If You're an Atheist, Please Never Become This

I have never considered myself an atheist, but I had always sympathized with them, we were almost usually in the same point of view when it came to religious or even philosophical debates. I considered them a great group of people full of logic, comprehension and I respected them. But now that I discover more and more, now than I learn more and more, and now that I watch the modern atheism of nowadays I have to admit that I'm kinda disgusted with it. The new atheism that a lot of people now practice it's the so-called: Militant Atheism, which (and maybe I'm completely exaggerating here, but I don't know) it might become the fall of atheism or at least the fall of smart, believable and respectable atheism.

A key characteristic of this type of atheism is that; they're not only that, they're not just atheist, they have also become (and some of them might don't even realize it yet) anti-theist and misotheist. Let's get down to business, an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in God or any kind of deity and that's it, nothing more and nothing less. But when you start proclaiming hate, hostility, anger, discomfort, etc, etc. You're not just an atheist, you're an anti-theist too.

And to be honest, I have no objection at all of people hating or bashing on something, they're in their complete free will, and I completely understand why people would hate religion so much, is something that deserves a lot of criticism and in their point of view: hate or even destruction.

Is not an attitude that I admire but it is an attitude that I respect (well I guess now is "respected") until I saw some strange things that started happening. I guess that for most of these atheist/anti-theist, hating or bashing religion was just a simple hobby, you know, something that they did in their free time or when they were bored. But something started to change, when a lot of these atheists started to get more and more incredibly hostile, I was still OK with this, although it was something that bothered me a little bit, I was still OK with it.

But it all fell down, and I completely lose all respect that I had for them, when a lot of these atheists started to join in this incredibly stupid and not saying impossible quest for destroying religion and preaching the atheist word. With the stupid and pathetic idea , or better yet, the stupid and pathetic believe that if they manage to destroy religion all of the problems of humanity or most of the problems of humanity will disappear. That's the reason why I have lost so much respect for them, for that stupid and ignorant believe that they have; a lot them really think that religion is the greatest problem of humanity right now, that is the root of all evil in this world and that if we manage to bring it down, everything is going to be perfect and we will grow so much as species.



For a group that claims to be realistic and to be lovers and followers of logic I'm afraid that for reaching this point of stupidity you have completely deviated from such principles.

Yes I know that this video contains a lot of satire, but the overall message that he's giving it's alarming.

Now let's get realistic here people.

The fight that you're fighting is completely stupid and a waste of time. That's why it's a great hobby! But if you're actually taking this seriously, if you actually believe that you could manage to bring down religion and everything will be just pure happiness after that, I'm afraid that I'll have to slap you with the royal hand of realism.

I will not try to stop all of you atheist folks in your sacred crusade, because you're as exaggerate and hostile as your fanatics counterparts. But I'm just going to tell you 3 things that you should have in mind while doing this:

1.- Religion is something that would probably never EVER disappear from humanity.

Religion nowadays is something that has become so integrated in our global society, in our lives, in our history, in our traditions, in our way of seeing life (even if you're a believer or not), in our psychology and overall in our world that is hardly ever going to disappear because it has become a part of us. It's a part from human psychology, people will be always willing to believe in a higher power, people will be always willing to believe in a metaphysical or even supernatural force, they do that for means of escapism or/and comfort. A lot of people find the true meaning of their lives within religion. Religion gives to a lot of people a meaning, a purpose or even a reason to live. And that's just an incredibly enormous power, I'm not saying is good or evil, but I'm just saying that it's an incredibly monstrosus power that goes so deep inside the human mind, feelings and strength that is hardly ever going to disappear, it doesn't matter how "smart" we get. And EVEN if religion falls, someone (or a lot of people) would probably create a cult that would work similar or even identical as a religion and I bet my ass that a lot of people will follow it.

And another thing, religion is not the single worst enemy of mankind!, do you really believe that religion is the root of all the violence or most of the violence that it's happening around the world? Let me tell you something folks, we are humans, we kill each other, for whatever reason: money, power, love, respect, believes, politics, survival, revenge, safety, anger, food, order, drugs, etc, etc. And we have been doing that for a lot of years. And let me tell you something, religion is just one of them, just one in an enormous list of reasons why we would kill each other, and sadly enough, a lot of  violence coming from religion, wasn't just for religion but also almost with political, economical, expansive and imperialistic agendas. Religion was just a way to transport all of these agendas, in this context; religion is not actually a reason but more like a way, and if you only get rid of the way, the reasons will find another way for bringing their agendas to fruition. My point is that we will always find a reason to kill each other, ALWAYS, we're really creative in that department. Just look at this, the two greatest world-wide massacres that humanity has suffer in all its history have not come from religion or a religious background. It came from governments and a desire for power.

