The beginner texts are available in Romaji, Kana and characters in many cases. Yes the Japanese version can be improved but it is still a useful resource.
I found Romaji and PinYin helpful in the beginning stages of learning Chinese and Japanese, the first few months.
Incredibly interesting, Steve! Really logical approach to language learning, and I’m surprised that it is not more commonly practiced. Are you planning on adding a Hungarian LingQ to the site?
Hi! What about Polish language at LingQ? I am going to open a website which will allow to learn Polish language with natural methods. I would be happy to see Polish language at LingQ and I can help with materials.
We have had quite a few requests for Polish and it will certainly be one of the first we add. I would love to work with you on Polish. You can provide some content for LingQ with URL links back to your site. I am sure we can work something out that benefits members of both your community and ours.
I am really happy with that news . I will let you know when my website starts. Of course I am very interested in providing materials for LinQ. I have already started to work on scripts for all the conversations I recorded in Polish language. There are real conversations within families and friends. I hope it will be useful. I am an English teacher and I teach English to beginners. I use natural methods. What do you think about TPR? I use it very often.
There is actually yet another way, Steve. Simplified books. They have limited vocabulary, simpler grammar and interesting stories. The books come (with CDs) in various stages, which determine the difficulty of the story in general. I’m using some right now for my French and after dealing with the text, I can listen over and over again to the same (parts of) the story. The quality of such books is excellent. The narrative is truly suberb. I highly recommend them. Very enjoyable.
Hey Mr. Kaufmen – I’m trying to use “Who is She?” right now, but for Mandarin. Do you have any particular suggestions for learning Mandarin? I’m doing what you recommended and it seems to help. But the symbols continue to be a problem for me. I can remember them in the context of a lesson, but if I am asked to recall them, it is often difficult for me to picture them in my head.
Be patient. Do not expect to remember anything when learning a language. Things eventually become clearer and clearer. You should also get a little book for learning the characters.
Thanks so much for your videos Steve. I found lingq about a week ago. I had been using the FSI course for Spanish but am just sick of the drills. I’m now using Lingq and love it so far. Keep up the great work.
Do you have any advice on how to learn Nepali? I am working with native speakers in person for only 30 min a day, and then I try to listen to it, but I dont know how to come up with a system or regimine so that I can understand the symbols? I am so confused about the symbols then the americanized alphabet?
The best advice I ever received was from an English professor who came here during the Mariel Boat Lift of the early eighties. Both of his parents had immigrated to Cuba from Greece. So he learned both off the cuff and academically.
His recommendation was to copy Spanish directly from magazines and newspapers as fast as you can. In fact you only want to focus on speed and wrestle with not thinking in English. You do this on one side of the paper. On the other side you write the four or …
…five words or phraises that you saw repeated. Get an understanding of their meaning and DRAW A PICTURE. As much as you can avoid writing an English translation of the word. Then get someone proficient in the language to read the news paper or magazine article as you follow.
This does wonders for your confidence.Comprehension is now secondary, and action is your primary goal. This is exactly how you learned your first language. In fact you did not even know about understanding yet you learned
Yeah…this worked real well for me when I tried to learn Farsi for a job. I got pretty far into then the position was eliminated. Had some good times drinking with Iranian-American girls
I’m currently doing Pimsleur Spanish. I’m almost done with the second disc. I’m planning on going to Chile this summer for 5 weeks to immerse myself.
After that, I am interested in Mandarin, Hindi, Russian. I think I’m going to learn Mandarin next.
Any tips? All I’ve been doing is Pimsleur, but I’ve learned quite a bit for 30 min a day (took a placement test last week, almost tested into 2nd Semester Spanish in University)
Any ideas? I would love to know both spanish and mandarin well.
I think that LingQ is great, but I understand y people think it’s only good for intermediates and above (even though in reality it’s great for the complete beginner.) We’ve all been brainwashed into thinking that learning a language is impossibly difficult. So when most of us go to lingq and suddenly WHAM there’s a whole 3 paragraphs that we’re asked to listen to the immediate reaction is fear. “wait, wait, I’m not ready for this!!” But if one can get past this fear conducing brainwashing….
The beginner texts are available in Romaji, Kana and characters in many cases. Yes the Japanese version can be improved but it is still a useful resource.
I found Romaji and PinYin helpful in the beginning stages of learning Chinese and Japanese, the first few months.
Do you have arabic or urdu?
Not yet but give us a few months.
