|
 |
Fastest to ever learn a foreign language? | ||
Tags: Fluency | Time to learn | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| vb Octoglot Senior Member Afghanistan Joined 6422 days ago 112 posts - 135 votes  Speaks: English, Romanian, French, Polish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 17 of 36 25 March 2010 at 9:48am | IP Logged | ||
The problem that I've encountered with >8 hr days of language study is mental stress and associated dangers: general tiredness, anxiety, irritability. If I've been doing a few days on the trot of super-focused work, my brain often rebels and refuses to process new information - I feel like crying (not for any emotional reason)/get headaches and feel generally incoherent. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5986 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 18 of 36 25 March 2010 at 10:19am | IP Logged | ||
|
Interesting to hear. Did you focus on one topic for that time? I wonder if it would be more effective time-wise to do 4 hours of language A, and 4 hours of language B, instead of 8 hours of language A. Or are you talking about all language study in general for 8 hours on those days?
It'd be interesting to experimentally find the optimal amount of study time. Perhaps something like 5 or 6 hours is the most that one can expect to get. There could be some sort of "diminishing returns" effect after some point. Then again, perhaps there's room for "training" to help you increase the amount of viable hours in the day. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vb Octoglot Senior Member Afghanistan Joined 6422 days ago 112 posts - 135 votes Speaks: English, Romanian, French, Polish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 19 of 36 25 March 2010 at 10:35am | IP Logged | ||
Well, for instance, the last three days I've been doing 6 hrs grammar exercises (Polish), 1 hr speaking (Polish), 1 hr tv (German) and 2 hrs tv (Polish). Yesterday evening I felt that I had got somewhat over-stimulated and I ended up waking up far too early today. I've tried doing 3 or more languages in one day and found switching reasonably stressful, tho' this might have been because I was at an early stage in all of them. I read recently that Henry Ford introduced the 8 hr working day standard, having found that 9 hrs or above was detrimental. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5986 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 20 of 36 25 March 2010 at 10:43am | IP Logged | ||
|
Thanks for your example schedule. I commend you on your ability to do grammar exercises, since I would certainly not last anywhere near that long. I've found that sitting and reading while listening to an audiobook for about 3 hours doesn't take too much effort, though. That way I don't have to actually "do" much beyond soaking it up. For a longer day, I'd assume that it would be easier to focus on the more passive activities such as that, or watching TV.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vb Octoglot Senior Member Afghanistan Joined 6422 days ago 112 posts - 135 votes Speaks: English, Romanian, French, Polish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 21 of 36 25 March 2010 at 11:46am | IP Logged | ||
Yeah, tho' watching the telly can be turned into a very strenuous work-out, if you decide to translate simultaneously/note down words that elude you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 22 of 36 25 March 2010 at 12:28pm | IP Logged | ||
Are you are actually concentrated for that long? I'm pretty sure you miss large chunks of it. I would. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5986 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 23 of 36 25 March 2010 at 12:49pm | IP Logged | ||
|
No, that's actually reading every word, while listening to the audiobook. I'm pretty good at ignoring the outside world, especially with my noise-cancellation headphones. I take several breaks in the middle, maybe once per hour or so. Some days I do two separate chunks of 1.5 hours each that are separated by several hours. I do whatever feels good at the time.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FrenchLanguage Senior Member Germany Joined 5736 days ago 122 posts - 135 votes | Message 24 of 36 25 March 2010 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | ||
|
"I see 3 months being a minimum for the average person, assuming the maximum of all factors besides raw ability."
3 months sounds like very little time, actually (less than I would have assumed). Then again I guess it depends on how we'd define ability? I remember I must have been fluent in English within about a year (however I did know some basics from school - then again it really wasnt that much). I immersed myself in it at home, and wasnt abroad, but...when I say immersed I mean immersed :-). so honestly Im not sure if I could have progressed much faster if I had been abroad (b/c I was totally immersed anyway). Now that I know how I would go about learning a language I might be able to do it significantly faster, but I wouldn't really dream of achieving something Id call "fluency" within less than half a year of extreme immersion (then again maybe Im underestimating myself?). That being said, I don' think I'm of average ability when it comes to learning languages (including how quickly I learned them in comparison to others)...hopefully this doesnt make me sound arrogant, now (didnt mean to..) ...I just really couldnt see someone with average ability achieve a state of fluency within 3 months. Maybe I'm overestimating how difficult it is? (Irealize you said the absolute minimum, but I just dont see someone of average ability pulling that off?) really starting to wonder if my idea of how difficult it is to learn a foreign language has a lot to do with the fact that I learned the two I can speak w/o leaving my native country or knowing native speakers offline (only online)....Maybe English was actually faster than a year (been 10 years since then)?! PS: By fluency, I basically mean being able to say everything you want to say and understanding everything in a conversation (a few "hey wait a second..I dont know what this word means/how to say this/that" kind of work arounds would be okay in my book)....conversations on every day topics, not rocket science of course. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
