Which of you learned a new language using LingQ

Questions:

A) Which language?
B) How long did it take you to get comfortable in your target language?

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How many known words and listening hours did it take to get comfortable in the language for you?
I’m at 9K words and around 80 hours in German - I feel the language better, but it is far from comfortable. Learning for two months.

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A) I have learned all of my languages mainly in formal classroom settings. Here on LingQ I was a co-producer of German and Dutch podcasts and otherwise I use LingQ to get some extra listening and reading practise.

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I’ve used a variety of tools but the vast majority of my Russian learning comes from Lingq
I suppose I could begin functioning in Russian after a couple years but I’m still learning and my comfort level changes on a daily basis

Answer:
A) English
B) Till now it is not very comfortable. 'Cause learn a new language is like to be a child again and relearn a new communication form.

Why do you think it would take a couple of years to even begin functioning in Russian?

A-German
B-Around 16k words was when reading got easier. I’m almost at 20k and I can add 100 “new” words from context in about 30 mins, since most new words are just agglutinated in german. Ps-I was in germany at the time for a year which mostly just helped with speaking but I’m sure it also influenced my Lingq progress. I only use Lingq and Netflix/music

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I didn’t mean that. I said that it took me about that time to achieve a level that I myself considered functional. If you have more daily time to devote to study, you’ll move faster and your concept of “functional” may also vary widely from mine. For example, I could move around in Russia on my own earlier than that but I didn’t consider that “functional” because I couldn’t engage in free, meaningful conversations about most topics. I could communicate for everyday needs and indulge in fluff talk .

A) I am trying to learn English
B) I am not quite there yet

Are there more stories about this? I am too pretty interested!

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Here is my story.

A) Italian/Dutch/Latin

B)

Italian

It’s quite difficult for me to say any exact number of months, years, etc. but I’d say that I got pretty comfortable in about 3 months. However, there are a few caveats, first of all I have a solid grammatical understanding of 2 romance languages so that goes a long way.

The other thing is that I apart from the first three months of this year I haven’t really done that much with it yet. I read two Sherlock Holmes books at the beginning of the year which I had read before. It was quite difficult, I recognized words but I had to lingq a lot and get used to verb conjugations, etc.

I like grammar so verb conjugations are not that big of a deal, verbs is actually my favorite part of speech. There is still a lag between starting out in a familiar language and reading effortlessly. Around April I read a life changing autobiography about someone I look up to as someone to aspire to be (Johann Cruyff), after that I have mostly spent my time studying grammar, as I have some very lofty goals.

I’d say that I understand Italian radio pretty well and could probably hold casual conversations as well, however keeping in mind that speaking is my Achilles heel.

Dutch

To be honest I have not really had time yet to put any significant effort into dutch. I have mostly been importing “around the world in 80 days” and leafing through it once in a while. Given my relative comfortableness that I have with German I think it should only take about two or three months of reading and listening to get into a place where I have a pretty solid understanding of Dutch and can progress.

Latin

I was hoping that my knowledge of Romance language would have meant that I could just start to read Latin classics (Anead, Odyssey, etc.). It has been quite difficult if you look up random words I can guess what they would be in Latin. However reading a text where you can’t cherrypick words is a whole different ballgame.

It will take probably 6 months for me to get comfortable with Latin once I start to study it. I am somewhat uptight person so I don’t mind reading more stuffy literature but I have a feeling that it will present itself with a challenge that I have not faced before.

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Good job man! Pretty interesting!

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Well, if you like verbs and conjugations, you’re going to love Latin. ;->

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A) Russian
B) 40+ years =8^O

I started Russian in high school, took it for four years, and for another two at university. Those last two were mostly maintenance; I don’t think I learned a whole lot more. I always got good marks. I learned the grammar well, but not enough vocabulary to be really useful, and practically nil listening comprehension when exposed to a native.

I maintained a passive interest in the language after finishing school, and would occasionally glance at material, especially when the Internet made that more and more easy. Eventually I started poking around language learning sites.

I started here on Lingq 5+ years ago and got serious about 4 years ago. About 3 years ago I read my first novel on Lingq. It was a struggle, but it was an arresting story that kept pulling me along, and as a result my vocabulary increased enormously. I’ve read several more books, and each one was a big boost.

“Comfortable” is a very subjective word. I can comfortably listen to a lot of Russian material on YouTube – bloggers, news, ranters, documentaries – and I can comfortably read most of the news stories that I care to. There are still speakers and written material that I find too opaque, however.

I cannot say that I’m at all comfortable speaking, because I have no one with whom to speak. I’m still passive with the language except for occasional writing. But unlike speaking, writing gives you time to think, research, and edit.

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french and i’m still trying getting comfortable with speaking correctly

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A) Italian

B) To answer your question directly, after about a year on LingQ, and 18 months overall, I am comfortable in stuff geared towards intermediate (News in Slow Italian, podcasts on Learning Italian, and videos for beginners and intermediates). I am not comfortable in watching movies without subtitles, speaking to people, nor speaking Italian without mixing it up with Spanish (of which I’m not so confident right now).

To answer your question in depth, I started watching videos on learning Italian at the beginning of last year, and dabbled in a couple grammar books. I got to a point where learning felt forced. I watched a multitude of videos on language learning and came across LingQ. I started with LingQ in September. I vary with how much I use it (5 minutes to 2 hours a day), but I have maintained a LingQ streak of 226 days, and just reached 12,000 words today.

I am comfortable reading and listening to LingQ stories through Intermediate 1. I have not pushed myself to watch Intermediate 2 stories. I have watched a few movies without subtitles, but understanding about 15-20%. The last Italian movie I watched was 3 months ago. I took a few iTalki lessons at the end of last year, and again this summer, but I feel I have am not improving fast enough. I decided this past week to commit to working in my grammar book of verbs for the next month, writing out the exercises (instead of just saying the answer out loud), and increasing the frequency of speaking lessons.

This week, I feel I am hitting a stride of having fun, seeing improvements in my progress, and feeling more confident that I’m on the right track. The next month for me will include about 35% using LingQ (listening, reading, vocab exercises), 25% verbs and grammar in a book, 20% watching videos on Youtube, and 20% lessons on iTalki and conversations groups (once or twice a month). (Those are really rough estimates).

I hope this helps.

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Well I don’t! :slight_smile:

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imagine having to deal with all those verb conjugations and the 6 noun cases also in latin my head would explode

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