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Time limits | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4912 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes  Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 1 of 17 25 November 2010 at 2:04am | IP Logged | ||
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I see many people posting that they are setting goals for themselves to become fluent within a certain time frame.
I'm curious as to how everyone arrives at their specific time periods. There are, of course, certain instances where it's obvious why; the Fluentin3months blogger I get - he only spends 3 months in any one place. I look at my own learning and am not putting any time limits on myself, but I'm also studying three different languages at the same time, so I suppose it's easy for me to let one of them slip for a couple days while I focus on one of the others. I also have no immediate plans to visit any of the places where my languages are spoken, other than "within a year" for at least one of them. I'm just curious how everyone decides what their learning time limits are. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hobbema Senior Member United States Joined 5523 days ago 541 posts - 575 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Portuguese, French, Dutch | Message 2 of 17 25 November 2010 at 2:23am | IP Logged | ||
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Good question, I've wondered that myself. I'm not criticizing, I've just not myself been able to accomplish that.
I myself don't have time limits set. I do this as a hobby with possible long term business applications. But I can tell you that even after hours and hours and hours of study I can't say I'm fluent in anything. Based on my experience, and what I've read elsewhere, I think it's realistic with casual, semi-disciplined self study to become "fluent" in 5-8 years. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5475 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 3 of 17 25 November 2010 at 5:18am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't use the word "fluency," but I generally find that having specific goals for my languages by a specified time is an extremely effective motivator for study in the present moment. For instance, when I knew I was about to go spend half a year living in Germany, I spent the months beforehand intensely working on my German, and I achieved more in that time frame than I had previously thought possible. I had only the vague goal of "being able to survive!"; meaning, being able to find and rent a room, register at the university, travel within and from Germany, etc. in the language.
I guess what I'm saying is, the way I use time limits is basically like this: I say to myself, "I'll need to be able to get by in language X by time point Y because of (whatever reason), so I'd better get my butt in gear," and then whether I reach my vaguely-defined "goal" or not, at least I've made a good amount of progress. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6650 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 4 of 17 26 November 2010 at 5:10am | IP Logged | ||
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I've always had a hard time with time limits, although in the beginning of my language learning career it was mostly due to naivety about how big of bites I could manage.
For me, time limits are useful, but I still have issues in self-discipline. I recently made a goal to be at an advanced level in French by November, but I didn't manage it. Like Jinx, I don't quite focus on fluency so much as just getting better at the language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6076 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 5 of 17 26 November 2010 at 6:46am | IP Logged | ||
Well, not yet anyways. Aim for November 2011. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6885 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 6 of 17 26 November 2010 at 9:36am | IP Logged | ||
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I tend to avoid attempting to get to a "label" by a particular time - be it fluent or advanced or even"intermediate, mainly because it's difficult to know when you're done. Rather I like to target completion of a particular course by a planned time, taking into account the number of lessons and the amount of time taken for a lesson.
Assimil is easy, I try to do one passive lesson per day; the same is true for Pimsleur but something like FSI is a bit more tricky as it's not so simple to estimate the time it takes to complete a unit. I've been using the app mentioned in this thread to both monitor and plan progress, a week at a time. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5122 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 7 of 17 26 November 2010 at 10:37am | IP Logged | ||
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For me, I aim to achieve C2 level for both my Italian and Spanish by end-December 2011, and preferably B1 level for my Korean, Russian, Portuguese and Dutch too. Hopefully I can make it...and as mentioned by some members on the forum, some people prefer to spend their time buying/selling/collecting iphones, mobile phones, laptops; vacationing; partying; for me, I prefer to spend my time learning languages and to explore the cultures/literature/history of the country/countries that speak the languages that I am learning. Edited by noriyuki_nomura on 27 November 2010 at 6:04pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| CheeseInsider Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4904 days ago 193 posts - 238 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin* Studies: French, German | Message 8 of 17 26 November 2010 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | ||
Fluent in 5-8 years? That's incredibly pessimistic... 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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