Testemunhos

Ontem eu estava no Barnes & Noble e uma moça, coitada, precisaria de um carrinho de mão para carregar todos os livros de verbos e vocabulário espanhol que ela estava prestes a comprar. Eu perguntei se ela estava começando a aprender espanhol. Eu pensei que talvez ela fosse professora e estava comprando todos esses livros para seus alunos. Ela disse que ela era uma principiante, então eu intervim. Disse para ela colocar todos os livros de volta e para pegar um pedaço de papel e escrever www.LingQ.com, eu lhe disse que eu era fluente em espanhol mas que infelizmente tinha aprendido da mesma forma que ela estava a ponto de fazer.

Eu também contei que eu usei o seu sistema para aprender francês e chinês, e que fiz mais progresso do que em 10 anos de aulas formais de espanhol. Ela colocou os livros de volta e saiu da loja empolgada para usar LingQ. Isso me fez rir, porque ela passou de um estado de ansiedade, com um braço carregado de livros, para um estado de fortalecimento assim que eu contei para ela o modo natural de aprender idiomas. Claro que eu não quero levar Barnes & Noble à falência, mas também não queria que ela ficasse frustrada com o modo com o qual línguas têm sido ensinadas. Pensei que você gostaria de saber disso!  

Antes de mais nada, queria agradecer às pessoas que criaram o sistema LINGQ. Muitas vezes eu tentei continuar a estudar inglês, mas a única maneira que eu conhecia era estudando gramática e vocabulário e sempre terminava em fracasso. Isso porque era entediante e também eu não achava que estava melhorando e não via nenhum efeito positivo na minha proeficiência em inglês.

Tentei também assistir a filmes em inglês e notícias na TV, mas não foi muito útil também. Porque eu não conseguia entender o contexto inteiro e as coisas que entendia permaneciam as mesmas. Quando conheci LingQ, estudar inglês tornou-se fascinante para mim. Gosto muito de estudar inglês agora e não quero guardar pra mim esse segredo, realmente funciona, quero mesmo é compartilhar com meus amigos.  

Na verdade, estou no ultimo ano do Ensino Médio aqui nos EUA (no meu terceiro ano de Espanhol) e ainda não tinha conseguido falar Espanhol até então. Eu comecei a usar seriamente o LingQ cerca de 4 meses atrás. Agora eu consigo conversar (não completamente fluente, mas com boa proficiência) com meus amigos (eu moro no sul do Texas, onde há muitos falantes de espanhol com os quais eu posso falar e escutar.)

Eu acho interessante como eu tinha ido em Espanhol na escola por dois anos e meio e nunca progredi (eu tenho uma média no semestre de 97) e que, em apenas 4 meses no LingQ eu tenho progredido enormemente!!!

Então, eu realmente acredito que o método de estudo em casa funciona MUITO melhor, pelo menos para mim. (Pena que não tenha uma aula de LingQ na escola). LingQ fez com que eu gostasse de aprender línguas, ao contrário da escola onde eu não podia suportar. Eu planejo aprender mais línguas com LingQ no futuro. Não tenho como agradecer suficientemente o sistema!!!

OBS: Obrigado por criar o LingQ!  

Desde a última vez que falei com vocês, dois meses atrás, eu consegui fazer 6 dos meus amigos e o meu pai se inscreverem no LingQ! Eles estão todos impressionados com o website, que reenvigorou a paixão deles por idiomas, depois de terem passado 7 anos na escola com exercícios monótonos de compreensão e um programa de estudos entediante. Eu acabei de ler o seu livro, O Método do Linguista, e eu devo dizer que foi muito inspirador. Pessoalmente eu estou interessado em entrar no Serviço Diplomático (Britânico), e por isso a seção sobre o Serviço Diplomático Canadense foi muito interessante. A seção final sobre o caminho para o aprendizado de línguas redefiniu o meu enfoque no aprendizado de idiomas, e eu já estou notando os resultados, mesmo após somente uma semana focando no seu método. Muito obrigado por tudo o que vocês têm feito para reencorajar os estudantes de idiomas como eu.  

