How long vs how many lingqs of study time?

I just started Russian and have my lingq goal set at 100 per day, which I am consistently hitting since it’s a new language and lingqs are really easy to accumulate. HOWEVER, I don’t get as much study time in as result. Currently, have Spanish and german on the side with 13 and 50 lingqs respectively which actually take me longer to get in each of those languages. I remember an old video of steve saying that one should aim for an hour of dedicated study time in the language, but for new languages like Russian, 1hr will always be consistent while 100 lingqs will slowly take more and more time to get, one day this will surpass an hour of study time to get 100 lingqs. So what do you think is a better option, study based on lingq goals or timed goals?

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You could do a combo…stop when you reach 100 lingq’s or 1 hr…whatever is shorter. I think you’re right…at some point you’ll struggle to get 100 lingq’s as you progress and it will feel like tedious work to try and achieve. So maybe you’d want to reduce your lingq goal as your progress. You want to make the process of learning fun…not some chore you need to achieve imo. Of course this is dependent on necessity too (like if you have to learn the language to some level by a specific date).

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I treat a word count as a minimum daily requirement. I’m doing 100 LingQs a day in German for some time. It was easy in the beginning because all the words were new, then indeed, I felt it was difficult to reach my daily goal, and finally, for 60 days or so it is becoming increasingly easier again - despite having to read a lot, I enjoy doing it.
In terms of time, I think, I’ve been spending more than 2 hours daily on Lingq + according to YouTube stats, I spend another 2 hours there, watching German vids half the time.

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I find anything that forces me to reach a certain amount per day puts me off very quickly. And it works 2 ways - I either hit my mark really quickly and easily, and that’s an excuse to stop, OR it ends up taking too much time and is tedious, which by the 3rd day of having to do that, I just give up. I completely agree with ericb100, you want to make it enjoyable. If you are reading something on lingq that interests you, you’re more likely to retain what you learn than just pumping through the material for the sake of it. I have found that if a collection stops appealing to me, I just delete it and find something else. It has to be interesting!

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Your situation was like mine when I started Russian on LingQ. The beginning stage for me meant reading 100 words would take an hour or more and making that many LingQs was impossible. However, my learning curve was through the roof! I was able to learn more with less. Being in the more advanced stages, i find myself plateauing.

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I believe in putting in consistent time, there have been days ive done 200+ lingq and then others where I have only done 40 lings, as you progress in the language everything will slow right down

In 11 months of studying German I almost never surpassed 100 LingQs per day. On busy days I just pass the minimum 13 LingQs target in German to keep the streak alive. My main target is the words read: 10-15 pages/day of new content and 10-15 pages of rereading older material. My overall target is 10.000 pages or 3.000.000 words - then my brain will have no choice, but to know the language :slight_smile: Now I am at 1.370.000 words read.
In Italian I read for maintenance, so I stop after 20-40 minutes when I reach 26 LingQs.
In French I reach 26 LingQs and stop after 10 minutes, since I learn it recreationally.
It does not matter which approach you choose as long as you keep on hammering. Nothing can stand in your way.

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I think focusing on total study time makes the most sense. This is the only factor that you can easily control, and it’s constant. If you can read for a minimum of 1 hr per day, then you will make consistent progress, but 2 hrs would be much more beneficial. Besides, if your goal is LingQs or known words per day, then you’ll find that there will be days where you cheat. Cheating makes no sense to me. You can even use multiple constraints like minimum of 1 hr and minimum of 40 LingQs and a minimum of 20 known words.

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I will oppose it little bit :). I am thinking that way if I overcome it: even though I would spend 1 hour reading but I would read only a text with words which are 100 % familiar for me, I am not sure if I have learned anything per the time.

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I think that, even knowing all the words of a text, we would be at least more and more familiar with the language and it would be more and more ingrained in our brain.

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How can you remember 100 words per day as a beginner or even adnanced? I learn Russian for almost a year and I can barely remember 13 words a day. I don’t understand the purpose of marking 100 words per day (100 lingQ) without remembering them.

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In my view, Steve called it as a 1st step to learn any word = noticing (firstly, be able to recognise the word in a text).

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You have to read A LOT. I try to get in about 2,000 words per day per language. Or whichever I happen to be most interested in that day. You can’t just read a 100 words and call it a day.

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2000 words a day is a good target for reading, but with 98-99% of them known.

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How can I find texts with 98% known words when I am a beginner? I can read and read but most of the words will be unfamiliar, and I don’t understand how it helps me learn.

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Let me share what works for me:

  1. Take the simplest texts you can find.
  2. Make lingqs for unknown words.
  3. Go through this simplest text a few times.
  4. Take the next text, if you can recognize a yellow (linqued) word - mark it as known. So you see, for me known word is a word I can recognize in context.
  5. Repeating this everyday, you will find yourself reading and listening to long stories and guessing words from the context.
  6. Also, do whatever helps you to interact with the language - watch YouTube, listen to songs, contact with natives.

This is essentially my plan for German, I’m in the middle of this marathon. Hope this helps.

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Thank you very much!

Install the colleague’s application, ibn_rushd, which will allow you in the future to see how many words in total, how many known words and how many new words have a course ( in procent, too).
Now it shows in the top bar how many LingQs daily vs target made. Very useful.

Can’t find such application. But at least I’m aware of Ibn Rushd now :))

Ibn Rushd, often Latinized as Averroes, was a Muslim Andalusi philosopher and judge who wrote about many subjects, including philosophy, theology, medicine, astronomy, physics, Islamic jurisprudence and law, and linguistics.

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Login - LingQ

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