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Digestion time for Learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 3933 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes  Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 1 of 10 31 March 2014 at 5:02am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm noticing an interesting phenomenon.
A lot of my language learning takes place on the weekend as you can tell from my questions :) So I studied a bit on friday night, then on saturday afternoon and night. I was planning to study on sunday afternoon and then relax in the evening. But I found myself unable to study on sunday afternoon, it felt like I had not digested the previously studied material, and that if I studied, or even revised; some stuff I had learned would slip away from the brain. So I wasted time away. In the night, I was back to normal, I could study. I had assumed digestion/consolidation occurs during sleep, but apparently I have to spend some waking hours in low power mode for digestion. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4209 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 2 of 10 31 March 2014 at 8:13am | IP Logged | ||
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It happens to me as well, needing time to let information sink in.
However I don't think that you waste time studying even if that knowledge didn't stay with you at first: the second time round you'll probably remember. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5617 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 10 31 March 2014 at 2:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Not all 'digestion' happens during sleep. The bulk of it does, but I usually find I can use the material better after two nights of sleep, plus of course the time inbetween. And after taking long walks.
I personally prefer testing/using on the third day over reviewing on the second day, because reviewing is boring and I never know which parts of those I recognize I won't remember the next day, and which parts I will remember because they suddenly make sense to me. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6448 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 4 of 10 31 March 2014 at 4:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Native materials at an appropriate level can provide the enzymes too
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 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5383 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 10 31 March 2014 at 5:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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With Anki, I've noticed a version of this, but over a much longer time scale. Sometimes, I'll throw fairly hard material into my Anki decks: Challenging audio clips from movies, or sentences where the grammar makes no sense even after multiple readings (though the latter are getting quite rare).
The first several times I review these cards in Anki, I struggle, and it's no fun. But sometime later—typically between 20 and 40 days after I first review the card—I'll see the card again, and it will be completely obvious. I'll ask myself, "What was so hard about this card, anyway?" It's not really a gradual process: the card will be fairly hard during one review, and during the next review, it will be ridiculously easy. I've also noticed that Anki makes a distinction between new cards and "mature" cards, and the dividing line seems to fall somewhere near the 30 day mark. So maybe other people have noticed some sort of change at about the same point. Anyway, the brain is a strange place. It would be interesting to spend some time reading about memory consolidation, I imagine. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4295 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 6 of 10 10 April 2014 at 7:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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According to Luca Lampariello the Italian polyglot, you cannot force yourself into learning words &
phrases because your brain is going to rebel. When learning any language, there are simple words & phrases we would come across constantly. Once we know the meaning we would have no trouble remembering them. Other words & phrases we encounter only once we wouldn't recall the next time we come across them. We just have to keep a list of words & phrases we don't use as much as review them once in a while. Part of the problems of learning is getting enough exposure to a language. If you happen to be an exchange student in a foreign country, you would have less trouble with a new language because you would be using it constantly. Your exposure would be increased substantially. If you are learning at home in an environment where there is less opportunity for using the language, you would need to rework your schedule to get your exposure up. 6 months ago I was working on Mandarin I had to remove almost all the TV & radio programs I'd normally listen to in English. Instead of relying on textbooks, I would be reading a newspaper in the language every other day, watching TV and listening to radio discussions in the language to get the exposure up. You keep a list of new words & phrases but at the same time do a lot of things you would in a language like you are living abroad including going shopping, listening to the radio, watching TV. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5242 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 7 of 10 10 April 2014 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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The book I got from Language Hunters, (which you can consult
here) has an interesting section regarding the role of rest in processing new information. They liken it to rest days for building muscle and to kneading dough (the stretch and fold metaphor):
It's also the way SRS works - forgetting is part of the process of remembering. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4159 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 8 of 10 12 April 2014 at 1:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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As I would use the metaphor, I digest a chunk of audio with the assistance of text over
the course of about one week to ten days, at my current work rate of about 4 hours a day. It is "digested" when I can quite easily understand and speak the sentences while listening to them - without missing any meaning. Typically I see a number between 50 and 80 on my itunes playcount for these tracks. This is adequately "digested" for me to move on to a fresh chunk of audio with text, although further stages of "digestion "would be to be able to paraphrase the content of the lesson, and to know every formal feature of the sentence e.g. tenses, noun genders. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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