14. Learning

Not yet. It’s a scientifically proven method, and we don’t think it makes sense to change it.

Yes, you can. You just have to tap on the icon with non-Latin letters. If it’s green, they are turned on; if it’s black, they are turned off.

Yes, you can. We accept them as if you were answering in the target language’s letters

At the moment, we are not teaching users how to read or pronounce. Take a look at our Languages section in this FAQ. There, we provide useful links on how to learn these skills before starting with Qlango, as well as other resources. We provide pronunciation for all languages except Esperanto and Latin (both are very easy to read), so you can learn to read that way too. If the language doesn’t use Latin characters, we provide subtitles in Latin characters to help you. Before tapping on ‘Start!’ for the suggested lesson, take a look at the ‘Contents’. You’ll see all the examples you will learn in this lesson and can listen to them in your target language. This is optional. If you already know the language a little, it’s better not to look here. Then, learn/repeat all examples from this lesson with Flashcards if you want. If you don’t want to continue, you can indicate that you know all the examples and finish. This is also optional. If you already know the language a little, it’s better not to look here. Next, tap on ‘Start!’. If you don’t know the answer, use our hints and try to remember the correct answer. After the first round is finished, you’ll have to repeat all the examples where you needed a hint until you can guess all the examples without using a hint. When you first tap on ‘Start!’ for a lesson, you’ll have to answer questions at difficulty level 1. This is the easiest level. After 24 hours, you will have to repeat the same lesson at difficulty level 2. Then, 48 hours later at difficulty level 3, 96 hours later at difficulty level 4, 192 hours later at difficulty level 5, and again 192 hours later at difficulty level 5. After this, you won’t have to repeat this lesson anymore. If you complete a lesson with a result lower than 80%, you will have to repeat it before the described time passes, but at the same difficulty level as the last time. That’s it. You just keep tapping on ‘Start!’ until every lesson in every theme turns green. After that, you don’t need to repeat them anymore and can move to the next level (A1 – Words with Examples or A2 – Words, depending on your learning goals). If you want to speak, A1 – Words with Examples is better. If you want to understand more, A2 – Words is better.

When tapping on ‘Contents’, you can see all the examples in both your source and target languages. You can also tap on the icon to hear the pronunciation of the example in your target language, where available. If you tap on the example in your source language, it gets pronounced too (suitable for visually impaired users). We suggest you look at the ‘Contents’ if you don’t know your target language. If you know it a little, it might be better not to look.

Tap on the blue button with two flags separated by an arrow to get to ‘Course Selection’, and then tap on ‘Add Course’. Next, select the language you want to use to learn your target language (it can be your native language or a language you want to strengthen). Then, select the language you want to learn, tap on it, tap on ‘Add’, and when you return to ‘Course Selection’, tap on ‘Start!’

Tap on the blue button with two flags separated by an arrow to go to ‘Course Selection’ and then tap on one of your courses. If the course you want is not listed, tap on ‘Add Course’. If you need help with this, read the section ‘How do I add a new course?’ in this FAQ.

In ‘Create Sentences’, you get the example in your source language and you have to translate it. In ‘Create Sentences Pro’, you don’t get the example in your source language. Instead, you get a set of words with which you have to create the correct sentence. If you don’t know the answer, you can use the ‘Hint’ button and we will remove all wrong words and add the next correct word (if there were no correct words, we add the first word; if there were three correct words, we add the fourth word). You can tap on the ‘Hint’ button as many times as you need to find the correct answer. When you tap on ‘Check’, we show you which words are correct by coloring them green. Wrong words are colored red.

When the Flashcards open, you see a card with the example in the source language. You can think about how the example can be translated into your target language. Then you can tap on the card below. The card will turn around, and the example in the target language will be pronounced. If you knew the answer correctly, tap on the button ‘I know’. If you didn’t know the answer correctly, tap on the button ‘I don’t know’. After you go through all the examples, the ones where you said you didn’t know the answer will be repeated. You can, of course, cheat here—it’s up to you. As long as you want to learn that way, tap on ‘I don’t know’, but if you don’t want to repeat an example anymore, tap on ‘I know’. If you tap on the card with the example in the source language, we will pronounce the source example for you.

