This is the second review that I do of this website, I made the first review when I was just beginning to learn languages on my own so I didn't have a lot of experience about a lot of self-learning techniques or programs or softwares out there . I'm not saying that right now I'm a complete expert on the subject, but I have tried almost all of the most famous self-learning languages courses and websites out there and I think I have a better opinion about them.
So now I'm going to start with LingQ, or to be more accurate LingQ 2.0.
The owner of LingQ is a fellow language learning blogger called Steve Kaufmann, who has quite a reputation on YouTube.
First of all, a lot of people might ask: What is LingQ? Steve Kaufmann defines it as: "Simply the best way to learn languages" mmm... ok, I don't like when people promote something they did in that kind of way and I'm sure that you neither so I'm going to talk to you about LingQ without all the drills and exaggerations.
Ok, LingQ basically promotes itself as a website in which you can "learn languages", but I don't find that accurate. LingQ is not a guide, LingQ is not a course, LingQ is not a systematic method that will teach how to learn languages. LingQ is just a platform where you can find , read and listen to texts in other languages, that's it. Yes, you also have the video calls, professional tutors and all those things but I think you have to pay for the premium account if you want to get those. Mainly LingQ is a reading platform and a really good one if I may add. Reading a text with LingQ, is pretty much like reading a foreign text with an e-dictionary completely at your disposition. But listen to this, I don't recommend this method at all if you're just starting with a language. If you are just starting try Assimil or Pimsleur better, because in LingQ you already have to know how to read the language and a good decent chunk of basic vocabulary. Otherwise you will not understand a lot of stuff you're reading despite using an e-dictionary and you might get really frustrated because only few texts have complete translations you can look at, so you already have to know the basics.
LingQ is basically a library, a really big online library and let me tell you something: You might hate Steve Kaufmann, his attitude, the way that he promotes himself and his business but I have to admit that he has managed to create the biggest online library of foreign languages texts out there. You have hundreds of texts and books in Spanish, German, French, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Russian, Italian... . I have never seen a library with so much content as this one and entirely free, every text has its MP3 audio which is really easy to download and the overall settings are easy to use.
For me this is the greatest aspect that LingQ has, you can find so much free material with audio. I think LingQ is the only website that I know that offers this and for "free".
But sadly there's a huge downside on this website, a huge letdown that made me stop using this site until I found a solution to it. The point of reading with LingQ is to create definitions of the words that you don't know, every time you read something you don't know, you click on that word and LingQ will tell you the definition of that word in your language. That word will be highlighted in yellow and saved in your database. That's how you learn vocabulary with this method, the more definitions you do, the better, that's the whole point. But when you're using LingQ (the free version) you only get to create 100 definitions and that's it, and believe me, when you're reading multiple texts in a foreign language 100 definitions is not enough.
You have to go to your database, erase the definitions you already have and then you can return to read. That was a complete pain in the ass for me, I was completely comfortable reading with this method and bum! you have created 100 LingQs that's your limit!, I had to return to my database, erase a few words and bum! I reached the limit again. That just made this method so annoying and uncomfortable that I stopped using it. That's the greatest flaw of this site , and that's why I don't use it anymore. Well I still use it but in another way...
Learning With Text was the solution that I found to this problem, and without any doubt LWT is the best way to use this reading method.
Learning With Text is not a website, is a software, kinda like an app. You use LWT exactly the same way that you use LingQ. But! LWT is completely free to use, and you can make as many definitions as you want to! no limits, the way it should be.
The only thing is that you have to import everything to it, when you install LWT the whole software is empty you have to import your texts and audio to it, but this is really simple (copy/paste kinda stuff) and you also can choose two online dictionaries to use. And with that, you can study and read so much comfortably without limitations, without erasing words from you database, with a proper dictionary of your choise where you can see multiple definitions, and all of the data is in your computer so you don't really need the web to use it.
The downside of Learning With Text and there's really only one: Is a little bit tricky to download, is completely free, it doesn't take a lot of time to download but the way to download it and install it is a little weird.
There are several methods to install it, you can go to http://lwt.sourceforge.net/ to see them.
This is the method I used (using Windows and EasyPHP):
And that's it, once you've already installed it you can use LingQ and LWT combined.
As I already told you LingQ is a big library and you should use it as such. LWT is the best way to use this reading method and you should use it as such.
Go to LingQ, pick a lesson and import it to LWT so you can study it more comfortable, with no limitations and no cash spend. You can also import to LWT whatever kind of text you want, you can import songs (which are really useful) news and all kinds of stuff.
Do this!,because this reading method really works, if you already know the basics of the language and you use this method; you can pretty much read and understand every text in that language and at the same time acquiring a lot of information, vocabulary and the overall rythm of the language.
So now I'm going to start with LingQ, or to be more accurate LingQ 2.0.
The owner of LingQ is a fellow language learning blogger called Steve Kaufmann, who has quite a reputation on YouTube.
First of all, a lot of people might ask: What is LingQ? Steve Kaufmann defines it as: "Simply the best way to learn languages" mmm... ok, I don't like when people promote something they did in that kind of way and I'm sure that you neither so I'm going to talk to you about LingQ without all the drills and exaggerations.
