Lingopie Tips & Tricks: Common Questions, Challenges & Hidden Features
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Table of Contents
Most Common Questions When Learning With Lingopie
“Do I have to review words using Flashcards? [or can I skip them?]”
“Should I focus on one show at a time, or switch between different ones?”
The Biggest Traps You Need to Avoid
The 3 Most Common Struggles & Challenges [and How to Fix Them]
“I’m a beginner and I can’t understand anything when watching TV shows!”
“I feel like I’m not improving! How long does it take to see real progress with Lingopie?”
Most Common Questions When Learning With Lingopie
Lingopie is an excellent choice for language learners who love TV shows, but you're not just watching for entertainment—you want to improve your language skills too, right?
Using a platform like Lingopie isn’t always as straightforward as it seems. Questions come up as you start using it, and it’s easy to fall into traps that slow down your progress without even realizing it!
This post will tackle the most common questions, struggles, and challenges you’ll face when using Lingopie—plus some hidden features and tricks to enhance your experience.
“Do I just watch TV shows and click on words?”
Not exactly! If you’re aiming to get the most out of your learning, there’s quite a bit more to it.
Before diving in, check out my post The Best Way to Use Lingopie for Effective Language Learning. There, I break down the difference between using subtitle options, three powerful watching modes, and tips for maximizing Lingopie at different levels.
Not yet a Lingopie user? Try it out for free and get Lingtuitive’s exclusive Lingopie discount:
→ Try a Free 7-Day Lingopie Trial (and get to 73% off)
“How Can I actually remember the words and phrases I see?“
One of the first questions that will come up when using Lingopie is: ”What’s the best way to remember vocabulary from shows?”
It makes sense, right? You’re using Lingopie to learn to understand your target language, and a large part of that is learning new vocabulary. When watching TV shows, it’s easy to forget the meaning of a word, even when you just looked it up!
However, memorization and truly learning (acquiring) a language are not the same. School has taught us to memorize words by repeating them over and over again. This works in the short term, but not in the long term. Memorizing requires you to actively try to retrieve or “fetch” the information from your mind. That’s not fast enough for being able to understand or speak effortlessly—it needs to be immediate and instinctive.
There are also many levels to knowing a word, not just “known” or “unknown”. Trying to memorize them will give you a shallow “knowing” of a word at best. By encountering words over and over in different contexts, you’ll know them at a deeper and deeper level—to the point where you can’t unlearn them even if you try!
For that reason, the best way to learn new vocabulary with Lingopie is to forget about memorization altogether!
Don’t focus on trying to remember specific words—that’s out of your control. Instead, focus on immersing in the language and letting your brain do the work. It’s not a linear process, but more like a jigsaw puzzle where pieces (words) start appearing in random places to form the whole picture (your target language) that makes more and more sense.
“Do I have to review words using Flashcards? [or can I skip them?]”
Lingopie’s flashcards is a handy feature—it lets you review words in between watching sessions, reinforcing vocabulary through spaced repetition.
What makes this feature especially helpful:
✅ Quick to save – You can add words without disrupting the flow too much.
✅ Context – Each flashcard includes the full sentence, so you hear the word in context.
✅ Original audio – The flashcard has the original audio of the scene where you found it, making it more memorable while training your listening skills.
But do you have to use flashcards?
No, you don’t. If you don’t like flashcards, you can relax knowing that you will get “natural spaced repetition” by encountering words again and again while watching your shows. Clicking on the same word multiple times isn’t a problem either. Some words you will remember right away, and others you’ll need to hear 50+ times before they stick. That’s completely normal.
s“So does clicking on words and adding them to flashcards really help?”
Reviewing your flashcards will help you learn those specific words through the added repetition. It’s useful since you can review vocabulary you want to target when you’re not watching. However, it’s optional and not a must—encountering words when you’re watching is the most important to truly learning them.
“How can I use the flashcards effectively?”
To use flashcards—and other Lingopie word games—effectively, think of them as less of a “memorization tool”, and more of a way to get extra exposure and repetition. In the end, repeated exposure to words is what helps you learn them.