Mais uma mensagem...prova de que o sistema LingQ funciona é que eu atualmente estou fazendo aulas de português intensivo na minha universidade (UC Berkeley). É um curso avançado de português para pessoas que conhecem outras línguas românicas mas que são iniciantes em português, então o curso vai rápido e tem fama de ser difícil. Muitos estudantes estão tendo dificuldades no curso, mas porque eu aprendi tanto português por conta própria nesse verão aprendendo no LingQ, eu só tenho tirado nota 10 nos exames mesmo fazendo o mínimo ou quase nenhum esforço nas terefas e exercícios sem propósito que eles querem que nós façamos. Só o fato de eu me familiarizar tanto com a língua, lendo e escutando, me deu uma intuição quase que natural para o que "soa" correto na língua, então eu estou indo bem nas aulas mesmo sem estudar! Isso é ótimo para mim e para as minhas notas no momento, mas em geral, eu acho que isso prova que as aulas são desnecessárias!  

Eu não tenho certeza para quem mais eu deveria escrever, mas eu tinha que lhe contar o quão maravilhoso esse site é. Lingq é incrível. Eu estudei idiomas por muito tempo e usei inúmeros métodos diferentes, mas esse método aqui é o melhor.  

I just want to tell you I absolutely love your program!! I discovered LingQ from the Youswoop website. They offered a promotion for a reduced price for the 6-month upgrade. Before purchasing I decided to explore the LingQ website. I was throughly surprised to find the website was free! I always had trouble learning a new language and would soon lose interest or patience. Within 1 day of using the program I was hooked! It was enjoyable and I kept coming back. I instantly went back to Youswoop and purchased the upgrade. I love the multiple study tools and the app for my android so I can practice on the go! I am currently learning Spanish, but I can't wait to learn many more! Keep up the great work, I look forward to the great quality and future improvements! Thank you!

頑張ってください！Honestamente, mesmo depois de ter morado o Japão por anos e ter tentado de tudo. Foi LingQ que realmente me deu a técnica e a confidência que eu precisava para ter confiança nas minhas habilidades. Eu até acabei trabalhando em uma companhia japonesa onde ninguém falava inglês. Então você vai conseguir!

Muito obrigado pelo maravilhoso site. Eu realmente curto cada lição. Posso melhorar minhas habilidades de fala muito rápido. Todos devem conhecer sobre vocês. Mandei o link para o meu irmão e o encoragei para se juntar. Ele é iniciante. Mas acredito que o inglês dele está bem melhor logo.  

Tenho sido professor de ESL por um ano e tenho estudado coreano nos últimos 6 meses, e tenho que admitir que depois de procurar em todos os lugares e tentar diferentes coisas, como os outros, eu descobri que o LingQ é a melhor ferramenta para ajudar na aquisição de línguas. Ser capaz de escolher seu próprio conteúdo/importar seu próprio conteúdo é uma vantagem enorme sobre qualquer outro sistema de aprendizado de línguas por aí. Isso coloca a escolha nas mãos do estudante. Também o Quadro de Progresso Pessoal é onde eu obtenho muita motivação. Eu gosto de ver minhas estatísticas e comparar com a de outros usuários que estudam com o LingQ. Isso me direciona a fazer melhor, assim como me mantém no foco do meu aprendizado (eu vibro quando eu vejo que eu passei das minhas metas, ou por outro lado, percebo quando estou indo devagar e preciso acelerar mais meu passo) No fim das contas, eu sei que LingQ funciona porque eu posso ver meu progresso através do número de Palavras Conhecidas e de lingqs que aumentam.  

I spend about 80% of my study time just listening to content from the LingQ library, while cooking. The rest of the time I spend at the site, reading and reviewing words. In one year my TEOIC score improved from 500 to 800 points

Seven years ago, I took Toeic for the first time. Because my husband's company encourages all the employees to learn something that interests them, he chose to study English. After finished his course, he took Toeic to make sure how much his English improved. I don't remember his result, but my score was somewhere around 550. ( My major was English in college.)

