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How to make the most of one hour a day | ||
Tags: Time to learn | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| WillemN Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 4946 days ago 1 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English*, German, Dutch Studies: Japanese | Message 1 of 13 06 February 2012 at 10:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've been getting frustrated lately with how much time I spend managing my Anki decks. I'm currently studying Dutch (B2), German (C1) and Spanish (A1). I recently gave up on Hungarian after having spent over a year working on it. I currently have two decks set up for each language: one with isolated words, another with sentences. I have amassed a lot of flash cards, and I find I spend a LOT of time inputting data and reviewing cards.
There are so many different methods out there. I'm starting to wonder if maybe I'm wasting my time putting so much effort into flash cards. So here's the question: If you only had one hour a day to study a language what would you do? Of course the answer changes depending on your level, so three answers please (beginner, intermediate, and advanced). I look forward to reading your ideas! PS - In addition to using Anki I've also been listening to lots of audiobooks in German, watching German TV, reading a lot in both Dutch and German, watching the news in Dutch and German, and for Spanish I'm using Assimil (great so far!) 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| LangOfChildren Tetraglot Groupie Germany Joined 5428 days ago 82 posts - 141 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Swedish Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Thai, Russian | Message 2 of 13 06 February 2012 at 11:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yes, flashcards can be very time-consuming, to a point where it feels like you should be doing something else with your time, especially since you're not getting any realy exposure to the language while reviewing flashcards.
Depending on your level, you might want to consider listening-reading an audio book in the target language (even though this gets more effective the longer the sessions). I've done flashcards then stopped, started again, then stopped again. I've come to the conclusion that they aren't my preference, especially when starting out with a new language. It might still be good for maintanence though. For your Spanish, I would actually recommend you to memorize a novel and I know that most people will be shocked by this advice, but it's the most effective way to learn both words and structures. With practice, you can easily memorize around 600-700 words per hour. After that you'll be able to use everything you memorized perfectly, because you know it to be correct due to the fact that a native produced it in the first place. If you hate the idea of this, don't do it. It won't help you to try something you don't believe in or have an aversion against. As you seem to like Assimil for Spanish, keep doing that if you want. For your German, you shouldn't have to use flashcards at all. Instead, try to read or listen to things in German or just make it a habit to do your internet things in German, which means doing search engine searches in German, reading the German Wikipedia etc. You should be able to do that if you're at C1 level and this is a way to both maintain your level and to make it grow naturally. One thing I'd like to mention is that if you really only have one hour per day, it's not a good idea to study three languages at once. You'll will make very slow progress in all of them and might easily get frustrated by the lack of visible improvement. One hour really isn't all that much and I'd recommend you to spend it on a single language and to do that for at least a week. Then you can switch the language for a week, and so forth. Preferably though, get one language to at B2/C1 before moving on to the next. This probably came out a little bit unorganized, but I hope some of my ideas speak to you. Best of luck in your studies. =) 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 3 of 13 07 February 2012 at 1:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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What a great topic. Thanks for starting it. I spend one hour every morning so I too am interested in what people think.
I sometimes think about trying to pick up French now that my Spanish is fairly solid intermediate, but I don't like the idea of doing two languages in just one hour a day. I cannot imagine doing three languages. In terms of "how to make the most" of that hour, I think doing appropriate level self study classes (Pimsleur, Michel Thomas, Assimil, FSI, etc) is the way to go for someone who has a limited amount of time. The "advantage" of only having one hour a day is that it is easier to spend 100% of the study time doing high return active/intense studying (FSI, active Assimil, etc). If you want to take the "boring" factor out of the equation, I would think doing an hour of FSI drills every day would be the best way to make the most of the hour. Edit: in terms of what I specifically do - I do as many days of FSI as I can stand (about four days a week) and do LR with interesting books on the other days. Edited by James29 on 07 February 2012 at 1:55am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ElBrujo Newbie United States Joined 4709 days ago 29 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 13 07 February 2012 at 2:16am | IP Logged | |||||
Have you found LR to significantly improve your listening comprehension or any other aspect of your L2? Edited by ElBrujo on 07 February 2012 at 2:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 5 of 13 07 February 2012 at 2:16am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'd watch football :P
Flashcards are great for those hidden moments like when waiting/procrastinating. I personally can't imagine doing them for more than a few minutes at a time. Also, don't be afraid to delete cards. If it's important it'll come up again, maybe in a more interesting context. You do a lot in your target languages, that's awesome. What else you need depends on your goals and learning style. A couple of sites I really recommend are http://gloss.dliflc.edu/ and lyricstraining.com. A couple of techniques I recommend are shadowing and scriptorium http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Techniques have you seen ajatt.com yet? imo, FSI would be a somewhat good choice if you need to speak grammatically correctly asap (though really there are a lot of books and sites with drills) but even then I'd probably recommend shadowing in addition to that. Also, study your languages via one another, especially via German. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6553 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 6 of 13 07 February 2012 at 5:07am | IP Logged | |||||
600 words an hour? In a foreign language! What a giant of learning you must be, I alas am not endowed with such a prodigious memory and must settle for a mediocre 100, on a good day, after more study than the allotted hour. Or I have not practiced enough. My candle is a weak spluttering thing next to such a torch that lights the night. I'm off to spend my hour otherwise. It depends on the level and on the day, I think I'd be lucky if I got an hour every day. Early, I'd spend it listening and interacting in simple dialogues early on. Sprinkle in vocabulary, as an intermediate, and then move on. Advanced, a book here. And there dessert on Tuesdays. Every meal, so fine it might be, would taste the blandest salad if it was the same thing every day, day in, day out. Edited by zenmonkey on 07 February 2012 at 5:08am 11 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6295 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 7 of 13 07 February 2012 at 5:47am | IP Logged | |||||
Spend less time reading all the great conversations on this forum and more time putting some of the above suggestions into use. Everyone has a different style so I'd make some changes to better suit me. Instead of memorizing a novel, for example, I'd try to get back on track with this year's goal of memorizing a bunch of Tang poems. My memory isn't so great either so I'd focus on the short ones. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6551 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 8 of 13 07 February 2012 at 7:33am | IP Logged | |||||
If you truly only have 1 hour per day total for your 3 languages, regardless of how you arrange your time, your level will begin to drop in one or more of your languages. 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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