[caption id="attachment_292" align="alignnone" width="300"] Religion didn't cause that tragedy, humans did[/caption]

And just be honest and realistic to yourselves, close your eyes for a moment and imagine a world in which we're all atheist. Do you really see an improvement in humanity? do you really see less violence in the world? Do you really see an improvement in human behavior?. To be honest, I see that world even more violent that this one, because not all people will be able to handle their atheism as you do guys, a lot of people will go nuts. A lot people need something that tells them: this is right, this is wrong, period. And if they don't have that, they'll start to get confuse and things might not end well.

If you mange to bring religion down (which you'll not) there's going to be zero improvement in this world and in your lives.

2.- You're incredibly outnumbered!

Sure!, here on the internet it seems like there's an army of you, if you only live in the internet you would think that the vast majority of people are atheist/anti-theist. Sadly if you live in the real world, you can't say the same.

[caption id="attachment_275" align="alignnone" width="224"] Sorry, but I present you Misses Truth[/caption]

3.- Careful in what you're becoming

If you're an atheist/anti-theist, please tell me that you just hated every second of the cult of dusty video that I putted on top, please tell me that you completely hated it, because if you did, then I respect you and I have nothing against you, but for all of the other 3000 people who loved it, I just have to tell you something, careful in what you're becoming, you have become so passionate about this, you have select people who are always preaching your word and you have decide to follow them, and now you also have an imaginary utopia that is never going to happen but you're setting yourselves on a stupid crusade hopping to reach it.

I'm Mexican and I have a really ironic sense of humor so I have only this to say to you, remember Nietzsche:

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

And another thing that I still have to say to you, and to everyone really, everything in excess is bad, don't live with excesses, they're just going to ruin your life, if you're an excessive christian, that's pretty bad and if you're and excessive atheist, that's pretty bad too.

Let's imagine that here we have a girl who is an excessive christian, a guy who is an excessive atheist, a girls who is a passive christian and a guy who is a passive atheist. And they go out on a date.

First, the excessive christian goes out with the excessive atheist: Now just imagine the complete disaster of a date that is going to become, they're kicked out from the restaurant for causing too much noise and swearing.

Next, the excessive christian goes out with the passive atheist: The christian girl starts attacking the atheist guy  when the atheist guy just wants to have a good time, the atheist guy gets tired of all the fanaticism of this girl and he leaves.

Then, the passive christian goes out with the excessive atheist: The same, the atheist dude starts attacking the christian girl when the christian girl just wants to have a good time, the christian girls gets tired of all the stupid hostility of this guy and she leaves.

Finally, the passive christian goes out with the passive atheist: And they get a long pretty well, they don't try to shove their believes into one another, they have a good time, and at the end of their great date, they go to a hotel.

Now let me ask you: Who were the ones who got laid in this story?

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The 1st Step for learning a New Language: Something YouTube Polyglots overlook.

When you want to learn a new language and you go to YouTube so you can find people who can teach you a language via vlogs or  via 10 minute lesson videos, you'll actually find people who are also learning the language or they have learned the language and they're actually giving you tips of how to learn that language,  and if you search a little bit more, you'll find polyglots that can even teach you (in their own way) how to learn a language,  multiple languages or any language at all. If you have encounter one of them, he's probably from the not so famous community of YouTube polyglots.

Now you can find a whole community of polyglots on YouTube, members that post really interesting and helpful videos about language learning, some of the most popular and influential polyglots on YouTube are: Moses McCormick (username: laoshu50500), Luca (poliglotta80), Richard Simcott (Torbyrne), Steve Kaufmann (lingosteve), Felix (loki2504) and the legendary Professor Alexander Arguelles (ProfASAr).

All of them are a true inspiration if you want to learn languages, they're always giving you advices on the subject or sharing their experiences or showing you their method. Almost all of them, use (as far as I'm concern) the liberal method that I already explained on a previous post. They use a liberal listening-reading-speaking  method, without focusing on grammar.

However, despite all of the videos that they make and all of the good advices that they give, sometimes I think that they miss a really important factor about the people who are watching their videos. Sometimes, some of these polyglots like Kaufmann, try to impose you a predetermined way of how you should learn a language, and I don't blame Kaufmann because his method is actually very good  but, I feel that they miss a really important question.