Two years ago, after giving birth to my second baby, I felt like studying English again. I started to buy magazines for English learners. It was helpful to increase vocabulary but I forgot most of them before long. Then I searched on the Internet better ways to learn English. I wanted to listen to real conversations between native speakers, not news. Then I came across the Linguist (now LingQ) and decided to join. Since then, I enjoy English every day. There are various kinds of contents in the Library section. I just pick up a content which interests me. It is fun to look up new words in the dictionary because I choose it and want to understand what the speakers are talking about. It really makes me feel satisfied when I have gotten all the meaning of new words. After that, I listen to the same content many times while cooking and doing household chores. Sometimes I am mumbling some phrases in the kitchen, so it looks weird.

This year, I took Toeic for the first time in seven years. My score was 800. It was amazing. I didn't expect that much. I like English but I don't want to study English for exams. I didn't do anything for Toeic this time. I believe the LingQ will lead me to 900 points of Toeic.  

In Brazil we have 7 years of English, twice a week in schools (from 11 to 17 years old). From 13 to 17 I had another English course in parallel to the school one, with 3 more hours a week. I’ve been always considered an excelent student, and my grades were around 90-100%. I liked English, and I’ve been always fascinated by the idea that some day I would be able to understand a movie, read a book or speak fluently. But it never happened… my English was barely enough to read technical papers that I needed for my professional developement. And even though, the first time my undergraduate advisor asked me to read a 5 page technical paper, I spent almost one month to be able to give him an answer about it. The worst thing is not spending 6 to 10 years studying. The most terrifying fact is that in the end of all this, you can’t do almost anything real with the language. Last year, I angrily decided I would study English alone every single day until I became fluent. I was always searching for material in the Internet, but I didn’t know exactly how to use them. Then, two months after I made my decision I found the LingQ site, started to use it and learned more in 10 months then in the 25 years before that. Now I write tech papers, and not only have them accepted for publishing, but praised because they are well-written. So, I have no doubt that Steve has found the right method for language learning and that the most majority of language teachers simply don’t know what they are doing. Although I feel I’m not done with English yet, I’m very happy with my development, but very outraged too, when I think people are still being submitted to such useless old methods, when there are so many evidences that they simply don’t work at all.

Yesterday I had my interview. Despite of my flu and the terrible sound quality on the phone, I did it. I talked a lot (40 minutes!), about my work, my personal life, my plans for the future, my professional goals (thanks, Helen!!), leadership and role models.

What an experience! Although I don't know if the interviewer liked my answers, I'm sure she could understand them, despite of the minor mistakes I'm sure I made. I ended the interview very happy and proud of myself. So, I would like to thank you all for your conversations and encouragement last week. A special "thank you" for you, Steve, who is the responsible for bringing this wonderful learning tool called LingQ into reality!  

Hi Steve,

I am allowing myself to write you in French since I heard your radio interview and your French is impeccable! I discovered your blog and I congratulate you on your initiative. Your blog and the LingQ method are inestimable resources. You leave the beaten path, you are an innovator (which is not always easy in the very traditional world of language learning ...). My hat's off! I intend to buy your book. I am fascinated by your findings!

I am coach of French as a second language in Montreal: www.enjoyspeakingfrench.com. I rarely teach grammar as such. (I had to find another word for teacher or tutor to describe what I do). I adapt to my clients, their needs, their problems (most of my clients have studied for several years in traditional schools before coming to me. They are rarely beginners, but they are literally blocked). I create dynamic learning plans with them and I recommend resources and activities appropriate to their learning style, their objectives, way of life. I discover what is blocking their learning and I help them to no longer fear speaking French. (It's a real fear for many people who have been terrorized by the study of grammar.) I help them forgot about perfection and take small risks in their communication each day and to believe in their potential. My mission is to unlock people's potential to speak French !