As a beginner, it’s fine to save any words since you’re still building up your core vocabulary. But you don’t need to save words like “and”, “because” and “why” to your flashcards deck. These words will come up so often in your Lingopie content that you will quickly learn them without any deliberate review.
I’d suggest saving mainly two types of words to your Flashcard Deck:
Rare but important words — Some words might not come up often, but they're key to understanding the context. Flashcards give you the repetition you need, which can be harder to get through watching alone. For example, “mutation” might be crucial in a sci-fi episode, but not a word you encounter regularly.
A word in a difficult-to-understand sentence — By repeatedly hearing a tricky, fast-spoken sentence you’ll train your ears to eventually hear that sentence effortlessly.
It’s fine to save common words too if you want to learn them right now, but you don’t have to—you’ll eventually learn them anyway.
Keep in mind that flashcards work best when paired with regular viewing, as they’re less effective on their own.
“Should I focus on one show at a time, or switch between different ones?”
The biggest challenge for many of us is usually sticking with something, rather than switching between different things. However, there’s a lot of benefit to sticking to a single show. Vocabulary repeats, and it becomes easier to understand as you get more familiar with the plot and characters. While there's a temptation to get “broad exposure” to try to avoid becoming one-sided, you’ll actually learn more by going deep with one show than by watching 5-6 shows on a surface level.
The vocabulary you learn from one show will pop up in other shows and contexts as well. By focusing on one thing you’re actually learning lots of other things at the same time!
That said, there’s also a lot of value in watching something new too. A mix of both—exploring new content while sticking with a main show—can keep things fresh while still give you the structure needed to see real progress.
“Should you rewatch episodes when learning a language?”
There is a lot of benefit to rewatching episodes in Lingopie and in general. It gives your ears more chances to understand and you’ll pick up new things each time. Rewatching also helps you solidify what you’ve learned—learning the words to a deeper level (that we talked about earlier).
As a general rule, beginners benefit a lot from repeating content, while the more advanced you get the more it will make sense to repeat less and just watch new content (which is a great incentive to improve!).
Rewatching doesn’t necessarily mean you have to watch the same episode the same way (although that’s useful too). You can take the same episode and use different viewing approaches each time, like expanding your vocabulary by clicking on a lot of words, training your ears through ‘intensive listening’, or acquiring the language through ‘freeflow watching’ (to learn more about these watching approaches, check out this section of my post The Best Way to Use Lingopie for Effective Language Learning.)
There does come a point where you’ll see diminishing returns of repeating and it’s better to move on to a new piece of content. Shooting for 100% comprehension is not necessary and it’s not even efficient (more on this later in this post).
The key is to find content you enjoy—you’ll then enjoy re-watching more.
The Biggest Traps You Need to Avoid
When using Lingopie there are some temptations we all face that will hinder our progress.
To avoid frustration, here are some of the most common mistakes language learners make. Being aware of them will help you stay on track and make sure you learn successfully!
Over-Relying on Subtitles
"How do I avoid relying too much on subtitles? I feel like I can’t stop looking at them!”
Sounds familiar? No wonder, as this is one of the most common problems right off the bat. It’s completely understandable since we finally have the luxury of word-for-word subtitles with Lingopie, and watching with subtitles is so much easier than without. However, subtitles can either help or hinder your language learning depending on how you use them.
Here’s a quick guide to using subtitles effectively:
English subtitles
✅ Use them only to check the meaning of a sentence.
❌ Keeping them always turned on will prevent you from absorbing the language.
Target language subtitles
✅ Great for expanding your vocabulary and confirming what you heard.
❌ Doesn’t train your listening—most of your focus goes into reading, not listening.
(See this section in the post The Best Way to Use Lingopie for Effective Language Learning for more on the benefits and drawbacks of all four subtitle combinations, and this section for how to use the subtitles to specifically train your listening comprehension.)
Since there are no subtitles in real-life conversations, it’s important to practice watching without them. Otherwise, you’ll struggle when it comes to interacting with natives and any audio-only content like podcasts, YouTube, and TV shows & movies outside Lingopie. After all, our goal is to eventually get to a place where we don’t need subtitles.