Wow a quick answer, thanks
Incredibly interesting, Steve! Really logical approach to language learning, and I’m surprised that it is not more commonly practiced. Are you planning on adding a Hungarian LingQ to the site?
We hope to open LingQ to many more languages within a few months. If people contribute Hungarian we will have it.
Hi! What about Polish language at LingQ? I am going to open a website which will allow to learn Polish language with natural methods. I would be happy to see Polish language at LingQ and I can help with materials.
We have had quite a few requests for Polish and it will certainly be one of the first we add. I would love to work with you on Polish. You can provide some content for LingQ with URL links back to your site. I am sure we can work something out that benefits members of both your community and ours.
I am really happy with that news
. I will let you know when my website starts. Of course I am very interested in providing materials for LinQ. I have already started to work on scripts for all the conversations I recorded in Polish language. There are real conversations within families and friends. I hope it will be useful. I am an English teacher and I teach English to beginners. I use natural methods. What do you think about TPR? I use it very often.
There is actually yet another way, Steve. Simplified books. They have limited vocabulary, simpler grammar and interesting stories. The books come (with CDs) in various stages, which determine the difficulty of the story in general. I’m using some right now for my French and after dealing with the text, I can listen over and over again to the same (parts of) the story. The quality of such books is excellent. The narrative is truly suberb. I highly recommend them. Very enjoyable.
How about Thai?
Hey Mr. Kaufmen – I’m trying to use “Who is She?” right now, but for Mandarin. Do you have any particular suggestions for learning Mandarin? I’m doing what you recommended and it seems to help. But the symbols continue to be a problem for me. I can remember them in the context of a lesson, but if I am asked to recall them, it is often difficult for me to picture them in my head.
Be patient. Do not expect to remember anything when learning a language. Things eventually become clearer and clearer. You should also get a little book for learning the characters.
Thanks so much for your videos Steve. I found lingq about a week ago. I had been using the FSI course for Spanish but am just sick of the drills. I’m now using Lingq and love it so far. Keep up the great work.
Do you have any advice on how to learn Nepali? I am working with native speakers in person for only 30 min a day, and then I try to listen to it, but I dont know how to come up with a system or regimine so that I can understand the symbols? I am so confused about the symbols then the americanized alphabet?
The best advice I ever received was from an English professor who came here during the Mariel Boat Lift of the early eighties. Both of his parents had immigrated to Cuba from Greece. So he learned both off the cuff and academically.
His recommendation was to copy Spanish directly from magazines and newspapers as fast as you can. In fact you only want to focus on speed and wrestle with not thinking in English. You do this on one side of the paper. On the other side you write the four or …
…five words or phraises that you saw repeated. Get an understanding of their meaning and DRAW A PICTURE. As much as you can avoid writing an English translation of the word. Then get someone proficient in the language to read the news paper or magazine article as you follow.
This does wonders for your confidence.Comprehension is now secondary, and action is your primary goal. This is exactly how you learned your first language. In fact you did not even know about understanding yet you learned
Glad to see that there are multilingual anglophones out there! Kudos.
Speak more then 1 language then plz post a video response here watch?v=k52bQSleLNg the more videos the more fun it will be
Yeah…this worked real well for me when I tried to learn Farsi for a job. I got pretty far into then the position was eliminated. Had some good times drinking with Iranian-American girls
…..你不超过一个骗子谁是在赚傻子的钱谁进入程序，根本没有就发明了你，因为你是一个业余爱好者，谁在使用互联网来赚钱，和其他人谁知道不到你进入你的你的方法陷阱…假….
do you know portuguese?
I’m currently doing Pimsleur Spanish. I’m almost done with the second disc. I’m planning on going to Chile this summer for 5 weeks to immerse myself.
After that, I am interested in Mandarin, Hindi, Russian. I think I’m going to learn Mandarin next.
Any tips? All I’ve been doing is Pimsleur, but I’ve learned quite a bit for 30 min a day (took a placement test last week, almost tested into 2nd Semester Spanish in University)
Any ideas? I would love to know both spanish and mandarin well.
I think that LingQ is great, but I understand y people think it’s only good for intermediates and above (even though in reality it’s great for the complete beginner.) We’ve all been brainwashed into thinking that learning a language is impossibly difficult. So when most of us go to lingq and suddenly WHAM there’s a whole 3 paragraphs that we’re asked to listen to the immediate reaction is fear. “wait, wait, I’m not ready for this!!” But if one can get past this fear conducing brainwashing….
Then it’s easy to see that this is the perfect way to learn and a beginner is absolutely ready to listen to such content.