A bit of necromancy didn't kill anyone, after all...
TopDog_IK wrote:800 hours isn't much to pick up the basics of a new language.
Could be way too much, depending of language and what we mean by "basics". A0? A1? A2? Passive or active skills ?
TopDog_IK wrote:The average American spends 5 hours per day watching TV. If they simply shifted their habits and instead watched 5 hours of French or Chinese per day, they would rack up 1,825 hours of immersion per year.
This might vary quite a bit based on the background of the learner, but pretty sure for a native English speaker French and Chinese would yield
very different results. Now, let's imagine 2 hours of work familiarizing with language structure, vocabulary and practicing some output, and 3 hours watching TV. Or even 1:4. Probably would be an improvement.
You suggest the modern version of what the arabian diplomat character played by Banderas in "13th Warrior" did to learn some form of Old Norse. It was fiction though, and even there he had the help of some translation via broken Latin.