You get the example in your target language, but the letters in each word are scrambled. In ‘Unscramble’ mode, the first and last letters of each word are in their correct places. In ‘Unscramble Pro’ mode, no letters are in their correct places. You have to identify the scrambled example and unscramble the translation. This is another way to train your brain and better remember examples. These methods of answering aren’t included in any of the default difficulties, but you can enable them if you wish. We plan to create a game where the user will have to unscramble the words continuously.

If you don’t know what to write, tap on ‘Hint’. If the first hint doesn’t help you, tap on ‘Hint’ again, and so on, until we show you enough letters of the answer so you can type it. You still have to type it because this helps you to remember it.

In the ‘1 of 2’ game mode, you get the example in your source language and two possible answers in your target language. If you know the answer, you can select and check it by tapping on the ‘Check!’ button. If you don’t know the answer at all, tap on the ‘Hint’ button and we’ll show you the correct answer. It will be marked red, meaning that in the next round, you’ll have to try to answer the same question again until you know how to answer it without our help. If you tap on the example in the source language, it gets pronounced, where available. This feature is for visually impaired users.

‘1 of 4’ works the same as ‘1 of 2’, except that you have to pick the correct answer from among four possible answers.

When the lesson opens, we pronounce the example for you. If you know what was said, you should type it. If you didn’t hear it, you can tap on the buttons labeled ‘Word 1’, ‘Word 2’, and so on until the last word. You can also tap on the ‘Pronounce’ button to hear the whole example again. If you type the number 1, it isn’t shown, but the first letter gets pronounced. The same applies for numbers 2-9. If you tap on 0, the whole example gets pronounced. If you type ‘+’, you get the next hint. These shortcuts are mainly for the web app.

You select one tile with the example in your source language and then select the tile that contains its translation. If you don’t know which tile contains the translation, you can tap on ‘Hint’ and we’ll show you the correct tile.

You should write the translation of the example you see. If you type ‘+’, you get the next hint. This is especially handy in the Web App. If there are multiple possible answers, it’s enough to write only one of them. Read also: ‘How does the coloring of the typed answer work?’ and ‘How does ‘Hint’ on ‘Dictation’, ‘Unscramble’, ‘Unscramble Pro’, and ‘Write the Translation’ work?’

When you start typing, the text turns black if the typed part of the answer is wrong. If it is correct, it turns blue. When the answer is completely correct, it turns green. If you type more than needed, it turns red. You can press ‘Enter’ on your keyboard or tap on the ‘Check’ button to check the answer.

If you answer the question without a hint, you get 4 points. With hints, depending on the way of answering, you get 3, 2, 1, or 0 points. You get fewer points with each hint used (you can use multiple hints in ‘Create Sentences’, ‘Create Sentences Pro’, ‘Unscramble’, ‘Unscramble Pro’, ‘Dictation’, and ‘Write the Translation’).

If it is available, you can select it in Theme Selection under the blue button with two flags, which usually says ‘A1 (Beginner level) – Words’. Change it to the level you want.

This happens automatically. If you need a hint to answer a question, you will have to repeat the same example again in the same lesson. When you finish all lessons from all themes in one stage at one difficulty level, we create harder questions for you, which contain all the examples for which you needed a hint. If you want to intentionally add an example, just tap on the ‘Hint’ button, and it will be included in future repetitions.

Set one of the difficulties so that you will write what you hear all the time. If one difficulty isn’t enough, redefine more difficulties in the same way. How to do that is described in the ‘What should I do if I want to write what I hear for the entire Difficulty 4?’ section of this FAQ.

