How Bingelang works

Four activities count, in the language you’re learning:

• watching a video on Bingelang, with the sound on;
• listening to a book’s narration on Bingelang;
• playing Murmur Falls: the time between two of your actions (a click, a key, a touch, the mouse moving) counts when they are less than a minute apart;
• watching YouTube with the Bingelang extension.

Time is measured by the clock: a video played at 2× speed doesn’t count double. Card reviews, illustrated books, reading without the audio and articles read with the extension don’t add time.

Learn for at least one minute a day. Your day ends at midnight in your streak time zone, which you can change in Profile; the change applies from the next day. If you miss a day, your streak starts over, unless a lily pad protects it.

A lily pad saves your streak when you miss a day. The next time you learn, one lily pad is used for each day you missed. If you missed more days than you have lily pads, your streak starts over. Buy them for 160 Fireflies each on Progress; you can hold up to 2.

It’s your target for the day, in each language: 15, 30 or 60 minutes, or any number from 5 to 720. Change it from the minutes counter at the top of the page, or in Profile. The bar turns gold once you reach it. The goal is just for you: it gives no extra reward and isn’t needed for your streak.

The most common reasons:

• the sound was off, or the video was paused;
• in Murmur Falls, nothing counts after your last action, nor during a pause of a minute or more between two actions, nor while the game is in the background;
• something else was playing at the same moment: each minute counts only once across your tabs, devices and languages, and Bingelang then shows “Already counted elsewhere”;
• your device was offline for more than 3 hours: time must reach Bingelang within 3 hours to count;
• on YouTube, see the extension questions.

Yes. On Progress, under the calendar, choose “Add time outside Bingelang”: a podcast, a film, a book… This time counts in your total and in that day’s goal, but it earns no Fireflies, doesn’t move your level and doesn’t keep your streak. You can also enter an estimate of the time you spent learning before Bingelang.

YouTube with the extension is already counted: don’t add it again.

No. Each language has its own time, streak, daily goal, Fireflies, lily pads, level and leaderboard. Switch language with the language button at the top right. A minute counts in one language only.

Each minute of learning time earns 1 Firefly, up to 60 a day in each language. Weekly quests add more on top.

You spend them on Progress:

• a lily pad (160 Fireflies) protects your streak for a missed day;
• a chest (80 Fireflies) holds a random badge from the Pond Treasures collection.

Spending Fireflies doesn’t change your place on the leaderboard.

Every Monday at 00:00 Paris time, three new quests appear on Home, such as watching a few hours during the week or keeping your streak for several days. As soon as a quest is complete, its Fireflies are added automatically.

Your level follows your total learning time in the language, on Bingelang, in Murmur Falls and on YouTube with the extension. Time added manually doesn’t count. Your level never goes down, even if your streak stops.

1. EggAt the start
2. Hatchling10 hours
3. Tadpole50 hours
4. Froglet150 hours
5. Pond Hopper300 hours
6. Swamp Navigator600 hours
7. Deep Diver1,000 hours
8. Swamp Sage1,500 hours

You’ll find them on Progress, in three collections:

• Daily Leaps, for your streak, from 3 days to 2 years;
• Swamp Marathons, for long days: from 1 to 12 hours of video in a single day;
• Pond Treasures, found in chests.

Up to 6 badges appear on your public profile. Bingelang picks your best ones automatically, or you choose them in Profile.

Each language has a monthly leaderboard. It counts the Fireflies earned since the 1st of the month, Paris time, from learning and from quests. On the 1st, everyone starts again from zero; your Fireflies balance, level and streak are kept.

It brings Bingelang to YouTube and to the articles you read:

• on YouTube, subtitles in the language you’re learning with their translation, and a word’s translation when you hover over it;
• on the sites you choose, a word’s translation in one click, without leaving the article;
• your YouTube listening time added to your progress: time, Fireflies, streak and level, as on Bingelang.

Its side panel shows your daily goal, lets you review your cards and suggests YouTube channels and sites to read. The extension is free.

Learn more about the extension

Hover over a word in the Bingelang subtitles, or click it to keep the bubble open. It shows:

• at the top, the word as it appears and its base form when it differs (“inventé → inventer”);
• first, in bold, the most likely translation in this sentence;
• below, in smaller type, up to two other possible translations, in no particular order: check them when the first one doesn’t fit;
• next to each translation, its part of speech: v. for a verb, n. for a noun, adj. for an adjective…
• a card icon after a translation: Bingelang has a card for this meaning. Click it to see the card, hear it and add it to your reviews; the icon shows a check once the card is in your reviews.

Words that mean something together, such as “il y a”, are translated as a whole. In Chinese and Japanese, the bubble also gives the pronunciation (pinyin or kana). The video pauses while you read; you can turn this off with “Pause when hovering a word” in the extension settings. The dictionary is on your computer. To find the cards, the extension sends Bingelang only the word’s base form and its proposed translations, never the sentence.