Learning to not rely on subtitles is difficult at first, but is just a matter of practice and getting used to it. One approach you can try is to watch an episode once without subtitles, then again with subtitles—or vice versa.
Want to learn how to pick up a language intuitively—without breaking your brain over grammar rules or endless memorization?
Learn this and more in my guide “Intuitive Language Secrets”
(currently Free to download, but might not be available forever, so make sure to grab it right away!)
Would you like me to send it to you?
The Need to Understand Everything
This is the main reason we fall into the previous trap and what often holds people back from successfully learning a language: the need for absolute clarity and certainty.
This comes from things like being used to understanding everything in our native language, how schools teach languages, feeling uncomfortable with ambiguity…. and probably a little FOMO as well. We think that if we don’t learn that word now, then we’re missing out on the opportunity to learn it.
But if you need to understand everything before going forward, it will make your progress painfully slow. The more you are comfortable with not understanding the faster you’ll improve. Some things are just out of reach for us to learn right now. It’s better to focus on what you’re ready for—the ‘low-hanging fruit’.
There’s a time and place for going deep—but even when you do—some things won’t make sense no matter how many times you repeat them. It might be that some other things need to fall into place first. (It’s, however, very difficult to know exactly what those things are so this is largely an intuitive process.)
Even after years and years of learning multiple languages, I still have to be mindful of this temptation. I need to decide to move forward, even when I don’t fully understand. Instead, I try to practice being thankful for what I do understand and the new things I’m able to pick up.
When you become comfortable with ambiguity, it relaxes your mind—which will help you focus better and it becomes easier to spend more time (“time” being the key to improving) watching TV shows, without constantly feeling frustrated.
Skipping Dialogue That's "Too Fast" Instead of Training Your Ears
The other ditch, is to completely ignore things that are too challenging. Certain sounds and nuances in the language can be difficult to hear, so learners never learn to pick these up. By zoning in on these parts of dialogue that are too difficult or fast, it will develop your ears’ ability to hear them.
You can also slow down the audio while listening on repeat (with the auto-loop function) to give your ears a chance to process all the sounds and syllables. Then when you bring it back to normal speed you should be able to hear them.
‘Intensive Watching Mode’—which I explain in this section of the post The Best Way to Use Lingopie for Effective Language Learning—is a great way to train your ears to hear these difficult-to-hear sounds and sentences.
Watching Passively, Expecting to Improve
I’m a big proponent of getting a lot of passive listening. Because you can get so much volume in with close to no effort.
However, you do need to actively engage with the language to learn it. Otherwise, our brain will just sort it out as “unimportant background noise” instead of truly absorbing it.
Passively watching a show while washing the dishes can provide some extra practice at a time when you couldn’t otherwise do active language learning. Just make sure to also watch actively as it’s way more effective than passive listening.
Saving Too Many Words to Your Flashcard Deck
One of the worst feelings is to have a huge pile of flashcards that are due for review—it’s an overwhelming and discouraging feeling. Reviewing your flashcards should be relatively quick to do and more of a nutritional supplement—not the main part of your language routine. So it’s best to not let your flashcard deck size grow out of control.
Realizing that there’s no need to save every single word will help you in this. You’ll learn many of them anyway—without reviewing them—by encountering them again and again in different content.
Flashcards are just a convenient way to automatically space out the repetition of specific vocabulary and sentences. But remember, you will learn plenty of words you’ve never even saved to your flashcards so try to be selective with what words you choose to save—for your own sanity, if nothing else.
The 3 Most Common Struggles & Challenges [and How to Fix Them]
Here are three of the biggest challenges when starting to use Lingopie that we’ve all faced at one point or another.
By overcoming these, you'll be ahead of the game and set yourself up for success.
“I’m a beginner and I can't understand anything when watching TV shows!”
Welcome to the world of language learning! This is exactly why we’re using Lingopie. Maybe you’ve gone through a beginner course or two. You know some useful words and sentences in your target language, but you’re still wondering:
“Why do I still struggle to understand spoken dialogue?”.
