How would you study a language with 3 hours per day?

[smallwhite]

I wonder how you can't-learn-for-3-hours-a-day people survive work and school? Are 8-hour work days and 6-hour school days torture for you? Or do you manage to sit there but just can't learn anything after the first hour? How did you study for exams? How do you survive parenthood?

Diminishing marginal utility. Check it out!

And yes, 8 hour workdays are torture. I read in sapiens: Краткая история человечества that the Agricultural Revolution was a giant con. Hunter gatherers only worked 4 hours a day and ate better food than all the suckers who moved to the farm.

That's what I mean - how do you people with dminishing returns that set in so quickly (before 3 hours) learn anything at school and at work or when parenting.

[Adrianslont]

I wonder how you can't-learn-for-3-hours-a-day people survive work and school? Are 8-hour work days and 6-hour school days torture for you? Or do you manage to sit there but just can't learn anything after the first hour? How did you study for exams? How do you survive parenthood?

Diminishing marginal utility. Check it out!

And yes, 8 hour workdays are torture. I read in sapiens: Краткая история человечества that the Agricultural Revolution was a giant con. Hunter gatherers only worked 4 hours a day and ate better food than all the suckers who moved to the farm.

That's what I mean - how do you people with dminishing returns that set in so quickly (before 3 hours) learn anything at school and at work or when parenting.

Well, you are probably being extreme when you say “learn anything” but perhaps people with the diminishing returns that set in quickly are just less successful at school, don’t get ahead at work and let the tv/iPad do a lot of the child rearing? I speak only for myself.

On the other hand, I also see people who don’t work particularly hard do well at school and work for various reasons eg school isn’t actually so hard if you have good thinking genes, you pick easy courses, you find the right niche at work, you have a skill set that’s in demand yet not too taxing. It’s harder for most to hide with parenthood but even then there are ways eg if you have an income that supports lots of paid childcare, a nanny or a generous grandparent.

[Decidida]

I have learned two techniques from other law students.

The Pomodoro Technique
https://lifehacker.com/productivity-101 ... 1598992730

And a method from a jailhouse lawyer
Sit on the floor in a circle of books, and switch from one to book to another, rotating in a circle.

Switching from book, to audio, to video, and getting up to clean for 15 minutes with a specific goal. Hand wash a sweater, wash the dishes, clean the toilet.

Lists that I can cross off as I go.

[smallwhite]

I was waiting for your comments, smallwhite - I knew they would run counter to the flow!

I don't know how to comment because I don't know what to comment in contrast to. I work desk jobs with deadlines for 8+ hours a day so 3 hours of language hobby is... way easier? I believe my kindergarten days were longer than 3 hours. At the A0 stage textbooks are all in English and thus easy to read. I like to start with Teach Yourself which reads like a Year 7 textbook. I'm not trying to remember everything as I read so I'm reading these English books about as casually as I read this forum. And when I read my 2nd textbook, say, Colloquial, it's repetition and even easier. A0 is taught in Sydney to 12-year-olds or in Hong Kong to 4-year-olds (English) so the concepts must be something very easy for an adult, unlike physics or accounting. I have a harder time following Bones and NCIS investigations.

[Adrianslont]

I was waiting for your comments, smallwhite - I knew they would run counter to the flow!

I don't know how to comment because I don't know what to comment in contrast to. I work desk jobs with deadlines for 8+ hours a day so 3 hours of language hobby is... way easier? I believe my kindergarten days were longer than 3 hours. At the A0 stage textbooks are all in English and thus easy to read. I like to start with Teach Yourself which reads like a Year 7 textbook. I'm not trying to remember everything as I read so I'm reading these English books about as casually as I read this forum. And when I read my 2nd textbook, say, Colloquial, it's repetition and even easier. A0 is taught in Sydney to 12-year-olds or in Hong Kong to 4-year-olds (English) so the concepts must be something very easy for an adult, unlike physics or accounting. I have a harder time following Bones and NCIS investigations.

I think you are different to most people, smallwhite! Most people find a textbook, even a year seven text book, more challenging than a light, entertaining TV show (I don’t know about the two shows you mention in particular because I am not a big TV watcher myself and don’t know those two). It’s something to do with most brains wanting to take the easy option? I envy your love of text books and your discipline (just a bit because I manage anyway).

