lavengro wrote:My post was a complete, utter joke. To make such a claim is obvious nonsense - that is why I decided I did not need to use the forum's "I'm just joking" font. I assumed (apparently mistakenly) that this would be apparent to readers of this forum.
Unfortunately, the author of the site I have linked to appears to consider this to be more of a super lame hook to try to catch the really gullible than the ridiculous claim it actually is.
Phew! I'm glad you were joking...I'm very new to this forum.
Babbel says, "...the central principle of the Babbel language learning approach is that people should spend about 15 minutes per day studying a new language." "Start learning a language now. It only takes 15 minutes per day!"
The point of this blog is that learning a new language will require time and effort.
The time needed to learn a language is relative and different from one person to another, depending on multiple factors. The 1000 hours is relative and it is just an approximation. I think that the 1000 hours will be an adequate time to get your new language to advance levels if, for example, your native language is English, and you want to learn one of the popular European languages to a high competency level.
The learner's goal to learn the language will influence the amount of time to achieve that, for example. If the goal is to order meals in a restaurant and be able to understand street signs in train stations or airports (typical tourist), then a beginner's level will be adequate. If the goal is to read newspaper articles, watch movies, and read general everyday content; then, an intermediate level will be sufficient. If the goal is to read poetry and literature, and college education, an advanced level will be required.
The time needed to accomplish the linguistic goals will vary depending on multiple factors. The factors include how similar or distant is the second language respect to that leaner's native language, prior experience learning languages, the method to learn the language, the time dedicated to learning the language, individual linguistic abilities, and talents, among others.
But each language poses different challenges for a learner. For example, Spanish and Portuguese are very similar. If the learner already speaks Spanish; it will probably take the learner 400 hours or less to learn Portuguese to advance levels.
Well, I am not going into the discussion about how many hours are important for what. We've had this discussion a million times already, we've recycled all the arguments many times (the fsi times, the individual factors, the differences between the native and learnt language etc,...) and we'd get to the same answer as always anyways. "It depends".
However, if you've picked a number already, I think that's a great thing. It is a quantifiable goal, bound to move you in the right direction. And there is wonderful tool you might like, for planning minutes, chapters, pages, whatever over a certain period of time. It will tell you how long will 1000 hours take at the given pace, you can even add dynamics your week (for example, you want to study more on Saturdays but cannot study on Wednesdays), you can even ask "what pace do I need to progress at, to be done with this by this given date?" And change whether you want to start strong and then get a bit of relief, or you want to go at a steady pace, etc.
And once you make your plan, you can put in your progress, and the tool will calculate everything based on it. Whether you are behind your plan or the opposite, how to catch up, etc.
And yes, the name of the tool is horrible. I get the idea behind it, but it is simply hard to find in a world full of articles about health. And you cannot talk about the app to your friends without supposedly funny misunderstandings.
Cavesa wrote:Well, I am not going into the discussion about how many hours are important for what. We've had this discussion a million times already, we've recycled all the arguments many times (the fsi times, the individual factors, the differences between the native and learnt language etc,...) and we'd get to the same answer as always anyways. "It depends".
However, if you've picked a number already, I think that's a great thing. It is a quantifiable goal, bound to move you in the right direction. And there is wonderful tool you might like, for planning minutes, chapters, pages, whatever over a certain period of time. It will tell you how long will 1000 hours take at the given pace, you can even add dynamics your week (for example, you want to study more on Saturdays but cannot study on Wednesdays), you can even ask "what pace do I need to progress at, to be done with this by this given date?" And change whether you want to start strong and then get a bit of relief, or you want to go at a steady pace, etc.
And once you make your plan, you can put in your progress, and the tool will calculate everything based on it. Whether you are behind your plan or the opposite, how to catch up, etc.
And yes, the name of the tool is horrible. I get the idea behind it, but it is simply hard to find in a world full of articles about health. And you cannot talk about the app to your friends without supposedly funny misunderstandings.
Thank you for your feedback and the link to Pacemaker.
The 1k hours is a guide for my German studies and a reminder to try to stick to my goal on daily basis. I am busy at work, sometimes I put more thant ten hours a day at my job, and I need to help with my family as well, you know, taking my daugher to piano lessons or math on weekends, or take them out to eat, etc. I still think I can manage to do an hour a day of German studies.
I was afraid of German as a young man, but things change with time, and now I am very optimistic about it. This forum helps my motivation and giving me ideas on how to achieve my goals.
