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Is speed important to you? | ||
Tags: Poll | Time to learn | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4671 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 35 18 June 2012 at 4:23am | IP Logged |
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Explanation of the question: Is the speed with which you reach your goals in learning a language important to you?
For example, if you want to reach C1 in Russian, do you care whether it takes you 3 years or 10 years? Do you try to employ methods that are more efficient in order to reduce time? Do you study more hours per week to get you to your desired level faster? Background: There are many threads in this forum about efficiency in learning. It seems like many people here, myself included, are interested in reaching their goals as quickly as possible. Reasons for this desire are varied. So I’m always surprised when someone asks “why do you want to learn languages quickly?” And I’m even more surprised when, after giving my reasons, the poster asking argues that my reasons are invalid. So I though I’d start this thread to focus on this issue. Please share your reasons why you think speed is important or not. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| rivere123 Senior Member United States Joined 4830 days ago 129 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 2 of 35 18 June 2012 at 5:14am | IP Logged |
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I answered no.
My reasoning is that I know I won't be able to use most languages any time soon, and it'd really be more of a leisurely time killer if I picked up any new languages from here on out (unless, I found out I was unexpectedly going to live in N'Djamena, of course). As long as the hours I put in are getting somewhere, I'm alright with how long the process takes, although I can see pretty clearly why you might want to learn a language quickly. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6105 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 3 of 35 18 June 2012 at 9:27am | IP Logged |
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I used to think that speed wasn't that important, since I have no pressures compelling me to hurry (work or a move abroad etc.).
However, a not-so-easy language like Polish requires a lot of work in the initial stages in order to build up sufficient momentum. So speed is important early on, to get into orbit as fast as possible. Too slow - inertia drags me back. Too fast - burn out becomes a risk. A minimum of 3 hours a day is the critical speed to keep forward momentum, once I'm at B1 this may drop to 2 hours a day. If I'm too leisurely about it, the progress may be so slow that I get frustrated and lose motivation altogether. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| melkior79 Newbie Japan Joined 4631 days ago 16 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Latin, French | Message 4 of 35 18 June 2012 at 9:48am | IP Logged |
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Hi my answer is yes and no, depends on the language.
Given that we all have a limited time-span in this life and given that my language wish list is high (getting higher thanks to this site.. I want to acquire some languages as quickly as is possible .Others I wanna take my sweet time with Latin I have decided to study everyday until I die. 30 minutes every day with Latin- I don't care how slow my progress. I am still beginner now and will be for a while Japanese- I am at upper-intermediate level and am pushing to pass N1 this December! (I want it BAD) French- On December 25th of this year. I will kick-start studies in French.I at least need reading ability but want to be able to speak it too. I will have a four month break from work(lucky me) in which to get as high as I possibly can. Speed is important I wanna go hard.I wanna talk to my French colleagues in French when I come back from break. My wife is buying us Assimil French with Ease as my Xmas present! She will go through it with me. I however will also pair it with French for Reading by Sandberg .I will try to complete both in 4 months. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 5 of 35 18 June 2012 at 10:52am | IP Logged |
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The quicker I learn the quicker I can use it for what I want to do with it :)
8 persons have voted this message useful | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5532 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 35 18 June 2012 at 12:26pm | IP Logged |
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Speed was really important to me in French between A2 and roughly B2, to the
extent that I actually spent ~5 weeks on full-time study. In part, this was because I had a DELF deadline looming. But really, it was because I use my French every day, and I wanted to function like an adult. I'm a little more laid back now. I can have a conversation about pretty much anything without too much trouble. I speak semi-fluently and understand what people say to me. But to use an analogy, if real French is a lovely Roquefort, my French is still Velveeta, a suspicious "cheese food product" instead of an actual cheese. I definitely plan to fix this. But I intend to slow down a bit and enjoy myself. My practical communicative needs are satisfied, and I have a lifetime of French conversations, books and movies ahead of me. Of course, "slow" is relative here—I'm still participating in the Super Challenge. ;-) Edited by emk on 18 June 2012 at 12:26pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4868 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 7 of 35 18 June 2012 at 12:36pm | IP Logged |
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Of course I would be happy to learn a new language as fast as possible, but it's something that simply takes a long time, especially when you're studying a language like Korean. I focus more on the learning process than on acquisition speed, because anything else can be frustrating.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5130 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 8 of 35 18 June 2012 at 1:38pm | IP Logged |
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I also voted "No". I think we can improve quickly in the beginning (we're starting from
zero, after all, and it's pretty easy to move ahead from zero), but once we reach a certain point, it takes a lot of exposure and there's really no shortcut to that. I think consistency is much more important. R. == 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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