Hajo's Spanish, Kevin's Mandarin, and the Cup is heating up.

Hi -, 

Hopefully, many of you are already competing hard in the LingQ Cup of Languages 2026. If not, join your language's team, earn coins through your daily reading and listening, and compete on the global leaderboard. Look for the Cup banner in the Library or the Challenges screen. Join here.

Here's where things stand right now (average coins per participant):

1. 🇵🇱 Polish — 12,244 (—)
2. 🇧🇷 Portuguese — 11,914 (↑1)
3. 🇮🇹 Italian — 11,448 (↑1)

4. 🇳🇱 Dutch — 10,873 (↓2)

5. 🇬🇷 Greek — 10,620 (↑4)

Polish has maintained the lead for a few days. But Portuguese and Italian are right behind. And Greek is making a big push. Earn daily bonuses in the app to help push your language to the top.

Right-to-left transliteration has been introduced for Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, and Urdu across Web, iOS, and Android. If you've been putting off starting one of these languages because reading the script felt like too big a first step, this removes that barrier.

Course Subscriptions are now available to everyone. Subscribe to any course and get a daily notification when new lessons are added. You can subscribe directly from a lesson tile, not just the course page.

Skritter integration is live for Japanese and Chinese learners. Export vocabulary from your LingQ database directly to Skritter to practise writing the characters you've been reading. Available on Web now, mobile coming soon.

Read about all the updates here on the forum. 

User Success Story

How to Be Fluent in Spanish: Hajo's 13,000 Known-Words Story

Hajo started learning Spanish in 2016 with no teacher, no class, and no plan beyond a Steve Kaufmann YouTube video. Ten years later he has 13,000 known words and considers himself fluent, reached entirely through self-directed reading and listening on LingQ. His current maintenance routine is 20 minutes every three days. He is now actively studying Turkish, Polish, and Arabic using the same method.

Fresh This Month

How to Learn Kanji (and Hanzi): Why Reading and Writing Work Better Together: Extensive reading in LingQ for recognition, focused stroke practice in Skritter for writing. A practical two-tool workflow.

Interviewed a Top 1% LingQ User (10,000 Hours & 10 Languages) (YouTube): Mike interviews Kevin, one of LingQ's most dedicated users, who spent 10,000 hours studying Mandarin without a single flashcard and is currently learning 10 languages. A compelling real-world example of what the LingQ method looks like at its most committed.

¿Se puede aprender idiomas de ADULTO? (YouTube — in Spanish): Steve joins Pedro, a 22-year-old polyglot who speaks 9 languages, to answer one of the most common questions he gets: is it too late to start? Steve's answer at 80 speaks for itself. Video is in Spanish.

Keep learning,
The LingQ Team