In Montreal, there are many people who take french courses for years, but never really learn to speak, to integrate the knowledge gained into their everyday life (on my website you will find an article about this in the News section). The content of your video blogs are very inspiring (my experience and my personal observations led me to the same conclusions regarding language learning). I will be speaking about + you and warmly recommending your approach to all my clients. I will soon upload a series of videos on Youtube, and I will be encouraging people to visit your blog and use LingQ, if you do not mind!

Thank you for your efforts. You really do superb work, Steve. That is admirable. Thank you very much!  

I have been enrolled at the site since the end of July in order to master English, my first priority. This is very easy because of the almost unlimited content we find at LingQ. In short, the site is fantastic. I have gained confidence in myself and I improve every day. Whereas I used to think that "me and English" was a lost cause. Well, I'd better get back at it!  

As a language freak I have invested a lot of time and money in language learning materials during the last ten years and, for me, NO system is as complete as LingQ. A full Pimsleur course can cost up to US$900 (per language) and leaves the learner with a limited vocabulary. LingQ, however, genuinely offers the opportunity for the user to MASTER as many as 10 languages. The site offers a range of content, direct translation of new words, access to tutors, help with writing and speaking and a network of supportive fellow language learners. The best thing about the LingQ system is that there is a range of content, so you can always work with content that interests and motivates you.  

From the standpoint of someone “in the business” (I’ve been a college professor of German for 20 years), I’m afraid that Steven Krashen’s ideas, while being received initially with some enthusiasm, have been largely ignored (or at best given lip service) both by textbook publishers and writers and by those of us engaged in the classroom. As a foreign language teacher who appreciates these ideas (and uses them – I’m learning Russian with LinqQ and have taught myself other languages, pre-LingQ, following a similar learning philosophy and method – I’ve been deeply impressed at how Steve (Kaufmann) has appropriated these somewhat theoretical ideas into this website to a far greater extent than it has been done in the profession. As a teacher, I am now constantly challenged to remake my classroom in order to do the same. About 7 years ago, I realized that if I were someone wanting to learn German, I’d never take my own class, and since then I’ve been experimenting.  

By the way, I thought you might like to hear that I have recently started doing pretty much all of my Spanish studies through LingQ simply because it works so well for me. It completely minimises the faffing about of writing stuff on cards or in vocabulary books and makes it easy for me to learn and remember words, without any pretence of special gimics or memory aids that don't work in the long term.

It was interesting for me to realise that it is an extremely valuable thing to have a system that completely saves me organising my studies (apart from uploading my own content which I can do with minimal effort) thus giving me maximum contact with the language when I study without distractions and without having to think where I should put what flashcard where, which book, CD or MP3 I should listen to and where I put it. It is simple, but for the studies I want to do, I don't need anything else. Well done.  

For some years now I’ve been looking for and experimenting with different methods with high school students (ages 14-19), probably for much the same reasons. Being dissatisfied with predominant so-called communicative methods that actually weren’t anything else but old grammar and translation based drills combined with ineffective dialogues on CDs and not really interesting textbook content, I searched the internet and came up with numerous articles by Greg Thomson on the www.sil.org, in which I was introduced to Stephen Krashen’s ideas.

Providing students with a lot of comprehensible input was a big challenge, especially for French. The main problem proved to be the “remaking” of the classroom and motivating the students, who actually didn’t expect anything better than what they had been getting so far, to take more responsibility for their learning. Thanks to Steve Kaufmann’s blogposts and my own working with LingQ I’ve become much more efficient in convincing at least part of my students of how effective listening and reading can be at any stage in the learning process.

Previously I had come across “passive learning” in Vera Birkenbihl’s books. She worked out her own methodology of language learning (among other learning fields) in the late 1980s. She actuallY advocates word-for-word translation with active listening (very similar to the LingQ method) as a first step. She calls this “decoding”. She is against formal vocabulary and grammar learning. The next step is “passive listening”(without reading along) and only after full comprehension/acquisition of the material does she suggest production (speaking or writing) according to the learner’s requirements.

Ms Birkenbihl’s method is great as soon as you have the “decoded” texts and recordings. I experimented with this method for some time, but then came across Assimil courses, which were easier to use, because there was no need to do the word-for-word translation myself. On the other hand, I didn’t find the content of Assimil courses so interesting. Stll, I have benefited a lot from both approaches. However, all of this proved to be difficult to use in the classroom.

