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Break even study hours | ||
Tags: Poll | Time to learn | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6353 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 1 of 17 28 August 2010 at 10:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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(warning - this is a codeine toothache induced poll; sorry if I ramble)
I'm interested in knowing what everyone thinks the minimum number of hours per year is, on an average, required to learn a language to basic fluency as defined by this forum. By "hours" I mean total number of study hours, which includes reviews, watching TV, movies, listening to music as well as more traditional study methods. Let me try to explain why I'm curious. Lets say that approximately 1000 hours are required to learn Spanish. I believe that if I study 20 hours a year for 50 years, I won't become fluent. That's probably not even enough to reinforce itself and keep from being forgotten. On the other hand, I'm certain that 200 hours a year for 5 years is plenty. It might not be optimum, but that's another story. I'm studying 5 languages right now, 3 of which are below basic fluency. I know approximately how many hours I can put in, and I'm curious to see how many more languages I can add. My reason for studying several languages at once is that I seem to require several years for language to seep into my brain, even if I put in a very high number of hours per year. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| crackpot Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6104 days ago 144 posts - 178 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 2 of 17 28 August 2010 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I agree that it takes in the range of 1000 hours to learn Spanish.
200 hours per year is about 4 hours per week. I voted for other because I find that I need about 10 hours per week to improve at anything approaching a noticeable rate. Everyone knows best how they themselves learn, so I'd say do what works for you. Having said that, I prefer to get the hours in more quickly. I learned French in 1.5 years. I was working and going to school at night. In a year and a half I took 7 college courses and spent 700 hours with private tutors. My level took off and even now I can understand practically everything on the radio after about 5 minutes of warm up time even though I have only spoken French for 10 minutes in the last three years. My Spanish is a different story. I started it about 2 and a half years ago and am still trying to get to the same level as my French. The reason being that I am working, going to university and am a single dad now. This really cuts down my time available for studying. I have probably spent more time on Spanish than on French but because the learning has not been intense enough in the end I haven't learned as much. I hope this helps. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| apparition Octoglot Senior Member United States Joined 6453 days ago 600 posts - 667 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Pashto | Message 3 of 17 28 August 2010 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It is better to focus on actual linguistic objectives (use of certain structures,
vocabulary words, etc) than to focus on hours spent. Time might be the easiest way to measure your progress relative to the more essential, yet less quantitative factors, but that does not make it the best guide. Focusing on time creates the absurdity you mentioned above, that being of a learner studying a language 20 hours a year for 50 years. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6353 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 4 of 17 28 August 2010 at 6:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't really understand you comment - how is this going to help me figure out how many languages I can study at one time? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| mikemike Newbie Canada Joined 5006 days ago 10 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 5 of 17 28 August 2010 at 8:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
What do you think of studying 1 language for 2 years, and then incorporating another language. You can then decrease the amount of hours in the first language, and devote more to the second. I think this is a more viable approach. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5452 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 6 of 17 28 August 2010 at 8:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Focusing on time spent isn't as effective as focusing on objectives during studying.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Guido Super Polyglot Senior Member ArgentinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6331 days ago 286 posts - 582 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Norwegian, Catalan, Dutch, Swedish, Danish Studies: Russian, Indonesian, Romanian, Polish, Icelandic | Message 7 of 17 28 August 2010 at 9:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I voted for "other". For me, that means "700 hours per year" (2 hours a day)
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| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 5908 days ago 707 posts - 1219 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 8 of 17 28 August 2010 at 9:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If the target language is very different from anything else you've studied, it'll take an intensive effort to get familiar with it. I'm studying Polish so I study about 4 hours a day (mon-fri) or 1000 hours a year. Any less than this and I don't think I would have the necessary impetus to make real progress.
You're studying some challenging languages; Mandarin, Japanese and Russian....maybe concentrate on one for a year then think about adding another? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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