At the beginning, all dots are light grey (for all ways of answering except for finding pairs) or dark grey (for finding pairs). When you answer a question correctly, the dot turns green. If you answer incorrectly or need our help, the dot turns red. In the next round, the green dots are placed at the beginning, and all red dots become yellow (for all ways of answering except for finding pairs) or orange (for finding pairs). These yellow and orange dots also turn green or red, and when the round finishes, red dots become yellow in the next round, and so on, until all dots are green and the lesson is finished. If a dot is blue, the question was skipped. If you skip a question in the first round, you’ll still have to repeat it in the next round. If you skip questions in rounds 2 and above, you won’t have to repeat them anymore (this feature isn’t implemented yet).

The round number indicates how many times you have tried to answer the questions. In each subsequent round, only the questions you answered incorrectly or needed help with are repeated.

It’s more complicated because you’ll have to search for the appropriate lesson yourself, and it’s impossible to get all the advantages of our spaced repetition since we won’t create the hardest questions for you until you’ve finished all lessons from all themes in one stage. If you still want to do it, repeat the lessons only when they are red or grey. Grey lessons are lessons you’ve never done before, while red lessons are ones where your result was below 80% and need to be repeated at the same difficulty, or the time since the last repetition has passed and you need to repeat it at a higher difficulty. When you open a theme to access the Lesson Selection, we will move you to the lesson that needs to be repeated, and it will be colored red or grey. If it has another color, the ‘Start’ button won’t be blue, and if you tap on it, we will warn you that it’s too early to repeat it or that you don’t need to repeat it anymore.

We don’t offer this automatically yet. You have to enter each theme, select difficulty 3 for every lesson, and complete it. After you’ve completed all your lessons in all the themes of one stage at one difficulty, the automation will continue suggesting lessons in the next higher difficulty. We suggest redefining difficulties in the difficulty settings as explained in the section ‘What should I do if I want to write the answer all the time?’ in this FAQ.

This depends on what you’re learning for. To be able to speak, A1 – Words with Examples is better, but only after you’ve finished all the words in A1 (unless you already know the words). If you want to understand more, learn only words. Start with level A1. If this level is too easy for you, go to level A2, then B1, and then B2 (if they are available).

You can go to ‘Theme Selection’, select ‘Difficulty Settings’ in menu. Then select the first difficulty, set the way of answering to ‘Writing’, save it for your current course, and repeat the procedure for all difficulties from 2 to 5. Uncheck the ‘Find Pairs’ checkbox if you don’t want to search for pairs.

Go to Theme Selection, then Menu, and Difficulty Settings. Pick the difficulty that you want to redefine, set Dictation to 100%, and all other ways of answering to 0%. Uncheck the ‘Find Pairs’ checkbox if you don’t want to search for pairs.

To learn example phrases as well, you have to switch to the level where you’re learning (A1, for example) from ‘A1 – Words’ to ‘A1 – Words with Examples’.

We believe that pictures can hinder your learning progress and confuse learners. Initially, you must understand what the picture is conveying, then you receive the word in your native language, and finally, you have to find the translation in the language you are learning. This process adds an extra step. The most effective way to learn is to use the word in a language you already know well and the word in the language you are learning in a sentence that you create yourself. However, we cannot assist with this process because every person has their own general knowledge, knows different words in different languages, knows different people (sometimes a school friend’s surname is similar to the word you are trying to learn), and so on. That’s why the more languages you know, the easier it becomes to learn another language because you can connect many words with the words in other languages you already know.

If the answer you typed is correct, the ‘Check’ button blinks and turns green, indicating that the answer is correct. You can tap on this button or press ‘Enter’ on your keyboard. If it turns red, it means you wrote more letters than needed. If it’s grey, you haven’t written anything. If it’s blue, you can check the answer, but you’ll receive the same message as you see below the written text, providing information about where the mistake is. Depending on difficulty settings, we will tell you in which letter of which word the mistake is. However, you can change these settings, and we will only inform you if the answer is correct or not, or we will only tell you in which word the mistake is. Read more about it in ‘Difficulty Settings’.