Deleting existing LingQs doesn’t remove them from the 20 maximum for free users. Combine this with that fact that auto LingQ creation is on by default and that limit is reached pretty quickly. This problem can be worked around easily enough by using Anki rather than LingQs to study new words. The real problem is that there is now, as far as I know, no way to add blue words to my known or ignored words because highlighting them does nothing but alert me that I’ve reach my LingQ limit.
My options seem to be: A) Increase my LingQ limit by a finite degree by referring friends (sockpuppets), B) go premium (i.e. reward the website for being user-unfriendly), C) be okay with my “known words” capped out at 71, ignore the sea of blue on every page, and use Anki to create as many LingQ analogs as I want (for free), or D) leave.
Hi Drewski,
Sorry but that’s how the site works. As you’ve said, if you don’t want to upgrade your account you can invite friends to increase your LingQs limit and if any of them upgrade you can earn points.
Visit the invite page for more details - Login - LingQ. In the end, we believe the service we offer is worth paying for.
When I first began using LingQ, I did not want to pay for a premium membership. I actually upgraded and it is amazing! If you use LingQ consistently with a premium membership, you will not regret your decision and be successful.
I think your post brings us to what we call in English a “WTF Moment.” Granted, it would seem logical that deleted LingQs wouldn’t count against your usage cap, but that’s beside the point. Rather, you seem to misunderstand the entire purpose of this product. LingQ is a paid subscription service that allows language learners to create “lingqs” in a process that forms the core of input-based learning in a digital age. There is no such thing as a “free user,” unless you are just mooching off the library. Users PAY. The free part is to provide a quick sampling for those who might want to become users. If they don’t, yes, they leave.
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Anki isn’t the same as LingQ. It is far inferior as a system for actually getting a language in you. Anki is for memorising things for tests, not for learning naturally in context like LingQ.
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You’re complaining that a product has a free sample period that you can’t sneak your way around ?
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The website is only user ‘unfriendly’ because it’s often broken. I don’t get this criticism of LingQ being hard to use that so many seem to have. It’s not a hard concept, at all.
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I don’t know what you expected out of this thread ? “I don’t pay you any money as of yet and simply take up bandwidth on your servers but i’m here to let you know that i’m not happy that your ad-free service isn’t free-of-charge and am warning you that i may leave if you don’t change it.” ?
Big fail, mate.
‘Mooching’ ? The site gives free users free access to the library of materials. I’d hardly call taking advantage of that feature ‘mooching’.
I believe LingQ is fair in terms of price.
I first glance maybe not so… but once you consider the website in its whole. For sure worth premium.
Take in to account…
-The vast amount of content.
-Options in different dictionaries. Pick which one fits you best.
-Lessons (words and the audio)
-Options to import. (Allows me to find interesting content that I will enjoy reading)
On and on…
The website puts everything together making learning very simple.
The site is for sure worth upgrading to premium… Once you take in to thought all that it is offering and consider the method and approach LingQ takes in learning a language.
ALOT of other websites ONLY offer…
-Study of the Words in your target language.
-Study of PHRASES that can only get you so far.
and like so…
When I first started on LingQ I wasn’t to sure about it either but once I used it more and saw all the benefits, tools, and content available in my target language I really started liking this site.
Even if LingQ is just used as one of your methods to learning a language. I think its one that should at least be added in to part of your study time.
LingQs on Lingq also is what makes this website stand out from others.
It makes studying SIMPLE…
If you are unfamiliar with a word it takes one second to click and see your hint.
THEREFORE, giving you a faster learning environment. Speeding up things.
I concur–with a modest addition.
While LingQ is “THE” most awesome language learning method to become truly “good” at a language, it has it drawbacks. What I find mind boggling is that the downsides to LingQ are all problems that did not exist before:
–Have a older app, operating system, or device? Then LingQ is only good for keeping your stats.
–Want to import a single book chapter or matching audio? Nope, now it’s automatically split into 2,000 word chunks and you have to listen outside of LingQ.
–Have a favorite browser? The “new and improved” LingQ might not show up correctly.
–LIke functionality X? “Poof” it’s gone for days until it starts working again.
–Are you shooting for a certain word count/avatar level? The thresholds are recalculated so that instead of reflecting your “language potential,” each is more “realistically attainable within 90 days.”
–How’s it going with the Chinese word splitting or the traditional characters?
–And on and on, just read the forum for LingQ lovers and paid users discover something else.
I love the creativity, innovative spirit, and the refusal rest on one’s laurels, but I often think of what the drug dealer, Fruit, says to police seemingly changing the rules in Season 3 of HBO’s The Wire: “Why you gotta go and f*ck with the program?”
I also thank our respective Supreme Beings (God, Alah, Shiva, Stephens Krashen and Kauffman) for Classic Mode!
To be fair options to import and dictionary support aren’t plus points for the actual site - anyone can get/use this stuff without LingQ. Options to import don’t ‘allow you to find interesting content’ - you can find that stuff regardless of whether you upload it here.
The content library and crowdsourced translations are the things that make this site different.
