How much Grindage?

[smallwhite]

So you're defining grindage as applying effort to recall something for 2 seconds or more?

yes

Thank you for answering my questions, for answering them one by one, and for answering all of them.

I'm interested in this topic because I've also noticed magic about the recalling process. And the "2 seconds" extra bit got me thinking.

What is your learning goal when you say "should"? Should xxx in order to learn faster, in order to learn better, to make learning more enjoyable, to prevent burnout which is important because if you burnout you simply give up, etc.

I think you sort of answered your own question. I do grindage to improve my efficiency, but I know from experience that too much has a detrimental effect, for example.

Then no one would answer "as much as possible", no?

I find learning faster/better and having fun/preventing burnout to be contradictory goals. And having contradictory goals is a pain. To have cake or to eat cake?

Quantity (number of times of recall attempt) or time duration each attempt (5 seconds better than 2 seconds) or total duration of recalling or intensity?

I was thinking total accumulated time, but maybe the factors you mention are better indicators; I'm not sure.

First of all, my experience is consistent with the "Testing Effect"(?) hypothesis(?) - revision by recalling aids memory more than revision by just looking.

I also find it beneficial (aids memory) to keep trying to recall until I get the answer, instead of giving up and looking at the answer. In this sense, grindage should be as much as possible. If grindage per instance (per card) cannot be near zero (instantaneous recall) then it should be as much as possible (should keep trying).

But having to spend 2s+ to recall a fact means you don't know your material well enough. You don't want to spend 20+ seconds to string together a 10-word sentence (2s x 10words). You want instantaneous recall of facts instead. In this sense, grindage should be as little as possible. Total grindage time should be as little as possible.

So I can't answer the poll.

Your question is similar to the question "Should we be making more or fewer mistakes?"

I also find it unnecessary to call "trying to recall things for 2 seconds or more" "grindage". So "trying to recall things for 5 seconds or more" will be called "grindment"?

The things you've noticed about grindage, and the difference you've noticed between Luca and Arguelles and you, are probably just good ol' "intensity" instead of "grindage". Unless they're not actually better than you.

And to answer the poll - I like to "divide and conquer", to break difficult and thus annoying tasks into easier sub-tasks. Better to do more easy tasks than to do fewer difficult tasks. In this sense, I think grindage should be as little as possible.

[leosmith]

Then no one would answer "as much as possible", no?

Some have though.

[smallwhite]

Then no one would answer "as much as possible", no?

Some have though.

Because their answer is not based on your goal, on what you mean by "should".

I'm surprised 29% of voters chose "As much as possible". I've always felt that members on this forum mostly choose fun over results. Yet 29% voters think there should be as much pulling-hair-out as possible. That tasks should be difficult. Should be i+10. Hmmm. I wonder what they do to increase grindage, then.

[Seneca]

Then no one would answer "as much as possible", no?

Some have though.

Because their answer is not based on your goal, on what you mean by "should".

I'm surprised 29% of voters chose "As much as possible". I've always felt that members on this forum mostly choose fun over results. Yet 29% voters think there should be as much pulling-hair-out as possible. That tasks should be difficult. Should be i+10. Hmmm. I wonder what they do to increase grindage, then.

Are fun and results mutually exclusive?

[smallwhite]

Are fun and results mutually exclusive?

Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Are they never mutually exclusive for you?

[Sizen]

I'm surprised 29% of voters chose "As much as possible". I've always felt that members on this forum mostly choose fun over results. Yet 29% voters think there should be as much pulling-hair-out as possible. That tasks should be difficult. Should be i+10. Hmmm. I wonder what they do to increase grindage, then.

I'm one of the people who answered "as much as possible". I don't think that tasks need to be i+10, just that the more effort I put into even the easiest of tasks, the better results I'll get. I take time to recall words; search my mind for etymological anchors, related words/phrases or parallel constructions in other familiar languages; think of synonyms or circumlocutions that would describe the same situation; antonyms; etc. The more I do this for even the simplest of words I learned long ago, the more the language is cemented in my mind. I still do lots of fun activities, but I strive to do as much of this as possible.

And to be honest, the more I do it, the less it feels like I'm pulling out my hair.

[zenmonkey]

If it's too easy - are you learning?
If it's too hard - are you learning?

Like Little Bo Beep of the Golden Locks and the Three Osos Perezosos....

The Grindage Must Be Just Right.

[Cainntear]

I've got two points to add to this thread (and yes, you've all heard them both before).

First up, I don't see any point creating new jargon. There's already too much jargon in language learning, and there's no point using a word if we have to explain it every time we use it. Besides, "grind" has too many negative connotations to be useful. To me, "grinding" is running around in an RPG killing easy monsters to get extra gold or experience points (and is one of my complaints about a lot of computer language packages).

Secondly, learning is fun.
"Fun" is our experience of mental stimulation, whether that stimulation arises from physical phenomena (eg riding a zipline, or a child on a swing) or from mental engagement (eg board games, card games).
Learning is a pure process of mental stimulation, and all fun experiences are learning experiences (the kid on the swings is always playing with their equilibrium and trying to find how to get that little bit faster or that little bit higher).

Well staged learning should actually have very little effort to it.

But on the other hand we (as self-teachers) can't stage the learning well, because we don't know enough about the target language and we don't have any experience of teaching it, so we're not going to make the process as easy as it could be, and we're going to have to put up with a little bit of resistance.

I think Steve Kauffman and Michel Thomas avoid it because it's a selling point: "you don't have to work to learn a language, you just soak it up like a sponge!"

No, they say it because they believe it. I don't believe Kauffman's faith in his process is well founded, but using a Thomas CD course was so much easier than anything else I've come across that I can only imagine what it would have been like studying with him in person.

In the case of LingQ, the staging of learning is very poor, and while he talks a lot about Krashen and i+1, there is no sequence through the materials that doesn't involve a heck of a lot of new language at every stage, hence there being so much more in terms of dictionaries, flashcards etc that Krashen explicitly talks against.

That said, though, 2 seconds isn't a long time to be trying to recall a recently-learned word, so as long as that's what it's used for, I don't see much of a problem.

[Tillumadoguenirurm]

Sorry, I still wonder whzt the hell grindage mean. 'Tis the same as "effort" ?

[Serpent]

I'm having a hard time finding Arguelles grindage info, so maybe I'm wrong about him.

He did say he avoids looking up the new vocabulary instantly and instead waits until it turns into "known unknowns", words that he may find himself recalling in the shower and wondering about the meaning.
(this stage comes after reading parallel texts with 80% coverage)

I'm not sure it's necessarily good for an average learner unless you can genuinely avoid attaching a meaning you're not sure about.