Morgana wrote:Do you Xmmm, and if I can be so bold as to also address this question in your log to reineke, figure there's an optimal concentration of time in acquiring your B2/2000 hours?
Is 1 hour/day for 2000 days just as good as 2 hours/day for 1000 days, and are either of those just as good as 4 hours/day for 500 days? If they're not just as good, are they "ok" (will get there but maybe need more than 2000 hours) or are they "bad" (it won't work below X hours/day)?
I cannot adequately express how appealing the lazy slug/just watch tv method is to me in theory. In practice I don't know if I have the ability to make myself watch (likely mostly incomprehensible for a long time) tv for 2+ hours everyday (in at least 2 languages), but I also hate Anki, so, not saying the former couldn't be done if the prize is ditching the latter.
Regardless, I find these posts quite riveting and am grateful you (Xmmm), reineke, and anyone else following such a "method" bothers to share the details and progress updates. It's always thought provoking.
Edit: formatting
Hi Morgana,
More is better, but an hour a day is enough and it's fine to skip days if you binge-watch to make up for it. It's not studying, it's just watching TV.
For a category 1 language you'll be amazed how fast it becomes comprehensible. Don't be afraid to use TL subtitles in the first 200 hours if it improves your comprehension, but be sure to get rid of them later. After 500 hours, the average learner who has already completed Duolingo will understand more than half of a dubbed TV drama. After 1000 hours it's more than 80%.
Category 4 is at least twice as slow. Maybe 2.5x. It's frustrating and requires patience and determination.
One thing that really made my life easy: after 500 hours of Italian TV, my comprehension was good enough that I could listen to Italian audiobooks, even if I hadn't read the book before. I was able to switch to listening to audiobooks in the car during my commute, which opened up the evenings for Russian and Turkish TV.
Don't think about studying 1 or 2 hours a day, think "I no longer watch English language TV. I no longer read English language books." When I want to watch TV, I have to choose among what is available in Italian, Russian, Turkish. Ditto when I read.
The only problem I have is that I can find better Italian and Turkish TV than Russian. And reading Italian is much easier for me than reading Russian. So I tend to shortchange Russian these days. I use the super challenge to keep me focused there -- and actually I really need to ramp up my Russian reading the rest of this year if I'm going to complete the challenge.
My whole approach, and the only way I know how to actually learn a language, was inspired by reineke's own story and his links to Antonio Graceffo. So if he disagrees with anything I said here, he's right and I'm wrong. But I'm offering the perspective of the average learner, which I do think is of value to most average learners.