With the LingQ methodology I have found something like a “missing link”. Interesting content and mp3 files, flashcards (which I had been using on and off in paper form) together with the possibility of communicating with other learners and a tutor.

My latest experiment of learning some Swedish with “the power of the linguist” has been a very rewarding experience. I’m using LingQ mainly for Russian and French, but I’m trying to continue Swedish as well.  

I took the TOEIC at the end of last month after a few month intensive reading and listening on LingQ system. It was my seventh TOEIC in the past 16 years. I usually ran out of time at the reading and grammer section, but this time I felt it was much easier than ever and had more than 10 minutes left when I finished my answer sheet. There were a few questions that I needed time to think over, but for the rest of them I just felt the right answers like my intuition told me. I think it is because I have been intensively exposing myself to natural English that is not arranged for exam preparation. Of course I needed to check some points in grammar before the exam, but most of the time I just enjoyed my reading. This experience really helps me to keep my motivation. I look forward to seeing my TOEIC score that will be sent at the end of this month.

Thanks.  

Usando o sistema LingQ durante os últimos meses, eu achei o sistema todo ser incrivelmente simples, fácil de usar e uma maneira prazerosa de estudar e adquirir uma língua. Não somente isso, ele também te permite fazer uma imersão na língua desde o primeiro dia e se tornar rapidamente familiar com ela; alguns sistemas de educação de língua tradicionais em geral tendem a não ser nem perto tão eficientes, ou ter um custo-eficácia. E felizmente este inteiro processo na verdade requer pouco esforço.

Por causa dessa abordagem natural, essencialmente sem esforço ao aprendizado de uma língua, assim como à sua acessibilidade mundial através do mundo virtual da internet, o LingQ oferece um produto atrativo, interessante, com o potencial de ir bem em países como a Nova Zelândia, onde o conhecimento de línguas estrangeiras não é comum. Eu sou afortunado e agradecido por ter descoberto o LingQ e recomendo-o a qualquer pessoa, mesmo com o menor interesse em línguas estrangeiras!  

I'm sure you get a thousand of these a day but I would just like to say I really appreciate your knowledge and passion for languages. LingQ is absolutely brilliant and is something I feel that is extremely unique. You are truly doing something amazing for all language learners. Thank you for your time, and once again thank you for all that you have done for the language learning community.

Here is how I use LingQ. I first download various audio clips then proceed to save the text that came along with the audio. I print out the text and add the audio to an mp3 player and that way I have the LingQ system everywhere I go! People ask me all the time how I could possibly study a language without school and all I need to do is pull out the text and mp3 and give them a little demonstration. I tell people that you will pick words and phrases without meaning to just by simply listening and reading the text a view times. It is truly an amazing thing when you are learning effortlessly and efficiently at the same time. I encourage people to try LingQ due to the effectiveness and that the man behind the scenes is truly original and absolutely passionate about proper language learning. Simply follow the basic instructions on LingQ and you will be learning in no time.

I'll never stop using LingQ haha!  

Hi, I’m Frances from the Philippines. I have just signed up for LingQ to learn French language. Thanks for creating this site. It will really help a lot of those who intend to learn new foreign languages. Thanks so much and keep up the good work!  

Just for fun of it, the other day at the bookstore I picked up a study book for the French proficiency test here in Japan. I was able to answer most of the questions without any study of grammar at all. I have only been studying here at LingQ.  

...if LingQ had been around when I first started learning, I think I would have been a lot further ahead than where I am now. However, I can’t complain because now I have discovered it I feel as though I will learn a lot more with greater speed and efficiency...  

Hi Jill, Steve and Mark! I like Your podcasts very much and I really enjoy to listen them. It's funny, You're laughing and it isn't boring at all. So, thank you for that!:)  

Just wanted to give you a short feedback on your podcast that I have been listening this morning at 6 am whilst walking with my dog in a dark, swiss forest!! I loved it!! And I went straight back to start exercising on my English (with Anne of green gables, nice). I will upgrade as soon as I have enough time - I really want to improve my English and your way is just great - thanks a lot. Merry Christmas and from the most possible the best for 2008 (sounds weird in English; in German: vom Moglichen das Beste!)  