And this is that important question:

If you want to learn a new language, the first and the most important thing that you have to ask yourself is: "Why do I want to learn this language?" that's the single most important thing that you have to know, why do you want to learn this language?.

You must completely define the reason why you want to learn that language, that's the first and the most important step of all. Why is the most important step of all? Because is going to completely define the organization, style, material, time and methodology that you're going to use for learning that language.

Define the reason.

Now, maybe you don't really know why do you want to learn this language, well I will help you, and I will explain to you the most common reasons for why somebody would want to learn a language.

Why do you want to learn a language?

Well... maybe you like the language, maybe you like or you're interested in the language, in the country, in the people, in the culture. Maybe you fell in love with the women of that country and what better way to hit on them that speaking their own language and being an exotic foreigner :D, or maybe you have friends or family who speak that language and you want to communicate with them in that way. Maybe you want to travel over there for a few weeks or for a few months and you want be able to communicate with the natives.

All of those reasons that I just mentioned, enter in the "SOCIAL REASONS" cabinet: You want to learn the language because you're interested in the social aspect of the language. You're interested in meeting people, maybe making friends. For this you don't need to learn in an official way or anything, you don't need to take exams or anything, you can learn just by using almost completely the Liberal Method. You just want to learn it so you can interact with people in a normal social way.  A lot of people have all of these reasons, however if you want to live in that country or if you want to work in that country or in a company of that country, I'm afraid that for these you'll need official studies or you will need to take official tests regarding that language, what brings me to the second most important cabinet of reasons which is:

The "BUSINESS REASONS"cabinet:

Let's say that you already have a profession, you're already working in some place or looking for a job, and maybe you say, "Hey, I want to learn a new language so I can expand my curriculum", "I want to learn that language because I want to work on that country", nowadays is common fact that people who can speak another language or multiple languages don't struggle to get a job as much as people who only speak one language, so maybe you can say: "I want to learn a new language because I want to get a job". You wont believe how many windows of opportunities  begin to emerge when you learn a new language, is almost like a new work horizon and a new language is a definitive big plus on your Curriculum Vitae. The more languages you know, the less competition you'll have during job interviews.

However, for this cabinet of reasons, you'll mandatory need two things.

First, you'll need official studies of this language or official recognition, now hang on a little bit!, official recognition is not as hard as you may think. First of all, you're probably asking right now, why do I need official recognition in the first place?, Well, when you're in a job interview, you can say: I know Chinese, I know Swedish, I know Russian, I know Spanish; and the interviewer is going to be like "Ok" but he will search on your Curriculum for documented evidence that proves that you can speak that language. He will search for a diploma, for a test, for a course, for any kind of official valid recognition that proves that you indeed speak that language in x level, and if he doesn't find any, he will not take that aspect into consideration.  You need official studies or official recognition so you can prove to the company, institution or people who are going to hire you that you can speak the language.

But, how do you get that?

How do you get official studies or official recognition?, well there are basically three ways: you can study in a Language Institute, finish your studies and earn a diploma, certificate, a bachelor degree, whatever. Other way is to go study on that country, receiving at the end of your studies there; a certificate or a recognition of one of the country's universities.

And the third, possibly the cheapest one but also possibly the hardest one is; to study for yourself and to take one of the official certification exams on that language and to approve it.

I'm going to make a little explanation here; almost every popular language out there has it's own certification exam, English has the famous TOEFL (for US English) IELTS (for UK English) and a few others. French has the DELF and DALF, Spanish has the DELE, Portuguese has the CELPE-Bras, Chinese has the HNK, German has the TestDaf, well I think you get the idea now.

Almost all of these exams are divided into 6 levels: A1 (Beginner), A2 (Intermediate Beginner), B1 (Intermediate), B2 (Intermediate Advance), C1 (Really Advance), C2 (You can even correct a native).

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="478"] If you study and if you're really serious about this; you can get one of these :D[/caption]

These are official exams and if you approve one of them you'll get and official certification valid anywhere. Now these exams aren't really cheap, and is really probable that  you will need to travel to a city where you can take this test. So I would recommend to find out where can you take the exam and how much does it cost, once that you know that, you can start saving some money.

You need to study a lot for these tests, you can find guides and other material like books that can help you for preparing yourself. Generally the B1 and B2 levels are the most demanded levels, I don't know how it is in other countries but in France, you need the B2 level if you want to study  over there.

