How do you LingQ when not sure about Orthography?

Hi community,

I was wondering, do you LingQ words where you recognise the meaning but you’re not sure about the orthography/spelling?

I think it makes sense but I give them a 3 or 4. What do you think?

Thanks.

Hi Davide, my idea would be either not to bother about orthography at all, or else to controle the spelling of the word using a dictionary, a grammar or an online orthography program.

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Thanks.

The fact is that I usually also want to write in the language that I’m studying. So I learn any language in a sort of complete way.

So, when I recognise the meaning while I’m reading, I may see that the spelling is enough different from what I was expecting. So, I don’t know if I should consider that as a known word or not so really.

OK, Davide, but what is a “word”? In fact, Lingq counts wordforms: antworte, antwortet, geantwortet, antwortete are four different forms, but Lingq counts them as four words. Is this important? Is it important to know how many words of a language you know ? And what is « knowing a word » ? Recognizing the word and knowing its meaning when we read or when we listen? Or being able to use a word actively when we speak?

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yes, I know more or less how LingQ works but in this case I’m trying to understand if it’s a good strategy to use it also for remembering and working on orthography or not.

I know that I can use LingQ for improving reading comprehension, listening and speaking as well. So I LingQ words with this purpose.

But writing is a different skills and I don’t know if I should bother to LingQ words for this purpose or not. Because I don’t know if it can work as a good method as well.

So I ask that so other people can give me their experience and from there I improve my strategy.

For example, I came across the word “biceps”.
I perfectly know what it is but I didn’t know that the singular form is always “biceps” and not “bicep”.

There are, of course, other examples like this.

I just don’t know if I should LingQ them or not, because I don’t know if it would be effective or not. As I know the meaning of the word, and I understand the meaning inside the context but I might be wrong with the spelling.

So, do we use LingQ only when we don’t know the word or also when we are not sure about the spelling but we understand the meaning of the word in the context?

As far as I understand, you don’t use LingQ in this way as you said earlier.

I think you’ll just learn the spelling through the normal course of learning. I’m only “intermediate” level so probably it would be great if someone who’s advanced much further could answer, but I think you’re going to delay your learning if you spend too much time worrying about the spelling. You may learning to spell a “few” words really really well, but you’ll also be way behind comprehension of someone who spent their entire time reading…and eventually I think their spelling and understanding of the base form and other forms of the words much better because they’ve had vastly more exposure to the language.

I’ve not practiced spelling or worried about orthography, but I’m pretty sure I can spell anything I could ever use in my active vocabulary and if someone were to quiz me in a “spelling bee” I could probably do pretty good with much of my passive vocabulary as well.

Think about your own native language. You probably did spelling drills until maybe 3rd grade…beyond that no one was quizzing you directly on spelling, nor were you probably practicing it. You learned it through a lot of reading and exposure to the language and learned it on its own.

I only consider the meaning of a word or phrase, when deciding to LingQ or not.
I also keep all LingQs at one, until either LingQ promotes the LingQ, :thinking:
or I am certain I know what it means.
E.g. I changed “ovviemente” from 2 to “Known”, today.
I have had LingQed words that LingQ thinks I know. It keeps on upgradiing them, just because I keep on fluking (getting lucky with) the tests. I then have to downgrade the LingQ to 1
e.g. “alcune” - for some reason I always get that right in the tests, but I am damned if I can remember what it means when I see it on its own, lol

Actually, “ovviemente” is an example of a word I keep on mispelling. I keep on ending it with an “o”! But, when reading it in a sentence or on its own, I know what “ovviemente” means, whereas I can never remember what “alcune” means when I see it on its own.

I am not experienced at this language learning. This is just my way of doing it :grinning:

So,
I only consider the meaning of the word or phrase
I do not manualy upgrade the LingQs, except to “Known” if required.
I leave LingQ to upgrade the LingQs :thinking:
I leave upgrading the LingQs to LingQ :thinking:
my head hurts

Ah, I also LingQ everything I do not know. EVERYHTING!
e.g. costare, costo, costi, costa, costano - these are all separate links

I watched a video by Steve Kaufman and he too counts all as separate LingQs.

Besides LingQ, I also use Anke, and there I do consider the spelling of the words.

Thank you. That might be true but I get used to another way of learning languages and this is the first time I’m changing strategy and focus on way more exposure.

We almost don’t do spelling drills at school, I think it depends on the language.

For example, in French, I have more problems with the orthography compared to English (but this is the same for French people). For example I can feel that the word I have in my mind is not correct but I’m not able to guess all the correct letters. I know it’s wrong and doesn’t sound good but don’t recall the correct form.

I’ve read a lot of French though and didn’t help.

But in LingQ I feel something is different because it’s more a “deep” reading and listening. And I usually just quickly scan things instead of deep reading them.

Things might work more in this way.

Thanks for writing your strategy.

I know the feeling of continuously seeing a word but keeping forgetting it. It’ll change with more exposure. But even worse is completely know the meaning of words but always getting the orthography wrong. The problem is that I should write a lot more in every language I know and use those words in there, but it’s too much time.

Just one thing, as I’m reading it twice, I’m not sure “ovviemente” exists, but probably “ovviamente” = obviously.

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There you go, another way I mispell that word, lol
Perhaps I’d better put the LingQ down to level 1 as a penalty/punishment!!!

As said by others here, constant exposure to the language in well written and spoken form will instill that knowledge in your brain. Just read, read, read, listen, listen, listen.

Where reading well written articles results in a positive affect, I know that the opposite is also true. Reading poorly wriiten ones negatively affected my use of my own language. I had to stop reading forum posts and blogs.

I’m going to change my overal strategy. I’m only going to use LingQ, and will drop Anki. I spend a lot of time adding words and phrases to my Anki decks!

Gonna try that for a week, and see how it compares to this last week.

Ovviamente, I will still watch shows, films and YouTube in the target language.
not gonna forget that spelling again!

hmm, being active really does seem to work.

I can’t wait to get to a point where I can write short stories. I love writing.

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Yeah, I share the feeling with Anki and I’m doing a similar thing. But I keep Anki for remembering grammar rules and other strategies, using the Cloze deletion method. I think it’s more productive this way.

Probably, as you said, reading is improving the writing but I don’t think regular reading does it. We usually tend to read very fast and don’t pay attention to the structure or to the orthography. When we start to know the language, we want to understand the concept and don’t care anymore about the structure. So maybe, reading is efficient but a “deep reading” and not a sort of “scanning reading” like we do today.