Here’s why it’s challenging:
Informal language and slang – The kind you won’t find in textbooks.
Fast, unclear speech – Native speakers don’t slow down for learners.
A flood of unknown words – If you don’t know enough vocabulary, it’s hard to keep up.
Does this mean that Lingopie isn’t suitable for beginners?
No. While it can be quite challenging for beginners at first, Lingopie provides tools that make it easier to learn from native, fast-paced, and colloquial content—even as a beginner.
Not understanding anything and feeling lost is normal, but it’s about playing the long game. Keep going—one word and phrase at a time—and you’ll get there.
“I feel like I’m not improving! How long does it take to see real progress with Lingopie?”
As an English speaker, if you spend at least 30 minutes a day, you should start seeing improvements within a few weeks in languages like Italian, French, and Spanish.
For languages like Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, progress takes a lot longer—unless already know a related language—as they are much farther from English in terms of structure and vocabulary. So to see the same amount of progress I’d recommend to 4x the amount of daily learning time. Of course, you can spend less time, but just keep in mind that it may take longer to see results.
What if after a few weeks you still don’t notice any improvement?
It might be that you’re being too hard on yourself—expecting too much and not recognizing the progress you've already made!
If that’s not the case, it might be that:
You’re learning strategy isn’t effective.
You haven’t put in enough time consistently.
To make sure you’re using a learning strategy that actually works, I recommend checking out my post The Best Way to Use Lingopie for Effective Language Learning, as it will give you practical Lingopie learning strategies to ensure you see results.
While it’s important to at times feel and experience you have improved, it’s not the most reliable source of daily motivation, When you focus on just putting in the time, without expecting to feel anything, I guarantee you’ll have moments of “wow, this is so much easier than it used to be!” many times on your language learning journey.
“How do I make Lingopie part of my daily routine?”
Starting a new routine is always challenging and your target language is no different.
To make Lingopie part of your routine, I recommend starting small—even 5 minutes per day— but making sure that you do it daily. It’s better to start with a little but be consistent and then build up from there once your daily routine is established (Atomic Habits by James Clear is a great read if you want to dive deeper into this topic).
Make sure your goal is time-based, not how many words you learned that day or anything like that. This will also help make it part of your daily routine—it’s clear and within your control. Having a time-based goal makes it clear when you’ve achieved it, which helps you dodge the incredibly demotivating state of “it’s never enough”.
Your daily time goal should be achievable but something that pushes you a little bit. You don’t want to put overwhelming pressure on yourself—that’s very demotivating. But it’s also very demotivating when you don’t see progress, and spending enough time consistently is the biggest key to improving.
Do you have a habit of watching TV shows in the evening?
If that’s the case, first accomplish your Lingopie goal, then go watch your favorite TV show. In time, especially as you notice you’re improving, your motivation will increase. You’ll probably want to spend more and more time learning languages with Lingopie. You might even start preferring it over your usual Netflix show, making Lingopie your new evening routine.
If you’re more of a morning person, you might prefer setting aside 30 minutes in the morning to dedicate to language learning instead. What matters most is finding what works for you and your schedule—something you can stick to every day.
To stay on track and fuel motivation, I recommend keeping track of how much time you spend each day (Lingopie nowadays keeps track of this for you). That way, by seeing the total time spent you have a tangible indicator of your improvement even when you don’t feel it.
Unlocking More Content & Hidden Features
Lingopie has several great language learning features, but there are also hidden tricks that can take your experience to the next level.
Want access to more shows? Need a better way to watch on your TV? Looking for a smarter way to review vocabulary? Here’s how to unlock even more from Lingopie and make the most of its features.
How to access more shows from different countries (Using a VPN)
Lingopie’s content differs slightly in different countries. Certain features—like Disney Plus—is also currently only available in certain regions.
You can get access to this content and features by using a VPN. For example, by connecting it to USA, you can access all the Lingopie features and content available in the US.
Simply:
Choose a country
Press “Connect” to activate the VPN
Open Lingopie (you might need to restart it if it’s already open)
You should now see shows and features previously unavailable in your region.