Ok, LingQ basically promotes itself as a website in which you can "learn languages", but I don't find that accurate. LingQ is not a guide, LingQ is not a course, LingQ is not a systematic method that will teach how to learn languages. LingQ is just a platform where you can find , read and listen to texts in other languages, that's it. Yes, you also have the video calls, professional tutors and all those things but I think you have to pay for the premium account if you want to get those. Mainly LingQ is a reading platform and a really good one if I may add. Reading a text with LingQ, is pretty much like reading a foreign text with an e-dictionary completely at your disposition. But listen to this, I don't recommend this method at all if you're just starting with a language. If you are just starting try Assimil or Pimsleur better, because in LingQ you already have to know how to read the language and a good decent chunk of basic vocabulary. Otherwise you will not understand a lot of stuff you're reading despite using an e-dictionary and you might get really frustrated because only few texts have complete translations you can look at, so you already have to know the basics.
LingQ is basically a library, a really big online library and let me tell you something: You might hate Steve Kaufmann, his attitude, the way that he promotes himself and his business but I have to admit that he has managed to create the biggest online library of foreign languages texts out there. You have hundreds of texts and books in Spanish, German, French, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Russian, Italian... . I have never seen a library with so much content as this one and entirely free, every text has its MP3 audio which is really easy to download and the overall settings are easy to use.
For me this is the greatest aspect that LingQ has, you can find so much free material with audio. I think LingQ is the only website that I know that offers this and for "free".
But sadly there's a huge downside on this website, a huge letdown that made me stop using this site until I found a solution to it. The point of reading with LingQ is to create definitions of the words that you don't know, every time you read something you don't know, you click on that word and LingQ will tell you the definition of that word in your language. That word will be highlighted in yellow and saved in your database. That's how you learn vocabulary with this method, the more definitions you do, the better, that's the whole point. But when you're using LingQ (the free version) you only get to create 100 definitions and that's it, and believe me, when you're reading multiple texts in a foreign language 100 definitions is not enough.
You have to go to your database, erase the definitions you already have and then you can return to read. That was a complete pain in the ass for me, I was completely comfortable reading with this method and bum! you have created 100 LingQs that's your limit!, I had to return to my database, erase a few words and bum! I reached the limit again. That just made this method so annoying and uncomfortable that I stopped using it. That's the greatest flaw of this site , and that's why I don't use it anymore. Well I still use it but in another way...
Learning With Text was the solution that I found to this problem, and without any doubt LWT is the best way to use this reading method.
Learning With Text is not a website, is a software, kinda like an app. You use LWT exactly the same way that you use LingQ. But! LWT is completely free to use, and you can make as many definitions as you want to! no limits, the way it should be.
The only thing is that you have to import everything to it, when you install LWT the whole software is empty you have to import your texts and audio to it, but this is really simple (copy/paste kinda stuff) and you also can choose two online dictionaries to use. And with that, you can study and read so much comfortably without limitations, without erasing words from you database, with a proper dictionary of your choise where you can see multiple definitions, and all of the data is in your computer so you don't really need the web to use it.
The downside of Learning With Text and there's really only one: Is a little bit tricky to download, is completely free, it doesn't take a lot of time to download but the way to download it and install it is a little weird.
There are several methods to install it, you can go to http://lwt.sourceforge.net/ to see them.
This is the method I used (using Windows and EasyPHP):
- First you go to this link http://sourceforge.net/projects/quickeasyphp/files/EasyPHP/5.3.6.1/
- Click in EasyPHP-5.3.6.1-setup.exe and a program will download into your computer, install it in Program Files.
- Now go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/lwt/ and download the zip of Learning With Text.
- Once you have the zip of LWT, copy it and paste it in C:\Program Files\EasyPHP-5.3.6.1\www.
- Unzip LWT inside this www folder. You'll have a lwt folder, after that you can delete the zip if you want to.
- Open the lwt folder, you'll see a file named connect_easyphp.inc.php changed that name to connect.inc.php.
- Now go to your Windows Start Menu, you'll see an EasyPhP icon, click it to activate it.
- Now go to your browser and try these addresses: http://127.0.0.1:8887/lwt , http://127.0.0.1:8888/lwt or http://127.0.0.1:8887/lwt_v_1_4_9%20(1)/, one of them should open LWT for you, when you find it, bookmark it so you don't need to write all those weird numbers again.
- Now, when you want to open LWT again, just click in your EasyPhP icon at your windows menu and go to the address that you bookmarked and that's it.
- Another thing, if you want to import audio, just go to your lwt folder, inside create another folder called media, you'll import all your audio there.
And that's it, once you've already installed it you can use LingQ and LWT combined.
As I already told you LingQ is a big library and you should use it as such. LWT is the best way to use this reading method and you should use it as such.
Go to LingQ, pick a lesson and import it to LWT so you can study it more comfortable, with no limitations and no cash spend. You can also import to LWT whatever kind of text you want, you can import songs (which are really useful) news and all kinds of stuff.
Do this!,because this reading method really works, if you already know the basics of the language and you use this method; you can pretty much read and understand every text in that language and at the same time acquiring a lot of information, vocabulary and the overall rythm of the language.