[garyb]

At school we usually switched between subjects every 50 minutes or so, and classes could be a mixture of new material, revision, and discussion. A 6-hour day of just maths or just English would have been a struggle. I find that in the "mental" jobs I've done (mostly programming and design), there are occasional very taxing moments of solving complicated problems but the majority of the work is routine stuff, nowhere near as overwhelming as taking in a new language. I've read that people who do very mentally taxing work, simultaneous interpretation being the example I saw, work in short bursts and find it impossible to keep it up for hours. I don't think it's a fair comparison, as it's not just about the time but also the mental effort required.

[Beli Tsar]

I was waiting for your comments, smallwhite - I knew they would run counter to the flow!

I believe my kindergarten days were longer than 3 hours. At the A0 stage textbooks are all in English and thus easy to read. I like to start with Teach Yourself which reads like a Year 7 textbook. I'm not trying to remember everything as I read so I'm reading these English books about as casually as I read this forum.

I think you are different to most people, smallwhite! Most people find a textbook, even a year seven text book, more challenging than a light, entertaining TV show (I don’t know about the two shows you mention in particular because I am not a big TV watcher myself and don’t know those two). It’s something to do with most brains wanting to take the easy option? I envy your love of text books and your discipline (just a bit because I manage anyway).

Doesn't a lot of this depend on how much you are used to learning languages? I'm happy reading serious academic philosophy, theology, or history for hours. But language learning, when you are still relatively new to it is mind-bendingly exhausting at times! My mind just stops absorbing things. School very rarely challenges you to learn as many new concepts as self-studied language learning does.

And when it comes to 8-hour work days, I'd say most workdays are much easier - and more varied. I used to work as an editor, which required serious concentration to do well. There's a reason we'd have a quiet block of 3 hours editing, and then do easy things, like email, negotiating contracts, and marketing stuff, for the rest of the day!

But then smallwhite must have learned her languages somehow, so perhaps I'm just weak.

[jeff_lindqvist]

Last time I studied languages in a group setting was during my immersion weeks in Ireland. Up to 5 hours of classroom studies, but with necessary coffee breaks.

I can engage in activities for longer time periods than 15-20 minutes. My forte is music, and I can easily play for many hours without breaks. But that's not learning. After some 27 years in the genre, I've built up the stamina.

[Axon]

I don't know how to comment because I don't know what to comment in contrast to. I work desk jobs with deadlines for 8+ hours a day so 3 hours of language hobby is... way easier? I believe my kindergarten days were longer than 3 hours.

I believe you may be one of the unlucky few who have a desk job and are fully occupied during the day. Certainly the stereotype I'm familiar with is that you have bursts of work and then idle hours where your brain slowly goes numb. In that case you have plenty of time to distract yourself and avoid getting used to really putting eight hours of consistent work into anything.

[IronMike]

In DLI we did 7-hour days, based on 7 x 50-minute class sessions. We didn't necessarily get up and switch classes each 'hour' (unless going to the lab), but we did change subjects or modalities regularly. Throw lunch in there to split the day. PT and dinner after class. And of course the hours and hours of homework at the end of the day. Your day was pretty much full from 0500-2200, roughly.

My refresher class at FLTCE in 1990 was 7-weeks long in a class of about 5-7 people. It was much like DLI as far as the variety of teachers and subjects, but included one morning per week a 1-hour one-on-one speaking session with a teacher. It also included a daily, one-hour Russian grammar class which was taught in English. My Reading and Speaking skills went up two steps (1 to 2) and my Listening went up one (1 to 1+) at the end of the 7 weeks. And that includes a wasted first week of class as it coincided with Oktoberfest.

My few one-on-one sessions (2009 and 2014) throughout my career were for no more than four hours per day, and again generally on a 50-min class length, with a change of subject or modality. This would be followed by 3-4 hours of homework to complete the day. My only issue with these types of class (and the longest of these I've ever had was 4.5 weeks long) was hearing the same voice every day. I improved my proficiency levels in all 3 testable skills (listening, reading, speaking) by one step at the end of each of these sessions (2009: 2L/2R/1+S to 2+/2+/2; 2014: 2/2/2 to 2+/2+/2+).

This isn't an answer to the OP but to smallwhite. In all these examples, I'm receiving instruction. I can study a language almost any amount of hours per day if I'm getting instruction. When I'm studying on my own, my diminishing returns starts at about one hour, depending upon what skill I'm working on and if I'm working on the language straight through vs. breaking it into 15-min segments throughout the day (like my commute).