Lingvist

[mercutio]

Some of us went hog wild with The Lingvist when it first came out over at HTLAL.

Right now, I would recommend people Clozemaster instead. More content, 10000 words, good quality examples, functioning support, an option to flag a wrong sentence, should you encounter it, more langauge combinations.

Merci! I like this new Clozemaster site. Lot of language combinations. I like the feedback loop.

Is going wild hog good or bad?

[mercutio]

One massive annoying feature is you basically have to guess the word THEY want. Not necessarily the right word. For example I can't remember exactly but there was one I remember when it asked for school and it wanted instituto whereas of course escuela also means school, but I had to remember which one it wanted! This sort of annoying feature eventually drove me away.

This isn't completely true since I've used synonyms on multiple occasions but I agree that they could add more. They probably will but it's still a relatively new-developed tool. I wish a leave feedback function would be prioritised. The character limit and text field width tend to be good giveaways on which word they are looking for though. If they force me to learn a synonym, then so be it.

It's basically to me like repeatedly typing out a dictionary the mental equivalent of repeatedly walking into a wall

The memorize part is basically cloze deletion of a frequency list with L1 translations. That's Anki which is one of the most recommended tools within the language learning community. You get a few extra features such as char limit, text field width, explanations, goals, stats, audio, translations, srs and red highlighting on specific characters if you make spelling mistakes. It also accepts ü for u, ö for o and vice versa.

They also offer reading and listening for some languages such as French. Reading is a regular text (dialog, literature, article, joke, misc) with a built in popup translation when clicking on a word and a percentage of how many of the words you have memorised. Listening is identical but with added audio.

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To summarise:

- srs tool with frequency list
- reading with popup dictionary
- audio for shadowing

So far they have English, Spanish, German, French and Russian.

As Xmmm points out, the main issue is the slow development. Don't expect them to add anything in the near future although they did launch their new list with known words last week. If you're looking for an improved srs frequency list, then I'm sure you'll enjoy it. I find it extremely satisfying to learn a new word only to stumble upon it a few days later when doing my extensive reading.

As the other poster mentioned the Spanish one doesn't have those extra features and haven't for ages. Also the fact the box is a certain size is bad cos again you have to try guess what THEY want you to rope vs what actually the word might be or what a native might say Plenty of times I've used what I'm certain is the right word but it's not been the word they actually want

It seems all hype and no substance and I'm actually someone who WANTS an app based on word frequency! I love the idea of a frequency list

[Stefan]

Also the fact the box is a certain size is bad cos again you have to try guess what THEY want you to rope vs what actually the word might be or what a native might say Plenty of times I've used what I'm certain is the right word but it's not been the word they actually want

Are you sure that the synonym would work in the sentence though? It's been a decade since I studied basic Spanish but isn't your example with escuela and instituto different genders which might impact other words and create a grammatically incorrect sentence? It's difficult to tell without seeing the sentence.

If you find something wrong - tell them. I don't know about Spanish but in German they seem to fix it within 1-3 days.

It seems all hype and no substance and I'm actually someone who WANTS an app based on word frequency! I love the idea of a frequency list

Isn't this a bit contradictory? You want to learn words based on frequency but you don't want to be forced to learn specific words.

I don't want to come of as beyond pro Lingvist - there are things I really dislike such as the slow development and how it's impossible to reset if you want to start over with a course. But it's difficult to create an opinion without seeing specific examples.

[Cainntear]

The memorize part is basically cloze deletion of a frequency list with L1 translations. That's Anki which is one of the most recommended tools within the language learning community. You get a few extra features such as char limit, text field width, explanations, goals, stats, audio, translations, srs and red highlighting on specific characters if you make spelling mistakes. It also accepts ü for u, ö for o and vice versa.

Yes, but the thing with Anki is that we put up with its limitations because we're putting the question set together ourselves.

The biggest single advantage of Anki is choice and control -- we trade away variety of question types, variety of context etc, complexity of task etc so that we can choose the language we want to focus on.

The guys that wrote Lingvist clearly just looked at what language learner use and said "we'll do that" without stopping to think about why.

They've taken the basic SRS idea and improved on it in small ways (the visual coding of gender and number is arguably an improvement over (f) (sing) etc, but arguably also problematic due to being unclear), but in the process they removed its most important feature. And even the placement algorithm comes out as being highly ineffective -- I've got a degree in French and Spanish and it placed me far, far too low in both simply because of unclear prompts and arbitrary choices of synonym, as well as use of highly unrepresentative example sentences.

[luke]

Some of us went hog wild with The Lingvist when it first came out over at HTLAL.

Is going wild hog good or bad?

