Developing a new learning/acquisition strategy for LingQ

Hello all,

Recently I have come up with a new method of aquirinng and learning content here on LingQ. The idea is a simple 5-stage process which is applied to each page within any lesson. Currently I have tried this with a few shorter lessons and think this may be beneficial for all-round comprehension and understanding.

This is the method;

Preliminaries;

0.a. Load up the lesson I want to do
0.b. Create a tab page for DeepL (also any other tools you may use; Reverso, Word reference etc.)
0.c. Copy the entirety of the lesson text into DeepL and translate into SL. (Keep in a separate tab or browser)
0.d. Set the lesson to 0.75x speed.

The Method.

Per individual page I do the following one at a time in order then repeat for each subsequent page of content;

  1. Listen (at .75x speed)
  2. Read (whilst adding lingQ’s)
  3. Read translation of text (on DeepL)
  4. Read and listen together (at .75x speed)
  5. Listen (at normal speed)

NOTE; I like to keep track of what point I started and stopped from; both in text and audio. For each page, I like to quickly glance at the last few words of the page to cue the end of that page when I listen.

The ideas/reasons behind this + feedback

I suppose after several months of trying various aspects of the list above it feels important now to format those methods in a more progressive and structured way. I’ve tried to take all the elements of things people do, i.e. listen, read, listen and read together, translate and apply those ideas sequentially in the most logical fashion, always starting and ending with listening. The one page at a time also feels right as I think this gives the brain a chance to absorb the information more thoroughly, allowing it to interlink information together piece by piece from the different types of input i.e. audible, visual, comparative reading, as opposed to trying the whole lesson in one go in one way.

This is the current strategy, and like I’ve said before, will probably change again at some point in the future.

Any ideas towards this, or how could this be improved/altered?

Josh.

P.S. Thanks peter for recommending DeepL

What about when importing an ebook without an audio. Just reading the text. How do you study it? Is there a step by step procedure for tackling it?

I suppose alternating between steps 2 and 3 would work, but I can honestly say I’ve never tried it with text only. I’ve wondered that myself too, but for now I think it’s much more beneficial to have the audio with text if you can find it.

Ideally (but not always possible) you can also get the audiobook and do the listening parts of that outside of LingQ. Obviously not all books may have an audiobook in the target language so obviously dependent on that.

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I think it’s a good strategy to try. It incorporates a lot of listening and I’ve always liked to fit in reading and listening at the same time when I can. I think it’s less important as you progress, but very helpful in the beginning and intermediate stages…especially if you are listening at full speed and the speaker is a quick speaker.

Downsides are obviously if you have no audio (as Asad points out) you can’t listen and your best bet there is sentence mode and TTS. You can also use some websites that provide TTS, but would allow for using your strategy. https://ttsmp3.com/ for example.

Other times, this full strategy may not be convenient…maybe you’re standing in line and just want to fit some reading in without the listening, for example.

You may find you’ll tweak it as you progress. I think it’s a good starting point. I think everyone needs to feel out their own way and what works best for them. Lots of tinkering and playing around with ideas. For myself I generally work in sentence mode with unfamiliar content, but I do like the idea of working on a page/paragraph idea. I might play around with that. I do tend to do this if I simply read something online, where I might simply use google translate extension to read an article. I’ll often highlight the full sentence or paragraph to get a more cohesive idea of what’s going on.

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I just recently decided that I now need to commit at least 1 hour a day to intensive listening because I feel like this skill is progressing so slowly compared to my reading skill so ive been looking for strategies for that. I’ll try your step by step because it looks like a much more organized version of the sloppy way I’m doing it now haha. I think I’ll add one more step which is attempting to transcribe (either during first step or separate second step) because I can then keep track of exactly the words I’m not identifying as I go along.

I also have the goal of reading 1,000,000 words (2739 words a day) and unfortunately I usually don’t have time to do only this method of listen, read, re-read, re listen again most days of the week for now. :frowning:

Eric,

Since you are learning German like myself, - usually- how long does it take you to read one chapter of a novel either in sentence mode or using a translation tool as a clutch and simultaneously creating lingqs and listening to the audiobook?
Oddly enough, for me, either for studying in sentence mode or going back and forth from translation to the main text, creating lingqs, and listening to the audiobook, I mean, in my case, both methods take about 2 hours to go through one chapter of a typical novel.
I am thinking a lot about optimizing this process but I do not know how to fast-track it without losing comprehension of the text.

Hi Asad. Difficult to say for sure as I usually don’t make it through a chapter in one sitting (a full chapter being around 2200 words). My main reference for this is the first book of Harry Potter which I just finished. If I had to guess…by the end of the book I was probably going through a chapter in around a half hour??? maybe.

I’m on to a new book… Ausgerechnet Sylt. In terms of % new words, it’s about the same of where I left off with Harry Potter, but I’m finding it a little slower going as the phrasing feels more difficult. Again, I haven’t made it through a chapter in one sitting (I probably read for around 10 min or so before I fall asleep lol). I’m guessing maybe it’s upwards of 45 min?

I’m not always listening. I’m listening to the audiobook after…not at the same time. If I’m at desktop I’ll use single sentence mode and play the tts at reading time. If I’m using the app, I’ll only play a word that I’m unfamiliar with and just want to confirm pronunciation since tts doesn’t really work in sentence mode with the app on imported novels (at least for me).

I go through all of these “styles” because often I’m not at a place where I can use desktop as I try to fit in reading whenever I can find a spare minute.

p.s. I’m reading the novels in LingQ…that’s my “crutch”. If I need to look up things I’m doing it within LingQ.

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Interesting Content >> method

Sorry for the flippant comment.

I mean – listen , read, listen etc. It’s an interesting twist, but you don’t need any more than the previous sentence (to this one).

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