What VPN should you use?
I recommend Express VPN as it’s very fast, easy to use, and reliable. It’s what I personally use every day and it works great with Lingopie whether it’s on the phone, computer, tablet, or smart TV.
Get the best deal here:
How to Watch Lingopie on Your TV (Using a “Language Remote Control”)
To watch with Lingopie on your TV, you can screen share directly from your phone and “mirror” what you see on your phone (or computer) on your TV. This is great if you watch with target language subtitles as you can easily click them on your phone while watching on your TV.
However, Lingopie has a cool feature that lets you combine watching shows on your TV without subtitles while interacting with the subtitles on your phone (which is essentially screen casting, rather than screen sharing).
This is accessed by screen sharing directly from the Lingopie app, by pressing this button:
By doing this, your phone now becomes a “language remote control”. This is perfect if you want to practice watching without subtitles but also have the option to conveniently look up words every once in a while. It’s the best of both worlds! It will definitely take your binge-watching language learning game to a new level.
What you see on your TV.
What you see on your “language remote”.
Since you see the sentences in a scrolling fashion on your phone, it’s also easier to go back a few sentences to re-listen to something that you couldn’t hear. You can just press the sentence directly, instead of spamming the go-back button to get to the right one.
Review Vocab by TV Show
A more manageable way to review flashcards is to review them from one TV show only, instead of from all shows.
This is also useful if you want to review vocab from a particular show right before watching an episode, as you’ll have the vocabulary fresh in your mind.
How to do this (on a desktop computer):
Click on the “i” icon that you see when hovering over a TV show (or episode of a TV show.)
Select the tab “My Vocab”.
Click on “Practice Your Words”
Conclusion - is Lingopie Enough on its Own?
Or do you need to supplement it with other apps or methods?
When you use Lingopie smartly—avoiding common pitfalls and actively engaging with the content—it becomes a language learning resource that’s both fun and effective.
If your goal is to understand TV shows and native speakers, Lingopie is fantastic and can take you far—it will skyrocket your listening comprehension.
But for reading, writing, and speaking, it’s best to supplement with other tools.
Here are my best recommendations:
🗣 Speaking & Writing
Langua offers unlimited, 24/7 speaking practice with AI tutors that feel and sound incredibly human. Designed for language learners, it helps you improve spoken fluency in a stress-free way. Conversations feel natural, giving you time to think, respond, and look up words as needed. Plus, you'll get feedback on your speaking to refine your skills. Langua can assist with refining texts and emails, making sure your writing flows just as smoothly. Want real human interaction? You can also connect with live tutors through LanguaTalk on the same platform.
(Learn more about Langua here).
Create a free account to start trying some of its features right away. If you decide to upgrade, use code LINGTUITIVE20 for 20% off any annual plan:
→ Try Langua here
Reading
LingQ makes reading in your target language easier and more motivating. Import any articles, e-books, and more while tracking your progress effortlessly. With pop-up dictionaries, smart color-coding of words, and word definitions across content, you’ll reinforce words naturally as you encounter them again in different contexts. And these are just a few of the many features LingQ offers to enhance your language learning experience.
(Learn more about LingQ here.)
Try an extended free LingQ trial and get an extra discount through this exclusive link:
→ Try LingQ here (and get up to 43% off)
Still on the fence about Lingopie?
Just try a free 7-day trial! There’s no way to know unless you try it. You can always cancel it if you feel it isn’t for you.
You also get up 73% off exclusively through Lingtuitive:
Still have questions about using Lingopie? Comment below and I’ll do my best to answer your questions!
Related posts:
The Best Way to Use Lingopie for Effective Language Learning
The Most Extensive Lingopie Review in 2024 [Full feature breakdown]
I Used Lingopie for 73 Days [here’s what happened to my Spanish]
Lingopie vs. LingQ [Which Platform Suits Your Learning Style Best?]
“I Don’t Understand Anything” - Why you Can’t Understand Fast Speech
Everything You Need to Know About Langua [the most human-like AI tutor]