"Hog wild" is synonymous with "crazy", "overboard", or, per Merriam-Webster, "lacking restraint".

[Cainntear]

Some of us went hog wild with The Lingvist when it first came out over at HTLAL.

Is going wild hog good or bad?

"Hog wild" is synonymous with "crazy", "overboard", or, per Merriam-Webster, "lacking restraint".

Or to put it another way, in almost every variety of English, it's pretty normal to go "wild" or "crazy" for something, meaning to really, really like it and respond loudly and positively.

"Hog wild" means "as wild as a hog", and simply extends the basic idiom. However, it's a geographically limited form -- some parts of the US, but I couldn't tell you which.

[Cainntear]

It seems all hype and no substance and I'm actually someone who WANTS an app based on word frequency! I love the idea of a frequency list

Isn't this a bit contradictory? You want to learn words based on frequency but you don't want to be forced to learn specific words.

The problem is that Lingvist forces you not to learn the words, but to memorise which near-synonym goes with which card. And having to use the explicit grammatical cues (Lingvist always supplements a card with symbols identifying gender and number) means you're not automatising the knowledge anyway -- you're still consciously translating.

Worse, there's no sign that their use of the frequency list accounts for polysemy. Is "instituto" as "school" really as common as all that? Or are they lumping the general "institute" sense in with the specific "secondary school" sense?

[Cavesa]

It seems all hype and no substance and I'm actually someone who WANTS an app based on word frequency! I love the idea of a frequency list

Isn't this a bit contradictory? You want to learn words based on frequency but you don't want to be forced to learn specific words.

The problem is that Lingvist forces you not to learn the words, but to memorise which near-synonym goes with which card. And having to use the explicit grammatical cues (Lingvist always supplements a card with symbols identifying gender and number) means you're not automatising the knowledge anyway -- you're still consciously translating.

Worse, there's no sign that their use of the frequency list accounts for polysemy. Is "instituto" as "school" really as common as all that? Or are they lumping the general "institute" sense in with the specific "secondary school" sense?

I don't consider translation to be the problem. Translation is great, as long as it is not the only activity or the prevailing activity in one's learning routine.

What I consider problematic is the weird frequency list, exactly the problem with near-synonymes as you, Cainntear, describe it, and the fact I don't think the example creators and in general the Lingvist staff are natives or at least particularily good at those languages. I think a serious perspective on what is natural and what the learner needs to learn as the proper context for the word is lacking there.

This is where Clozemaster wins, as it is based on Tatoeba. That means native speaker participation at the example creation, and huge amount of the sentences. Yes, there are imperfections (for example Clozemaster fed me weiß examples as both "know" and "white" in the same course, probably not making difference among the two on the frequency list), but the overall huge amount of sentences can take care of such troubles.

Some people criticise translation as an exercise. I think the problem here (and also in Duolingo) is not translation. It is the fact that sometimes we are neither thinking in the language nor translating. We are dully memorizing the word that comes into this one example. In the example above, the learner is not supposed to adequately use instituto or escuela, they are to remember than in this particular example they need to use instituto, and may not know whether to use that term in a different sentence. And that I consider to be as stupid method as dull memorisation of a phrasebook without deeper comprehension of the logic behind the sentences.

[Stefan]

Haven't used the site lately and just noticed that they've released a premium version.

It's €20 a month if you want more than 3000 words, bypass the daily word limit, access your wordlist or report bugs. The last one might be an error, I don't know. It says "Only available to Lingvist Unlimited subscribers" but I was seemingly able to report it as a bug. Paying users also get access to other courses such as "A Weekend in Paris" and "Love in French".

They actually got back to me within minutes when typing this:

Actually, no. Anyone can report an error or ask a question regarding our app with an email to this address. We claim that we only provide priority support and error reporting to paying users simply because we haven't yet had the capacity to address the question of every user. We, of course, wouldn't make any promise if we may not be able to honor it, hence the claim. But with the current progress of support process optimization and FAQ upgrade, we hope we'll be able to open support and error reporting to all, possibly by the end of this year. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

I'm tempted to give the free version a new attempt.

[Stefan]

Received an email today about them currently selling "10 years for €199".

https://lingvist.com/10-years-of-lingvist/

I haven't used it for years but considered giving it a new chance. I tried Clozemaster but found it unbearable due to the gamification with annoying popups and levels. Has anyone here used Lingvist recently? It seems they've now added more decks, the functionality to create your own decks, and something titled "challenges" (speak, grammar, listen, read). Unfortunately, it's all behind a subscription and I can't find any videos showing how the challenges actually work, only videos putting services on a tier list.