Second, you need to learn the vocabulary of your area of work. For example, maybe you're an engineer, and you know German, you presented the TestDaf B1 and you passed it and now a German Industrial Company at Munich has hired you. Knowing the language is of course the most important thing but while you're working, you also need to know the vocabulary or terminology that is use on your area of work. If you're a doctor you should know medical vocabulary, if you are a lawyer you should learn law terminology, if you're an engineer you should know engineering terminology, etc, etc. Learn the vocabulary, learn the terminology that is used on that area of work in that language.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="225"] Yep, you'll have to study on of these, on your respective area of work of course[/caption]

EDUCATIONAL REASONS

But a lot of people may be asking:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="255"] But what about if I want to become a teacher?[/caption]

Well, when it comes to teachers it tends to vary a lot, first of all where did you want to teach? Here? in other country? in Kindergarten?  in Elementary School? in Junior High? High School? College? other kind of institution? everything seems to vary a lot. There are some places that will hire you as a teacher just by the simple fact that you kinda know the language. There are other way more respectable places that will ask you for official certifications (even if it's your own native language). There are other places that will actually demand you a Bachelor on Languages to work there as a teacher, and there are other high ranking places that will demand you a Masters degree (that is actually what every institution should ask for). So yeah, when it comes to teachers it all depends in where do you want to work.

But if you want to become a teacher, working at a respectable place; you need official studies or official certifications, as simple as that.

And of course if you want to become a translator, an interpreter, a professional linguist, if you want to work on an embassy or something like that, you need official studies for that, you need a career.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="392"] You need studies, but it's truly a beautiful job and they worth it.[/caption]

And that's everything that I have to say. Define why do you want to learn a language, it can be for the social reasons (meeting/speaking with natives on a normal social way, or just learning it because you want to learn it), for business reasons (applying a language on your work or career) , for educational reasons (becoming a teacher) or for working reasons (becoming a translator, interpreter, professional linguist, etc).

And now you know what do you really have to do in each one of them.

Thanks for reading :D

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Eklegein Pt.2: The First Philosophy

In the beginning there was, there is and there has always been Chaos, the beginning, the past, present and future of everything, Chaos existed, chaos exists and it will always exist. We are the sons of Chaos and trough Chaos we discover our reason to be.  Chaos is our home and we should be thankful to it,  it created everything we see, everything we feel, we owed it our lives. All-thought to pay him back  is impossible, impossible might not be to reach the unreachable.

Chaos exists but it is not the only thing that exists, is not the only thing in our reality, something else was born from Chaos, a force that descended from it, it's greatest offspring, the direct daughter and the direct mother of everything.

When this happened, patters start to emerge, patters coexisting in this chaotic world. The amalgamation between nature and chaos created this world, the reality in which we live.  The amalgamation between nature and chaos created life.  It was here, in this omnipotent and transcendental that a third and last force was born, the bastards of nature, we emerged, it was here where Luca was born.

The birth of life must had been an extremely funny and extremely anti-orthodox process for the things that happened in those times, the birth of organisms capable of recreating themselves, capable of living and capable of interacting with this created world. Capable of interacting with the nature that created them and with the chaos that they lived in.  The purpose of life is to live, that was something that the first keepers of life understood well, and for living they needed to survive, and the best way to do this, is using the simple and beautiful survival instinct. And that who could use it the best, it was going to live the best and the longer.  But they also knew that living wasn't enough, they needed to transcend. The greatest enemy of every human being or better yet,  of every living being is time, time is death.

The first keepers knew this, they needed to defeat time in some way, they needed to leave their mark in this world before it was too late, they needed to deliver something  of themselves to the next generation. And then it was when they got the brilliant idea of reproduction, and with that, they guaranteed their immortality with the next generations to come, that's how they defeated death. Then the structure of immortality emerge, a simple manual with just 4 steps: Born, Survive, Reproduce and Die. And that was and that is the structure of immortality. And with that, our microscopical ancestors created this wise philosophy, they developed all this knowledge by simply just using their survival instinct, and that was truly: The First Philosophy.

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Parents vs Teenagers: The Battle of Generations

This is a little video I made for my English class discussing why teenagers just can't get a long with their parents, focusing more on the eternal differences of generations and the constant frictions that are between them, I guess that you can call it a sequel or a prequel of my post "Generation Y: What's the Deal With Us?"