On YouTube, click the Bingelang logo in the player controls, next to the gear. There you choose:

• the translation: “Shown”, “On click”, which keeps it hidden until you click it or press V, or “Hidden”;
• the translation language, and the audio track when the video has several (original or dubbed);
• the size of the subtitles and their position: “Higher” puts them above the subtitles some channels burn into the picture;
• “Pause when hovering a word”.

“All settings” opens the panel for the rest, such as “Goal below the video”.

First enable the site, once and for all:

• the easiest way: in the panel, open “Articles” and pick a suggested site with “Read”; these sites are free and sorted by level;
• for another site: open an article, click the Bingelang icon at the top right of Chrome, then “Enable on …”.

Chrome asks for your permission for that site. Then click a word in a language you’re learning: it opens the same bubble as on YouTube. In a link, hold the click on the word for half a second, since a short click follows the link. To translate without clicking, turn on “Translate on hover” under the site’s name at the top of the panel.

To stop, click “Disable” in the same place, or “Remove” in “Settings”, under “On other sites”. Bingelang only translates https sites, not the text of a frame embedded in the page, and reading articles doesn’t count toward your learning time.

Select it, right-click and choose “Translate ‘word’ with Bingelang”, or press Alt + Shift + D (Control + Shift + D on a Mac). With nothing selected, the right-click menu offers “Translate the words on this page with Bingelang”: then click the page’s words.

On a site you haven’t enabled, words open until you leave the page. To have them on every visit, enable the site.

On a computer, in Chrome, Edge and Brave. It doesn’t work on phones and tablets, or in Safari and Firefox. In Edge, first allow extensions from other stores on the Chrome Web Store page.

See the extension on the Chrome Web Store

1. Add it from the Chrome Web Store.
2. In the Bingelang tab that opens, sign in with the same account as here.
3. Pin it: in Chrome’s Extensions menu (the puzzle piece icon), click the pin next to Bingelang. Its icon then opens the panel.
4. Play a YouTube video in the language you’re learning: the Bingelang subtitles appear.

Click the Bingelang icon at the top right of Chrome, or in Chrome’s Extensions menu: the panel opens beside the page. It has five pages:

• “Home”: your daily goal, your cards to review, your progress and the monthly leaderboard;
• “Cards”: your card reviews, on the same schedule as on Bingelang;
• “Channels”: YouTube channels suggested in the language you’re learning;
• “Articles”: suggested sites to read and the ones you’ve enabled;
• “Settings”: your languages, the subtitles, the sites you’ve enabled and your account.

Its other buttons open your progress, the books and the games on Bingelang.

Videos whose audio is in a language you’re learning. Languages you’ve started on Bingelang count automatically. For a new language, the player asks “Count your listening in Spanish?”: answer “Yes, I’m learning it” to count it. Your interface language isn’t counted unless you learn it on Bingelang. You can change these answers in the extension settings, under “My languages”.

Check that:

• the extension is signed in to the same account as this site;
• the video is playing with sound, visible on your screen, outside ads;
• its language is counted: otherwise the player shows “Not counted” or “To confirm”.

Time must also reach Bingelang within 3 hours, and a minute already counted elsewhere doesn’t count again.

An orange “!” on the extension’s icon means its connection has ended: open the panel and sign in again.

Yes: its subtitles and hover translations also appear in Bingelang’s video player. Reload the page after installing it. On Bingelang, your time is counted by the site itself, never twice.

Which YouTube videos you listen to in the languages you’re learning, and for how long, to count your listening; and the words you look up (their base form and proposed translations), to show their cards and choose the next ones to create. Subtitles and sentences, as well as the text and address of the pages you read, stay on your computer, and Chrome asks for your permission for each site you enable. Details are in our privacy policy.

Yes. On YouTube, R replays the current sentence, Shift + R replays it slowly, and V shows or hides the translation.

On any page, Alt + Shift + D (Control + Shift + D on a Mac) translates the selected word; you can change this shortcut at chrome://extensions/shortcuts. Esc closes a word’s bubble.

In Profile, under “Account”. It’s saved as you type and shown to other learners on the leaderboard. Use 3 to 24 letters, numbers, dots, dashes or underscores.

When they open your profile from the leaderboard: your display name, level, streak, your place and Fireflies this month, your badges and your past podiums. Never your email address or your calendar.

These are two separate settings. To learn another language, use the language button at the top right. To change the language of menus and buttons, choose “Interface language” in Profile. Changing one never changes the other.

Yes. Sign in with the same account and you’ll find your time, streak, Fireflies, cards and favorites everywhere. A few choices stay in the browser where you made them, such as the appearance and the video levels shown on Home.

Ask for a link on the password reset page: we’ll email you a link to choose a new password. If you sign in with Google, you don’t need a password: keep using “Continue with Google”.

In Profile, under “Help and account”, choose “Delete my account”, then type the word shown to confirm. Your account and all its data are deleted right away; we keep a private copy for 30 days in case of a mistake, then erase it. If you can no longer log in, write to us from your account’s address at contact@bingelang.com.