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An hour a day? | ||
Tags: Time to learn | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Corinwright1994 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4637 days ago 27 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 1 of 6 12 April 2012 at 11:18pm | IP Logged |
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Hey guys. I Had an "interesting" topic I'd like to get some views on! I often hear that
an hour a day on the language you're learning is a good bare minimum amount to study every day. But I was just wondering, what should that hour actually consist of? Obviously this is rather subjective to a certain degree, but I more mean in terms of Listening, Writing, Reading and Speaking. if you're only doing an hour a day is itbest to try and fit it in a bit of all four or what? any advice would be appreciated :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6937 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 6 13 April 2012 at 12:08am | IP Logged |
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I believe it depends a lot on your level, and what your "study hour" looks like (five minute-bursts spread over the day, four quarters of an hour, two half-hours, one hour...).
A few suggestions here: How to make the most of one hour a day 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Icaria909 Senior Member United States Joined 5619 days ago 201 posts - 346 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 6 13 April 2012 at 12:48am | IP Logged |
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I tried doing all four in one hour last year (I did four sessions of 15 minutes throughout
the day). I didn't find it very helpful. For example, with only 15 a minutes a day to read, I was moving so slowly in my reading that I would lose the motivation to continue. Instead, I recommend picking one area to focus on in a week. Spend one hour a day for week reading a book, or one hour a day listening to podcasts for the next week. That way, they will each build off each other. But obviously, do whatever works best for you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jinzouningen Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4904 days ago 11 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin, German, Norwegian | Message 4 of 6 13 April 2012 at 1:56am | IP Logged |
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I've found that doing a good half hour or hour consistently and stopping at a good place is most effective.
It completely depends on you how to most effectively use your time. So mostly trial and error. (I myself wasted alot of time trying to figure it out) If you're a textbook person I'd recommend spending your hour on that working through the text gradually. Make sure it has audio. For me at least it was hard to combine/cram listening, reading, writing, and speaking into one hour since they're all separate skills. I wound up jumping all over the place and not learning much. Perhaps you could focus on 2 of the separate skills on certain days. For me especially at the beginning I allocated my hour to purely textbook study to progress in the language (grammar wise). And everyday I had fun activities to get the other skills in ex: Diary/Lang-8/Blogging (Writing), Skype language partner(Speaking), interesting books/websites in target language (Reading), tv shows/movies/music in target language (Listening). Good Luck. Edited by Jinzouningen on 13 April 2012 at 1:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6179 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 5 of 6 13 April 2012 at 10:17am | IP Logged |
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You always have more than an hour a day to study. You just need to figure out where all the unused time in your day lies.
If I was to sit down for an hour, I'd study from a course that also has a lot of audio. You can then listen to the audio at every available opportunity. I never listen to music on my MP3 player. It's always a language. 9 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4685 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 6 of 6 13 April 2012 at 12:25pm | IP Logged |
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I find that it is more important to define the time you really can use for language learning and to think strategies later.
For example - currently, I find it very hard to find time. But I have 30 minutes commute one way (will be about 45 min. to an hour by bike soon). For this reason, I depend on audio very much - either audio courses or diy versions (vocabulary through tts, audiobooks and similar). I try to find at least few minutes in my lunch pause to read through grammar, read news, transcribe audio, ... In the evening, I try to work through more book course, where reading the textbook is important. I don't sweat if I cannot make it - even the commute alone keeps my study going. Another time for audio is when doing chores, cooking, and even some of my other hobbies are audio-friendly. Generally, I am much more comfortable learning from books and through writing. But I had to decide - perhaps 30 minutes book learning every other day or consistent, guarantied time for use with audio, and the 30 minutes book learning as a bonus. Look at your day and decide what you can do in the unused time (commuting, waiting, ...). And then, take another half hour for the underused skills. Meaning: If you use commuting time for listening and speaking, read or write in the evening. Or read in one evening and write in another... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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