Thanks for watching

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Eklegein, Pt.1: The 2 Ways of Living Life

Transcendental Immanence 

The following is the process of the rain that I've created conscious and subconsciously, a manifest that will help me or that will make my life even more complicated, searching the constant that I'm holding on, it's not the only way, there's a thousand ofways, this will set me free or destroy me, if there's even a difference. The meteors that will fall right here have been floating in this space for a long time and the time has come for them to impact in this Tabula Rasa, what I'm going to do is a little experiment of perspective, all will agree with me, nobody will agree with me, but it doesn't matter, what I've assigned to myself goes beyond me and them, what I've assigned to myself goes to me and them, because there's only two ways of living an existence: Living for Ourselves or Living for Life and all the Others. That's the choice that we must make. That at the end of the day you will conclude that both of them are unified in the most fundamental and imaginable process. In any way that you choose to live, it must be done in its absolute form. Because if we don't live in an absolute way here, it could be that we could never live in that way ever, or maybe we should just simply follow that totality without any clue if we could even reach it.

The eternal question with the infinite answer, the collision of that question with that answer is what I call Life.

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Flying Colors (Album Review)

So, what do we have here, a project that just by the look of the cover seems interesting. Well let me tell you more about it, Flying Colors is a new superband created by Neal Morse and Mike Portnoy (geee these two working together?), the formation seems interesting and if you throw them together in a studio this is what you get.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="420"] I really loved the cover[/caption]

The Band consist in Steve Morse (guitarist and founder of Dixie Dregs), Neal Morse (who needs no introduction), Mike Portnoy (who we all know and sometimes love), David LaRue (also from Dixie Dregs, Joe Satriani, John Petrucci and another shit load of projects) and the new comer Casey McPherson, (who I didn't knew shit about).

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="142"] Nice, nice[/caption]

So yeah the cover is awesome, the line-up seems really interesting, but how is the actual album?

Well let's get into the real stuff.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="341"] How can I say this?[/caption]

For this I will give a little introduction about my experience listening to Neal Morse's music, and that is that: I don't like Neal Morse's music, I only like Transatlantic, and that's the only project of him that I really loved, Testimony, Testimony 2 and all of his other projects and solo albums I... just... don't... like...them. I don't know why, I don't like them , I don't hate his music but I just don't like it, I just don't think that his music is that good. And no, it's not because he makes Christian music, I think it's because his music is just too happy, cheerful ,mellow and one-dimensional for me, and I'm sorry but his lyrics are really REALLY cliché. His instrumental pieces are really good (for example in Sola Scriptura, if that album was only instrumental progressive music, it would be a masterpiece!) but I don't know, when he starts to sing, everything falls apart for me. And on top off that, I really don't like Neo-Progressive Rock, why? I honestly cannot answer you that, besides Marillion I don't like any Neo-Prog bands.

So with that little confession I just made, you're probably wondering that I completely hated this album and this project.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="299"] And the answer is: No[/caption]

I got to say that I like the album, is really interesting. A lot of styles, a lot of genres and a lot of good songs in just one album.

Now that I'm going to actually start the review of the album, there's another thing that I have to say: This is not a Progressive Rock album, if you're expecting good old Progressive Rock you are not going to find it here, the first song and the last song are the only ones that you could call them Progressive Rock, the rest of them are... let's call them Mixed Rock. It's interesting because the premise of this band was: "Neal Morse and a bunch of Progressive Rock masterminds with a Pop singer"  and I thought that was really interesting because I always thought that Neal Morse's music was kinda Pop-ish. So, in a way you can call this album Pop Rock, if you think that's too offensive you can call it Mixed Rock. I call it a Mixed Rock album because every song almost belongs to a different genre and that was the thing that I really like about the album.

Now let's get into the album.

1.- Blue Ocean: Classic Neal Morse prog song, happy, cheerful, mellow, with a high and catchy chorus and lyrics that are just Ok.

2.- Shoulda Coulda Woulda: Nice Hard Rock song, simple, with one strong solid riff and a good guitar  solo, and that's pretty much it.

3.- Kayla: This one starts with a little folk passage and then it becomes a happy rock ballad, the song is meeeh, the chorus is just too simple it could have been a great chorus but something was missing there.

4.- The Storm: This one is a great song, really effectively emotional, the chorus is really powerful and the singing is amazing, it would make a really good radio hit.

5.- Forever In a Daze: This one is really cool, good old Funk Rock, not a masterpiece but really cool thought.

6.- Love Is What I'm Waiting For: The first time that I hear this one, I was like, what the hell?, is this a Beatles cover?,  yeah, the first half is really Beatles-inspire, the second half is more pop rock oriented, with a really good guitar solo.

