (in the âAllâ tab) and practice with them. I just get a âSession completeâ message as theyâre not due for review. What if I want to review already learned words?
- But it doesnât matter, as if Iâm in the âDue for reviewâ tab it doesnât always work either: I see lots of words. I select some of them, click on the âreview nowâ button and I also get a âSession completeâ message. If you close that message, you are taken back to the âallâ tab, so you have to click on the âdue for reviewâ tab again to try to understand why it didnât work.
- I canât click anywhere on the card to flip it over.
- Regarding the automatic reading. If Iâm studing, letâs say, portuguese, I like to test myself by showing the word in my native language, saying the translation out loud, flipping the card over and hearing the portuguese version (by clicking on the correct button or by pressing the âTabâ key on my keaboard). Today I started by turning the volume down as you suggest, but I realized that wouldnât let me hear the portuguese version as I needed. So I resorted to the âmuteâ button in my keyboard, pressing it before showing a card and pressing it again after the card had been shown (so I could hear the translation). After 15 minutes, the key started to get stuck.
- Now, if you close a card (because you canât go on studying, for example), that word disappears from the âdue for reviewâ list (and I think this didnât happen before).
- If I want to use a certain activity (flashcard, multichoice, etc.), in the old interface it was enough to choose the activity and the words, and that was it. Now, before you start practicing, you canât be sure of the type of activity you left the last time you changed it. In order to find it out, you have to open at least one card, go to the âtoolsâ option and check it. And, if you want to change it, you have to repeat the same process (open a card, etc.).
I hope this helps.
Regards
Daniel
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Hi Mark,
I normally configure the flashcard activity so it shows me the word in my native language. Then I try to remember the translation, I say it out loud, flip the card over, check the translation, hear it and decide whether or not my answer was right. This is something I could do in the old interface, but that canât be done in the new one.
Thanks for the tip. Iâll go on using the old one as you suggest.
Daniel
- Just to understand better, you are reviewing using the main list? Why do you need to open the LingQ widget for each word when you do this? Canât you just do this on the page? All the information is there already.
- We can no longer do this since we have combined all activities in one. But, have you tried using the keyboard to navigate the review session? Hitting enter flips and moves on to the next card most of the time.
- You can have multiple lines just the same as in the lessons. If you keep typing, the text wraps. Or, hit shift+enter to start a new line.
It does look like the Reverse setting in flashcards isnât working. That is a bug. In the meantime, in the Review settings you can set the cards to show you the translation on the front and the term on the back. That should do what you want.
I am not really involved in the design of the site. I am really just a user. However it is very useful to get this detailed feedback so that Mark and his team can look at what can be done to accommodate the different ways that people use the site.
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As I said above, I am not involved in the design of the site. There are many complex issues. Itâs great to get all of this detailed feedback. I am sure it helps Mark and his team to improve the site. More than that I cannot say.
Yes, I did it. The only problem is that it keeps on reading the translation automatically (what am I suppose to do after I hear it? Repeat it? I canât see the flashcard-strategy anywhere).
Cheers
@danielburrueco - Ahh⌠I see that it plays the audio of the Term anyway even if itâs not showing the Term. We will get that fixed. Have you tried using the keyboard to navigate the flashcards as I suggested above? If you hover on the controls on the card, you will see which keys to press. Enter will normally move you from the back to the front and then to the next card. Also, do you see that multiple lines are possible in the translation field? Just keep typing or hit shift+ enter.
Hi Mark,
To be frank, these last couple of days Iâve been using the old interface. Iâve just seen those popup messages that appear when I hover the controls. I still miss the possibility of being able to flip the card by cliking anywhere on it. The thing is, my hands are either on the keyboard or grabbing the mouse. But the hand using the mouse does not touch the keyboard (Iâd waste too much time moving it from one place to another if I did). If I could do everything using the keyboard I might choose to leave the mouse, but I have the feeling thatâs not convenient (I canât remember why exactly I have this feeling. I do recall I tried to study using only the keyboard a few weeks ago and I made some mistakes that encouraged me to go on using the mouse). So my right hand is dedicated to the mouse. And the key to flip the card is the âEnterâ key, which stands at the right of the keyboard, too far away from my left hand. So I donât use itâŚ
Once those bugs I mentioned are fixed, Iâll give a try to the keyboard again.
The possibility to insert a new line is nice (though I havenât needed it yet).
Thanks again
Daniel
Thank you for responding, letâs see if I can make my point a bit more clear.
To your #1: I review words using the âDue for reviewâ tab, typically select 25 words and then practice using the âCardsâ format. I have the Cards configured to first show me the Chinese character and supporting sentence, then attempt to remember the word/sentence, followed by flipping the card over. I assume by "LingQ widget you mean the window where I can edit the word/description? I only open that when I need to change the card, not during regular practice.
To your #2: I understand that your technical change of the UI removed this functionality, but it made it a worse experience for me and I believe many more people. If you could you tell me where I can find a list of all the keyboard shortcuts I can give it a try and see if it is a good workaround?
To your #3: I am unable to get this to work. I can shift-enter to get multiple lines in the editing window, but those are replaced with spaces when I am looking at the Card during practice. The experience I have with the previous UI is thisâŚMicrosoft OneDrive - Access files anywhere. Create docs with free Office Online. if you can help me get a similar experience in the new UI (and make the audio configurable) that would be a big step on the way.
I work in IT as a developer so feel free to use technical language if that would help bring clarity.
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@tomsu 1. I can see where having the audio off makes sense for languages where you are trying to learn the characters. We will look at setting to turn this off.
2. You can see the keyboard shortcuts when you hover on the different controls in the activities. Essentially, enter selects the green button and 1-4 select the options on Cloze and multiple choice.
3. AhâŚI see. Weâll see what we can do there.
For #1 and #3: Thank you, I appreciate that and would be happy to help out testing and bounce design ideas, especially around #3.
For #2: Unfortunally I am not able to see the keyboard shortcuts as I am not able to use the new Vocabulary UI at all. When I select words (either in âAllâ or âDue for Reviewâ) and then click the âReview nowâ button, I am presented with this screenâŚMicrosoft OneDrive - Access files anywhere. Create docs with free Office Online.
As an intermediate solution for #3, perhaps you could allow for HTML or a subset of HTML tags? The ones I am using are simply (BR and B).
For 1,3 these are pretty straightforward. For 2, you will see that if all your selected terms are status 4. We are going to fix this.