Hey, what's up guys today's video is gonna be a review on LingQ
Which is a language learning platform for the computer and for mobile devices that allows you to learn languages through
Reading and listening. It's been devised by Steve Kaufman who is a prolific polyglot online
You've probably seen his YouTube videos or you follow him on Twitter. He speaks about ten languages
well, and I believe he speaks a variety of other languages to varying extents.
So he really knows his stuff when it comes to language learning
I've been using LingQ for about two months now, so I'm really starting to get a good feel about
how it works and the best practices for using it and I just wanted to do a quick review today to let you know my
opinions and my feelings about this platform. The basis of the platform is that you're gonna be reading a lot of material within the app.
You can use material that's already available straight from the app or you can copy and paste from any source you want.
I've copied and pasted the lyrics from several songs since music is one of my favorite ways of learning languages.
Once you select something that you want to start reading just open it in LingQ and you'll see that all of the words are highlighted
In blue. When you don't know a word you just click on it and you'll be given a definition.
LingQ will also save that word in your account as a word you don't know and then they'll automatically make it into a flashcard
so you can review later.
Every time you turn the page LingQ will assume that all of the blue words you didn't click on are words
you already know. LingQ will remember those words and from now on whenever you see them
They won't be highlighted anymore. After you read several hundred pages
You'll notice that most of the words are no longer highlighted. And that's the goal.
You want the words to go from blue to yellow to no highlight at all. That means you're learning new vocabulary.
I like this method of vocabulary acquisition better than rote memorization because you're actually encountering the words in
context. Most of the articles and books that come available on link are
already connected to an audio book or an audio clip of someone reading the article so that you can listen along while you read.
I find this to be a great way of improving your listening comprehension skills.
Another great feature of LingQ is that it includes a built-in mp3
player where you can listen to the audio from your books and articles even while you can't read.
A lot of times I listen to it in the car or while I'm taking a walk
If you've ever seen any of Steve Kaufman's videos before you know that he's a huge fan of the
Comprehensible input method popularized by the linguist Stephen Krashen, and that's what link revolves around
It's great because there's no drilling. No exercises and no tests.
All you do is read and listen to the content that's interesting to you. Now while I think LingQ is a great platform,
there's just a few areas where I think it falls a little bit short of being the perfect all-encompassing
language learning app.
First of all
You do need some level of proficiency in your target language before you start using LingQ.
They do their best to make it accessible to beginners, but from my experience
It's just not a great program if you're starting from scratch.
I took a short trip to northern Belgium and the Netherlands this summer
so I decided that I'd try my hand at learning some very basic Dutch.
I tried doing this on LingQ, but honestly
I was just
swimming in a sea of blue words that I didn't
understand and I couldn't make any sense of it and it just didn't help me at all. Ironically,
this is the one area that I think Duolingo really shines.
You can watch my review of Duolingo by following the link at the top of this video
but essentially, I found that program to be only useful for those who have no previous knowledge of the language they're learning.
That means that I find Duolingo and LingQ to complement each other really well. After
maybe a few weeks to a month of learning a language on Duolingo,
you'll probably have enough vocabulary and grammar to follow along with the beginner units and LingQ.
There's also a spaced repetition
flashcard feature on LingQ, but honestly, I find it to be a little bit weak.
That's not a huge deal because if you're really serious about spaced repetition
you can always use your vocabulary list on LingQ to create your own customized decks on memorize or Anki.
Overall, I'd give link a solid A this might be the most useful language learning program
I've used so far and I would recommend it to anyone who has at least a basic knowledge in the language
they're learning. Just a word of caution though before purchasing a subscription to link,
I tried the free trial version and honestly, I thought it really sucked.
But I'm glad I gave it another chance because the paid version is just a lot better and it's not that expensive.
So if you're really serious about giving LingQ a chance, just buy yourself a month long
subscription and base your opinion off of that, not off the free version.
So that's it for this review. If you liked the video, I'd really appreciate it
if you gave me a thumbs up and subscribe. And if you're interested in seeing reviews on any other language platform,
go ahead and leave me a comment down below because I'm always looking for new ways
of learning languages and new techniques that I can experiment with.
And the reason I made this video in the first place is because someone commented and asked me to review LingQ.
So thanks for watching the video, and we'll see you guys in the next one.