7.- Everything Changes: What the hell? a Coldplay cover? jejeje, no, but you can definitively hear the resemblance, later, the song sounds like a Dream Theater ballad, and for a moment as a classic Neal Morse ballad. It's a really good song.

8.- Better Than Walking Away: Again you can hear the heavy Coldplay resemblance here and the chorus is really Disney-Aladdin-Oriented.

9.- All Falls Down: We are getting into the Progressive Metal realm here, it sounds like mixture of Ayreon and Rhapsody of Fire.

10.- Fool In My Heart: Now we finally have it, Portnoy singing a song almost in it's entirely, why this doesn't surprise me at all. Overall it's a good blues mellow karaoke song.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="354"] There, there Portnoy, let it all out[/caption]

11.- Infinite Fire: And after all those genres, and after all those styles and mixtures  you have finally reached to: Progressive Rock. Amazing song. Powerful at the beginning, then it falls down a little bit for me in the chorus and in the first two verses but the bass is amazing here. And then in 4:40 we finally get into the real stuff, here you have Progressive Rock in flesh and blood, this passage is amazing, you can hear Genesis and can hear Yes all throw together, powerful, technical, emotional, perfect.  And finally a last ballad-Morse moment before the big eclectic finale.

And that's the album.

Overall a nice, decent, fun, solid Rock album, it's not a masterpiece and it's not going to completely blow your mind. But you're definitely going to enjoy it, it's a good listen from time to time.

I remember that someone was asking which was the best album for getting into Progressive Rock, and I have to say that this one is a good option, because technically is not Progressive Rock but it gives you a nice introduction to the genre.

These are a couple of song from the album.

The Storm



Forever In A Daze



Thanks for reading.

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Nice Self-Learning Tool for Languages: LingQ (Review)

So the other day I was just checking out videos about languages in YouTube, and I found this guy.



His name is Steve Kaufman, and he is the founder of a Self-Learning Language Online community called LingQ, he also makes nice videos talking about language learning, if you are interested in this you can check out his channel.



I became really interested about this LingQ community so I decided to join in, is free so you don't have to worry about money, well if you want a premium account you have to pay, anyway, LingQ uses the Liberal Method that I already described in a previous post, so you know, it's a nice community for you to start learning a new language. The languages that they have available for their community are English, Japanese, Dutch, French, Russian, German, Italian, Chinese and Spanish and a few more.



Now I'm not being payed for talking about LingQ or anything, no, I just  found this website, I thought it was really interesting and I decided to share it with you.

What I really like about LingQ is that they have a lot of audio media for you to listen in your target language, always remember: Listen, is the most important part of learning any language and sometimes is really hard to find audio media for you to listen, yeah, you found books, you found magazines, but always remember, listening is the MOST important part, and if you don't have audible media, you're missing the most important part. The audio files in LingQ are easy to download, they're in mp3 format and you can be listening to them in your MP3P, LingQ actually encourages you to do this.

One thing that I didn't like, is the actual LingQ process of learning new words, it's a little tedious for me, to start selecting the words that I don't know, I'm the supporter of the idea that it's not really effective to learn new vocabulary without context that you can see right there. So I always prefer to read a lot, than memorize one for one the words that I don't know. Other thing that I didn't like is that there are just a few text translations of the text in the lesson, sometimes you have a sentence that you don't understand, you can check out the meaning of each word but sometimes that doesn't help because you still don't understand what it actually means within the text, so you try to check it out on the text translation and oh surprise, there's no text translation, and that's a little bit bothering, I don't know how it is in English but there are not too many translations in Spanish.

A useful tool is the Incomplete Text exercise or Cloze text exercise in the Vocabulary menu, that one is really helpful. A quick advice, if you have the free account, you can only choose 100 LingQ, that's your limit, if you reach it, you have to erase some.

Another advice about listening jejejeje: When you enter the Library you will find numerous podcast of your target language, when you enter to them, you'll find at the left the text of that podcast for you to read, and in the right you'll find the actual audio podcast for you to listen. My advice is: listen, do not read. Ignore the text and just hit play and listen, listen and listen. Do this like four times and then you read, and then you highlight the words that you don't know, LingQ will tell you the meaning and then you listen again a few more times.

There's also an Skype-way of having conversations with tutors of the target language in the target language that you're learning, I haven't try it yet, but when I do, I'll tell you about it. You can also send written works in the target language so people that know the language can check out your grammar and correct you if you made any mistakes.

So overall is a really nice Language community and you should definitively check it out.

http://www.lingq.com/

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