How much language study do you do?

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How much language study do you do on average per day?

The options:
0
No votes
<Less than 1 hour a day
20
22%
One hour per day
29
31%
2 hours per day
25
27%
3 hours per day
9
10%
4 hours per day
3
3%
5 hours per day
2
2%
>6 hours per day
5
5%
 
Total votes: 93

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JohannaNYC
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Re: How much language study do you do?

Postby JohannaNYC » Sun Jan 15, 2017 2:49 pm

I voted for 3 hours, but depending on the day I study and read between 1.5 and 4.5 hours. That's not counting TV and music. I have time for more, but Arabic is just exhausting. I often have to lie down after just 30 mins of intense Arabic study.
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Re: How much language study do you do?

Postby dinosaur_alley » Sun Jan 15, 2017 3:03 pm

It varies throughout the week but probably averages out at slightly more than an hour a day. I'm hoping that when my Spanish is at a level that I can enjoy native materials it will be more interesting and I can bear to do more!
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dampingwire
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Re: How much language study do you do?

Postby dampingwire » Sun Jan 15, 2017 6:58 pm

Well last year it averaged out at over 3 hours per day. Half of that will have been listening (while commuting or walking or cycling), but as that seems to count, I included it.
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smallwhite
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Re: How much language study do you do?

Postby smallwhite » Mon Jan 16, 2017 12:59 am

If I have L2 radio in the background for, say, 8 hours a day that I may or may not pay attention to, how do I count it?
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Re: How much language study do you do?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Mon Jan 16, 2017 7:02 pm

For radio/podcasts/audiobooks:
Full attention - eight hours, "half" attention - four hours, no attention - nothing.

When I was keeping track of TV/movies in target languages, I divided the duration by two - and I still think that was an exaggerated amount. Perhaps a sitcom is that dialogue-intense, but a movie? No way.
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Re: How much language study do you do?

Postby whatiftheblog » Wed Jan 18, 2017 2:57 am

I try to do at least six hours daily, including talk TV/radio that I actually listen to (sometimes while performing mindless chores). Everything I watch is dialogue-intense by default, since it's all about what people, notably political personalities, are saying, or else it's a documentary of some kind with constant narration.

I don't know that I would necessarily classify it as language "study", since there really isn't very much left for me to formally study, except for grammar refreshers, which I do from time to time. It's more like language absorption, and I'm trying to even out the percentage of time I spend on each skill, though this still requires some effort in terms of convincing myself to turn off Youtube and go do other French things. To this end, I've started a Coursera class in French - it's an École Polytechnique class on probabilities, which requires me to take notes in French and actually think through the material itself, so it holds my interest for longer periods of time than a standard lecture-based class would.

Given that I'm doing this with a clear goal in mind and a deadline, I'd ideally like to push this up to at least 8 hours a day. I recognized that I need to get creative in order to find those extra hours to fill with French - for instance, I bought a Bluetooth shower speaker today so that I can start attentively listening to the news or to a podcast as soon as I'm up without significantly adjusting my morning schedule. We'll see how this goes starting tomorrow :)
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Expugnator
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Re: How much language study do you do?

Postby Expugnator » Fri Jan 27, 2017 7:41 pm

My prompt answer is usually 8 hours, but that only having weekdays in mind, so the weekly average is lower. I should discount lunch breaks but I'm actually listening to audiobooks during lunchbreaks so that counts as well. Also during commuting, which adds 45 min more to a 9-hour workday. There are interruptions as well, so I think it's safe to put it as 8 hours and a half each weekday, which makes a total of 42 hours and a half and thus allows me to keep my vote >6 at the poll :lol:

These 8+hours a day are divided unevenly (but not so) through my current 10 languages: Papiamento, Norwegian, Estonian, Russian, Mandarin, French, Georgian, German, Italian and Modern Greek. My sessions alternate intensive and extensive activities, so I do count it all as studying. It's not like I'm just sitting and relaxing, even though my attention does wander, especially when supposedly watching comedy TV shows in native languages without a defined plot.
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Re: How much language study do you do?

Postby Pilikku » Fri Jan 27, 2017 8:16 pm

Depends.
When I lived in a different country I learned the language 10 hours per day and it was harsh. My brain didn't have time to arrange the information. After I returned to my home country I took half an year break and let my head sort itself out. Now everything makes sense again and I am back to normal. It's about 1 hours per day, but not even every day. And sometimes I have these "I need to learn something new" -days and I will study all day. I like learning, but I don't want to learn languages every day.
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Re: How much language study do you do?

Postby reineke » Fri Jan 27, 2017 8:20 pm

If we're not counting TV and reading/listening without any language aids, I don't study at all.
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Re: How much language study do you do?

Postby rdearman » Sat Jan 28, 2017 1:09 pm

Not enough.
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