Thank you for the very excellent article on organizing a presentation. I have been using LingQ for several weeks now and am very happy with the progress I am making. This kind of progress has eluded me in the past. I now have LingQ on my browser tool bar and include it in my morning routine at the same time slot as I read my email and news sources. I have recommended your program to a number of people. I also enjoy your blogs each day which help to keep me motivated. I told my son the other day that Steve Kaufman is my new guru. Thanks very much.  

I took a few years of French at high-school, which of course did not take me anywhere. Despite getting a ‘B’ in GCSE, I could not even conduct a basic conversation in French. I had not touched the language for almost 15 years, until the summer of 2006, when I decided to pick it up again. It was tough for me because there were not many Francophones in my area, and that I could only spend a portion of my spare-time learning. I joined LingQ in the summer of 2007, and I found significant improvement after only a few months, especially in my reading and listening.

Last weekend, I went to visit Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City, the first time since I started to pick up French again. I was amazed that I could understand a lot of conversations spoken around me. I was also very happy to find myself being able to exchange a few lines with the Francophones over there. What I found most astonishing was that I did not achieve this by memorising the lines from some phrase books, but the conversations came out quite naturally from my mouth.  

This week is my one-year-anniversary of my new English learning at LingQ. Since late June of 2009, I have imported and shared 850 lessons, created 11380 Lings, read over 2,370,000 words and listened to English content for 385 hours! Wow! My progress snapshot shows it, too. I’d been enjoying English learning, but I’d never focused my learning on vocab nor had I read so many texts. I enjoy learning at LingQ, and watching my progress snapshot every day. This progress snapshot, the LingQ system and the LingQ community give me a lot of motivation to learn English. Thank you, LingQ!  

Hello, I’m Seghir from Algeria ; I’ve learned English at school for 11 years but I haven’t made big progress but now with LingQ it is totally different, I used the system for only three months and I can understand write and even speak English much better. LingQ’s methods are very efficient so thank you very much Steve, Jill, Mark and all the tutors and also Henry because now I’m learning French and I really like the new French podcasts good luck and keep up the good work.  

A few days ago a friend of mine told me she is learning Spanish. The first idea to come to my mind was if I could find any audio books to learn the language too. So i found one and after 8 hours of listening I already had some basic understanding of the Spanish language structure. (A very very useful audio book to start learning Spanish with, by Michele Thomas, he shows the structure of the language, and not just some common phrases as usually such "teachers" do). The next day I spent a couple of hours trying various language learning software, when I came to lingq.com. I've now spent some 30 hours here in total and I can already read wikipedia, news and other articles in Spanish almost without any use of dictionary (well, I look up about 1 word in 50 when reading articles I import to LingQ's workdesk). I find LingQ very handy, it really saves tons of time and makes me feel more confident knowing I have everything I need to learn (i.e. articles I have read/plan to read, vocabulary, dictionary, flashcards, etc.) at hand.

I just wanted to write a thank you letter to the LingQ team :-) Great idea and great job you guys made! Keep going ;-)  

I was a programmer for 20+ years in my previous life and really appreciate well designed software.  

I just wanted to say I love this program. I think that if you found a way to develope it in the way that Rosetta Stone is commercially sold, you would really have something amazing. I'm also learning Russian, and I wanted to tell you that I would really love to see you "explain your website" in Russian. Спасибо. Пока!  

What a wonderful job all you have done regarding the Lingq design. Today, I spent more than 3 hours at the LingQ updating my flashcards(hint/phrases) and was great! The time just went by so fast. It was easy, fast, enjoyable. Everything was at the reach of my hand. No question, "The best language learning system ever". And I can tell you that I have spent a considerable amount of time searching the Internet, trying to get a look at what is going on regarding to online language learning systems. Congratulations!