I loved LingQ initially; I’d read and listen a ton, happily creating LingQs. Except now I have over 1000 words in my vocab list, and I feel pressure to add another 13 every day! I feel like I"m drowning, and am less motivated to read more and make my list even longer! Any guidance on how to get through the lists and not feel so behind?
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Just enjoy the ride. It is infinite.
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Hi andreahill!
So, by that vocab list you mean the one you’ve got to review? If that’s the case, I would really recommend you to drop that thing. Seriously. Now that you have over 14000 words known you don’t really have a need to review your vocabulary list. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to impose my way of doing things, it is just that you’ll bore yourself to death with that kind of approach. There’s nothing wrong with some reviewing when you’re just discovering a new language, but doing that by the time you’ve achieved the intermediate level or higher is sort of worthless, in my humble opinion. Just imagine how long your list will be one year from now, two years… what about your interest? The immensity of that list will surely kill it completely if you keep on reviewing it.
If that is not the case, I wonder what exactly hinders your motivation?
I wish you well.
Robbie
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Just do what works for you. Drop the rest. 
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I’ve learned 381 russian words and not studied 1 flashcard. I look at the lingqs as more of just letting you know you’ve seen it before, so you can rack your brain trying to remember it. I’ve learned the vocab by repeatedly listening and reading the stories. Don’t stress reviewing flashcards.
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I used to feel the same way, very frustrating and , in the end, useless. Then I discovered comprehensible input (first francaisauthentique.com, then francaisavecpierre.com and their free youtube channels) and just listened and listened and will never again bother with vocabulary lists in French.
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Forget about the lists.
I have over 40,000 Lingqs in my vocabulary list, not including the one’s I have learned. I never review them, I hardly ever look at the vocabulary list. Adding 13 Lingqs per day is just a target for activity. The more you read the more Lingqs you create, you are not expected to learn them all by studying the vocabulary lists. You learn them by reading and listening. As Steve says: Do what you enjoy doing, don’t do what you don’t enjoy doing, don’t put yourself under pressure. Just read and listen and occasionally review if you want to.
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I agree with these sentiments - use LingQ the way that works for you. It’s interesting to see the different numbers, but in the end it’s what you are doing for yourself that counts.
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The more the merrier, really. I always seem to have about the double amount of lingQs to the amount of known words. As long as the known words keeps increasing it´s all good. What you can do however, is sort the vocab list by “most important”, look through some words at the top and don´t worry about the rest.
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I honestly think LingQ should automatically turn off the words review feature once you’ve reached the Intermediate 1 stage. (And let you opt back in, if you really want it for some reason.)
For beginners, this feature gives a certain reassurance – though I question its actual usefulness even then. But as you reach Intermediate and Advanced levels, pursuing a method that’s based on reviewing words really just becomes a hinderance in my opinion.
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I think the review settings should be turned off by default. When I first started they just felt confusing and annoying, making LingQ seem more complicated than it should be. Don´t want anyone to be intimidated by this amazing platform.
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thanks! that’s exactly the problem - I feel like I am “doing it wrong” by not burning down the list faster than I’m building it. I’ll cut the pressure
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thanks! this may help!
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My advice would be to stop trying to control the beast (aka your brain) and let it just do its thing by constantly feeding it good content to consume. By doing this you will make very good progres over time. I would even advise you to start making reasonable “words read“ per month goals and see if you can keep increasing that every month. I think someone who has completed intermediate 1 should aim for at least 30k words read per month, intermediate 2, at least 50k words read per month, and a person who has completed advanced 2 should be doing 100k+ per month unless they are moving onto another language. Those targets are minimums. The more the better.
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Love this! Thanks for the suggestion
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I’ve recently started using the dailySRS review system, which seems to prioritise recently created lingqs. I’ve found I’m absorbing much more this way, and I like how they are sort of randomly generated, but I’ve needed to modify the way I use lingq. I now import a lot less into lingq (I used to import nearly everything, lots of things I would sort of skim through, and I could have hundreds of new lingqs in a day), in order to stop creating so many new lingqs, and instead try to focus on a single chapter (or something even shorter for beginners) for a few days. So for example, on Monday I might create 50 lingqs from a new import, but I don’t create any more lingqs for the rest of the week. I just put my attention to understanding that weeks chapter. Hopefully, if the SRS review works, it should get easier and easier each day.
That way, when a word comes up in the SRS review, I’m more likely to recognise it, and it really helps supplement my reading.
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I’m interested in your monthly goals, am looking to do something similar with my French learning but was thinking along the lines of time spent rather than word count (more or less the same thing, in the end). So I’m trying for 1 h reading and 1/2 h listening per day (I’m on vacation now so have the time and really need to structure my day, or else the time evaporates). I imagine one should include weekly Skype conversations or other such practice . . .
I would love to see a separate Forum for suggested readings/listening, since not everything can be imported into Lingq. For French I’m thinking, for example, of the short story David by GMG Le Clezio, or Mediter Jour Apres Jour (Christophe Andre), and his 3 minutes a mediter , also on youtube. Anything with psychologist Boris Cyrulnik–both he and André speak slowly and clearly, and I find the content rather interesting. I might try to start a separate thread of suggested readings, would love to see what others recommend.
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What do you mean by not everything can be imported? I’ve had pretty good luck importing just about everything. Thanks for the French suggestions. I’ll need some material when I get back around to it.
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What I mean is that not all youtube videos have subtitles and seem not to be imported, also I have books (physical, paperback), audiobooks and ebooks etc and haven’t been too successful fighting with DRM.
At any rate sometimes I want to relax into a book (paper, ebook or audiobook) and try to take it in as though it were in my mother tongue. Also just want to watch/listen to youtube video without interrupting to lingq, also TV. I think I need to do this at my level in French (intermediate 1-2) to push myself forward.
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I think the only reason SRS was added to LingQ is because some people asked for it. It’s handy when you start a new language and you want to switch up your activity after reading and listening. Occasionally when I feel a bit bored after Lingqing I will use the SRS system as a “break” and then continue reading or listening. Don’t worry too much about it.
P.S. I also use SRS after a single page. (not always though; it depends on the difficulty of the material)
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