Although there are a wide variety of language-learning websites out there, few of them can take you all the way from being an absolute beginner to being fluent. LingQ is one of these few websites.

The teaching method of LingQ is based on texts being displayed on the screen while being read aloud by native speakers. The new words are marked in blue, and you can either mark them as known or ”LingQ” them. If you LingQ them, they’ll be stored amongst a set of words which you can later practice in various exercises, like cloze and multiple choice.

There are a wide variety of texts available at all levels, and you’re free to pick any texts you want. Some of the courses have tens of thousands of new words. They include classic literature, such as French translations of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Around the World in 80 Days. Some of the French authors include Maupassant, Zola, and Victor Hugo. There are Russian courses using the works of Dostoevsky and Pushkin. There’s also the opportunity to study French and Russian history in their respective languages.

LingQ is available for learning German, Russian, Japanese, French, Swedish, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Dutch, Latin, Esperanto, Hebrew, Greek, English, Portuguese, Korean, and Polish.

One of the few downsides to LingQ is that they recently redesigned their website to one which works a lot more slowly on my laptop. If you have the same problem, there’s a link at the top of the page which switches to the classic view, which is a lot faster. Also, you’ll have to switch to a paid membership if you want to have more than 25 LingQs at a time. The premium membership is $10 per month and allows an unlimited number of LingQs. There’s also a premium plus membership for $39 per month which includes tutoring.

All in all, LingQ is a valuable addition to the world of language-learning. It’s an affordable way to reach a high level of fluency in many languages.