Hi,
I’ve been listening to Lingq audio for 2 months, reading texts, repeating words. But there is no great progress, most words are forgotten. I have to go back to the audio, but then there is no progress in a new reading, I’m getting nowhere. it’s a shame that this is my second foreign language and thought it should be easier. if I listen to audio as a background, it turns out white noise with low efficiency of memorizing and understanding. I can spend 2 hours a day, sometimes more, but I can’t understand how to allocate this time efficiently. Texts are interesting, match my B1 level. I understand that the Lingq tool is very useful and powerful, but I must be doing something wrong because I still don’t see any improvement. It is a question of how to use time properly
You will get there. 2 months is still the pushing the rock up the hill stage.
I am English native and learning Russian right now.
Here is my method:
I memorize 2,000-3,000 words of anki. I spend a couple hours a day on this. This takes about 4 months.
At the same time I spend half an hour to half an hour a day on the lingQ mini stories.
At the 3 month mark (once I have about 1,500 words) I start listening to “TPRS” style youtube language classes. I do that for a month about ten minutes a day. By 4 months I have about 2,000 words in. Then I upgrade the difficulty to easy to understand language teachers (without the crutch of TPRS). Then I gradually upgrade each month to a progressively more difficult to understand youtuber. All the while still doing lingQ mini stories and memorizing words in anki. Note that while I’m doing lingQ I’m listening to the audio and clicking on every single word to hear the word, not just reading it alone.
Demotivation hits at around the 3 month mark usually because it feels like after all that effort you should be able to understand more than you can. Demotivation hits again at 4 months and at 5 months and at 6 months. But at each stage you understand more.
In truth, though, you are still accumulating. If you keep going, by 6months+ to a year as long as you keep listening to audio, you will eventually be able to understand almost all youtubers and probably have a decent conversation.
You can check out my posts here in the forum: I posted once a month about my progress in Russian.
Thanks. That‘s a great idea to add Anki, much appropriate app for words repetition. I‘ll look at your post. Russian is a very difficult language even for native. I had 6-8 lessons per week (Russian & Literature) for 10 years at school but I can‘t write and speak without mistakes.
Thank you for support, I will definitely learn German. Ohne Fleiss kein Preis. - Без труда не вытащишь и рыбку из пруда.
I’m doing this too for Chinese. Keep the grind going!
That’s the hard truth. It’s necessary to grind it out at least until you have the threshold number of words where decent understanding kicks in. That said, apps like lingQ and even gamified apps like duolingo and busuu etc in addition help tamp down the demotivation from the grind until the threshold is reached. To me I can keep going in the initial stage because I know that it’s not an unending grind. At some few number of months things become real fun and real rewarding. I’m just barely at that stage in Russian right now after grinding it out for six months.
Now I’m having fun with it. I can’t hardly wait until summer when (if my prediction is right) I should be able to lap up netflix shows in Russian.
EDIT: Just checked. I’ve been watching the first episode of “Better than us” on netflix from time to time. I’ve seen it about 5 times now. When I watched it right now, I’m getting about 30-40% so definitely progress. Fingers crossed I will be able to understand the show 80-90% by summer.
Hi! I was wondering, when do you begin speaking?
spend some time reading things close to your level. Mini stories, other simple stories you find. If you actually spend 2 hours a day doing this, it will come. 2 months is indeed only the very beginning.
Also keep in mind that lingq is a great tool, but it’s also not magic. Compare it to the progress you make in a classroom setting. I see in your stats you’ve learned 142 lingqs over the past two months. I think that’s more or less what you would achieve in a classroom, except you’ve actually learned these words by seeing them repeatedly in different contexts, rather than in a vocab list.
At two months you’re only starting to set everything up. Continue to do go at it and it will come.
If you want to know my personal approach, I try to read 5k words a day in both FR and JP. Doesn’t always work. If I find it takes me to long to read something, I switch to a simpeler text.
Recently my reading skill has become much higher than my listening, so I’ve started try to spend at least 1 hour listening and 1 hour netflix.
I’d bet that you’re probably reading text that is too far above your level. As a rough approximation, I’d say that a 2000-word lesson shouldn’t take more than 45 mins to finish. Ideally it would be closer to 30 mins. If it takes you 1.5 hours or more then it’s way above your level and you’re probably not going to get much benefit in reading. You would essentially be doing flashcards with words spaced a few days to a few weeks apart (sometimes further). If you start on the other end of the spectrum (too easy) then you can always see how that goes and then ramp things up until you find your sweet spot.
up to you. some people like to start as soon as possible. If you actually need to speak quickly (e.g. for work) I would imagine that starting as soon as possible is recommended.
If not, you might as well get a lot of input first and wait one or two years.
I’m going to suggest something different. I did a lot of memorizing words in spaced repetition and now feel I wasted most of my time. Instead, I suggest you ramp up your time spent learning vocabulary by reading (mostly) and listening (a little and always with subtitles in Russian if possible). Encountering the words in context and as you get better and better at reading, is in effect a kind of spaced repetition but much easier and much, much more enjoyable, By the way, I don’t know why one would bother to go from Lingq to Anki to make flashcards. Why not just do it here.? Am I missing something? And finally go easier on yourself, you are definitely learning even if it doesn’t feel you’re learning enough. Language learning, even if it’s your second foreign language, takes time, lots and lots of time.
For me I use it because it has worked. I consider memorizing a base number of words to be fundamental to my experience. I wonder what it is that other folks are doing that is different from me when they say it didn’t work for them.
With respect to lingq:
For me, I don’t really use lingQ for reading even though that is it’s core functionality because I don’t really care about being able to read or write. It’s the secondary functionality that gives me benefits for what I’m interesting in (listening and understanding TV shows).
Yeah. Agreed.
What you focus on depends on what you want to achieve.
My goal is to understand any given netflix show I want to watch. I’m way less focused on reading and writing than most other folks on here are. In actuality I don’t really use lingQ for reading even though that is it’s core functionality. It’s the secondary functionality that gives me benefits.
I’d like to be able to speak too but it’s not core to my goal. If I can do it as a side effect that’s great.