I’m also not a fan of calling reading and listening ‘study’ time. The goal isn’t to ‘study’ anything really. The people who do the best in languages usually avoid study and simply read for pleasure. I became adept at using English from reading a lot as a kid. I wasn’t reading to ‘study’ i was just reading because i liked the books. The same should be true in foreign languages. Most of the people with extremely high levels of English as their foreign language are voracious readers of fiction in their leisure time.
The only drawback of the LingQ ‘method’ of learning is that it forces translation of singular words quite often. This is awesome at the beginner and early intermediate stages but i actually think it’s damaging at the higher levels where you need to learn words from context and not from translation.
I saw the biggest jump in my comprehension by reading a novel without consulting a dictionary at all, for anything. It was a book from the True Blood Sookie Stackhouse series. It’s translated from English, but the content is a good high intermediate level and getting overall contextual meaning from the words even when not knowing the words’ definitions themselves is the way to push into the higher level in my experience. At least with reading, anyway.
B) go premium (i.e. reward the website for being user-unfriendly)
Going premium is not rewarding the website for being user-unfriendly. It’s paying for the full range of features rather than not paying for the limited free features, which is a very common model.
…and it’s amazing how much friendlier (and unlimited) the site becomes once you start paying! 
You my friend are 100% correct. Lingq is all about money so I would say to only use it for reading. Don’t reward the site for not helping us learners. It is just soooo strange and a big contradiction. Steve tells us to make 300 linq’s in an hour or two and the goal on lingq is to get around 30000 which is such an high number. Plus it’s promoted as if it is ideal to learn multiple languages, therefore we are only able to use the website to learn 5 minutes (or 5 words with different forms - for all the languages together). In my case with russian that would make up 3 words and two words like ‘and’ and ‘or’… Are you kidding me? What about the other languages I wanted to know? Haha
It would make much more sence if the cap was 10000 or we could replace linq’s or when you could only study 1 language.
Anyway it sais that we can learn a language just by using the website (which is actually a platform that holds files we the users share). Even steve tells us to use a book with the site. So ask why you’re paying? I like lingq but that’s because of the community and not the service.
Compared to the costs of learning a language by conventional means, LingQ Paid is a steal!
For example:
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a Spanish 101 course at my college alma mater, NKU (not close to the Ivy league), costs $1125, meets for 3 hours per week for a semester. I can pay for more than 9 YEARS of LingQ!
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an intensive week of 35 hours at Berlitz for 1on1 classes costs $2985 in my city. That’s almost 25 Years on LingQ!
(and yet, many people still take these rather conventional language classes, even though their effectiveness is suboptimal).
Really?!? If I practice for 20 minutes to 90 minutes a day, how many languages could I learn to fluency in 25 Years!?!
I mean, I get the notion of wanting to get everything free these days. Very few people pay for movies because of torrents. But I still like the cinema experience. Nobody wants to pay for music any more, but I still pay to see concerts. I’m cool with these small luxuries.
I can’t afford front row tickets nor do I want to pay for IMAX weekly, but I’m grateful that I can pay the $10 per month at LingQ to learn languages. It isn’t free, but it’s much cheaper than Berlitz!
I really doubt that you’ll get anywhere in Russian with this attitude. Find something else.
Rackets ruin tennis, thats why i dont play anymore.
I am not sure of what point you are trying to make by drilling down into the numbers. What is the contradiction or strangeness you are referring to? Like the original poster, are you completely lost on Steve’s method of learning and how LingQ is part of that?
To review: You start out in a language, from scratch, you’re completely lost. You get a book, a course, use a free site, take a class, hire a tutor, etc. By using canned “beginner content” or “learning material,” you get a sense of how the language works and have something to refer to as you become more familiar and have specific questions. Mostly it’s just a starting point and then you’re done with it. The more familiar the language, or close to your own, the faster you are finished with this stage and get on to the “real” learning process, which is intensive listening and reading of authentic content.
LingQ is the best platform to do this with. You get a way to look up words and phrases in context, using a variety of dictionaries, as well as the collective searches and definitions of the community. For example, my Spanish definitions, especially for obscure words for Don Quijote, which is entirely LingQed up, have been used 11,000 times by other learners. These words and phrases can be saved, used for later review, and you can keep track of your stats to see progress in terms of known words, words read, hours listened, etc. The more you have, the more you know. In a Romance language, you’re looking at 20-30 thousand known words to be potentially functional. It Russian, it might be 60-70 thousand. It takes thousands of hours, tens of thousands of looked up words and digital flash cards (ie lingqs), and millions of words to get there.
The LingQ software makes it easier and more efficient to do this. We pay $10 a month, $100 a year, or $200 for a lifetime to make this happen. It is it perfect? No, but it IS awesome and there is zero chance of using LingQ to do it if you don’t pay.
I’m amazed that someone who is truly interested in language learning would be unwilling to pay for LingQ. I used the free version for about 10 minutes then upgraded. To me it is a no brainer. The service is really worth it in my opinion. Also, I love Steve’s videos and insight, all of which is free. Paying for LingQ is the least that I can do to repay the huge benefit that I receive. I watch Steve’s videos more or less daily, some of which are very old, yet are still very relevant and informative to me. I have only been a member for a month or two and I have a lot of catching up to do!
I don’t think someone unwilling to pay for a website learning tool which is very buggy and often malfunctions means they’re not interested in language learning. Maybe they like to spend their hard earned on things that work properly ?