A language learners’ forum

IchBinEinPoly wrote: it's easy to listen to lots of stuff all day long, while doing other stuff. Perhaps it's only a fraction as effective as concentrated study, but concentrated study both burns you out quickly and can't be done while doing many other things

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I do concentrated study because it's one of my most reliable means of achieving Csikszentmihalyi's "flow" state. Studying intensively gives me a great mental high, and leaves me feeling calmer and more energetic for the rest of the day. There's a great similarity to the effect of meditation, at least for me.

And no, I can't do it all day long, but I don't think one is meant to. But doing it for longer stretches is an ability that one builds, like stamina for running.

IchBinEinPoly wrote:

Montmorency wrote:In any case, I'm not at all sure that it's the concentration that burns you out. Many people work at jobs which they are good at for 8 hours per day or more without burning out. I think burning out is to do with things like working at too fast a pace, trying to do too many things at once, continually working against a deadline, and simply being overloaded and working too long without a break.

Americans hate their jobs. Indeed, I reckon most people to do everywhere in the world. I, for one, would hate to make language learning like work.

That's not actually what the article you quoted said. I mean: it didn't say "most Americans hate their jobs".

In any case, a) we are not all Americans and b) I talked about people who enjoyed their jobs. Some people do.

and (from that article):

What makes employees happiest at work? “Interest in work,” which 59% said satisfied them and “people at work,” which 60.6% said they liked.

which is exactly what I'd expect. (I'm not talking about the numbers).

All of the factors you listed can exacerbate or increase the odds burn out, but simply applying mental effort for prolonged periods of time is sufficient to cause burnout.

Of course it can do, but if you suggest that people should never do it, we'd never get any decent research done, any decent science or engineering done, and I suppose people also concentrate in the liberal arts, but that's not my field.

Further, in my experience most of the people you claim aren't burned out actually are. We live in a burned out society that glorifies work for its own sake.

I don't think I claimed anyone was not burned out. I merely questioned the causes of burn-out. I don't think you are concentrating enough on what you are reading. Let me guess: you are under 30?

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At a certain point, it will almost take sheer will power not to produce any output...if you're anything like I was as a language student.

nuncapense wrote:What is the consensus on input only language learning these days? Does it produce people who can understand really well but can't speak? I have been focusing on Spanish input while living in Mexico. I think my speaking is really bad. I meet with a tutor once a week and we have a conversation, but I don't get a lot of speaking practice except with really simple things like buying food.

I've never forced myslef to speak or write in English and I've spoken it maybe for about 25 hours in total and have written for another 50 but I think that I can express my thoughts in the language quite fluently and nobody has ever said to me that they don't understand what I'm trying to convey. Sure, I do mistakes, lots of them without knowing it, but hey, I'm a language student and there's nothing wrong in making mistakes unless you don't want to learn on them.
Instead I put all my effort in reading and listening and I benefit from it massivley. Sure, it's a great thing to use your language knowledge because it really helps you to become confindent and thus fluent but I don't see a reason for forcing yourself to use your TL if you don't need or don't want to do so. I've many times noticed that I'm having problems with speaking Polish (particulary with using correct gramma rules), which is my native language, when I'm trying to force myself either to talk with people or write anything.

Besides, I'll say it again, since I already wrote about that matter a couple weeks ago, there was the time in my life when I didn't talk with people almost at all and only wrote from time to time in Polish for about 7 years (I studied Philosophy and Psychology and I was a bit too engorssed in that) but thanks to a great amount of time I spent on reading my language skills (active ones, of course) skyrocketed. I know that it was a massive exposure on my native language but any way it worked and I can see that also same thing works with English. Of course, I don't know which level of fluency in English I would have reached if I had spoken it at least from time to time but it doesn't bother me because, as I said before, I'm eager to use a language only if I want or really need to do so. No, I'm not an introvert... not any more.

But if someone wants to start speaking as soon as possible due personal goals maybe it's a good idea to do so right of the bat. No idea, I've never tried that approach to language learning. Personally I don't understand why nowdays language coaches insist on speaking from the very beginning. Maybe they want to induce the feeling "wow! I can really speak my TL" in their clients, no idea.

I can't be quite sure how many hours I've spent learning English passively but I presume that I've invested no more than 3000 hours in it... Actually, I'm sure that I haven't invested in learning more than that. About 2500 solely in exposure (75% reading books) and 500 in learning the grammar and using Anki for the vocabulary aquisition.

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