LingQ | Learn 42 Languages Reviews – Page 3
5/5 rating based on 172 reviews. Read all reviews for LingQ | Learn 42 Languages for iPhone.
LingQ | Learn 42 Languages is free iOS app published by The Linguist Institute
Amazing Upgrade!
Bhaktipoet
Not only was LingQ a genius app to begin with, but the ability to import text and videos has just exploded what it means to be a language app. I bring in YouTube videos (though you have to hack the URL just a tad) and Spanish language content from Twitter accounts of NYT, HuffPost, Newsweek. For the very FIRST time, our education can be with the content that INTERESTS US MOST! Nothing can equate with adding that spark of excitement to learning that is going to come from our content being completely individualized! And it immediately focuses on vocabulary related to our interests. I’ve been using this feature since the day it came out, but every night it still seems almost unbelievable that I have this functionality right on my phone. Many thanks! Mil gracias! And all the best to the whole LingQ crew.
Fantastic inter face, fantastic results
LiraDaeris
When I was in Japan working with kids, I could understand all of them except for one. When we all introduced our hobbies, she said, “Reading!” From that day forward, I decided to read like a maniac when I learned a new language. This app has saved and upgraded my many notebooks of French words learned in context. The hard part is importing videos that don’t have official subtitles. France also is a barren wasteland of ebooks, so I’m not able to fully use the service. I follow the creator on YouTube and he’s a pretty cool chap ???? He inspires me.
Not worth the cost
RuolingOnARiver
If you’re trying to focus on one language, from novice to advanced, you’re going to need a lot more than an app that uses google translated phrases to introduce the meaning of every single part of each story and dialogue. Yes, input is probably the most important yet overlooked part of language learning, but you can just as easily pull up an audiobook and the ebook in your target language, copy phrase by phrase in to google translate, and make yourself a list of the stuff you didn’t catch. Memrise is free, you can make your flash cards there. For the languages I tried, I found a serious lack of repetition of words and phrases, and it was difficult to navigate similar topics. Jumping from “how are you?” to a long and detailed description in multiple tenses about a trip someone took to a story about shopping at the market is great supplementary material, but it’s really stretching a true “Beginner 1” level if there is little review of anything learned previously (except maybe pronouns and the verb “to be”). This makes it difficult to really pin down anything specific that you can pull out and use for communication purposes. It also means most of your texts are highlighted in blue for a long time. For Chinese, which I can read at an advanced level, the reader feature often grabbed two not related characters as a word, leading to a lot of community translations saying things like “should be ... not... don’t know why it says this”. This makes it very difficult to follow along with the audio reading while also trying to “LingQ” the words that the app is saying you haven’t encountered (which aren’t actually words). There’s no way to adjust this or create words for character names or locations that didn’t get autograbbed by LingQ. Pleco’s reader is free, lets you grab the characters you need to create a new word for your (free) vocabulary list manager, and let’s you download your vocabulary to lots of file formats (with lots of other features) for a one time purchase of 30 bucks. There’s also no way to go between simplified and traditional characters on this app, with traditional characters as a separate language. I guess this app has a lot of potential, but I can’t justify the price for the amount of errors in its software (for Chinese) and the lack of materials that seemed relevant to me across to available languages. Even if you’re a hardcore language learner, don’t think this app is going to be your one stop shop for everything you need.
Needs improvement
On origins
This version was not tested very well on iPhone. Yes, I have worked as tester. My top complaint: user defined vocabulary ... Even Google is better. Second: multiple listings for the same word — terrible database management. Third: the interface is bad on iPhone. But, the interface is not great on the web. Several times, I switched over to the web to get things done. When updating user settings and while using the app for language practice. My primary target language is Russian, secondary German. I also practiced with the Spanish — I do not recommend the Spanish. It was stilted towards possibly Castilian, but it still sounded odd for Castilian. Mexican Spanish is near native for me. I have conversed with native Spanish speakers from Catalan, Andalusia, and Madrid on many occasions, as well as Mexico, Central and South America. My German is not good enough to comment. Russian? Well, like all apps, the Russian needs improvement. The LingQ concept is solid, but implementation needs improvement. I would recommend a month on, month off. LingQ is TOO expensive at full price. IMHO.
Poor support
JRV999
Looks good up front but tech support woeful. Paid for it on iPad, iPhone keeps trying to charge me again and tech support nowhere to be found. $70 down the tubes for 6 months material I can’t access 1/2 the time. Sad.
Great way to learn vocab and improve listening!
MarsDancer15
I absolutely love that LingQ tracks words I have learned and highlights ones I don't know or are working on. This utterly transforms my reading (and vocabulary learning) experience. In the past I have tracked new words by hand, on paper, using a dictionary, but this makes reading slow-going and frustrating. Being able to click and bring up candidate definitions, and select or enter my own, is a wonderful advance. I have been pleased with the content available and the ability to import new content. I am also exploring the audio side and working to spend more time listening. I look forward to exploring more of the options like submitting my own writing or working with a tutor. So far I am really pleased with both the website and the app! Nice work!
Incomprehensible app
ejbSFO
I must be missing something. I’ve looked at many different languages apps and none of them are as convoluted and as difficult to figure out as LingQ. Simply trying to set up a basic Spanish course is a tangle of screens, pop-ups, questions, and lessons that don’t follow a pattern. There is no overall structure to the app, not that I can find anyway.