What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

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german2k01
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What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby german2k01 » Tue Feb 28, 2023 8:39 pm

I have come across this term a lot from many language learners on different forums. Does it really exist? If it does, what are its possible symptoms to experience as a language learner? For the last three years I have been very intense in my language study of learning German, nowhere feel I any symptoms of burning out. On the other hand, I feel like I can concentrate better for a longer period of time and my subconscious mind adapts to its rigor all the time. It is almost like weightlifting. Body adapts. Mind adapts.

Thanks

Asad
Last edited by german2k01 on Tue Feb 28, 2023 9:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Lisa
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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby Lisa » Tue Feb 28, 2023 8:57 pm

Presumably you don't use anki :-)

There's working intensely and then there's working at a level of intensity that's not sustainable for you, which will vary for everyone.
Probably more importantly, the expectation that you'd get to a particular skill level, if you work at a particular level of intensity and invest this amount of time and energy... when you see that you aren't where you think you should be and see the wall of work ahead, all that time and energy can make you resentful. I expect this effort/result mismatch is a particular problem for folks that watch a certain category of pologlot hype. I suspect that when you start (at least for your first few languages), you generally feel it's going to be less work than it actually is.
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german2k01
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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby german2k01 » Tue Feb 28, 2023 10:24 pm

Presumably you don't use anki


Even if you review 200 cards a day in Anki, you do not have to review them in one sitting. You can tackle 50 cards per session and it takes 4 short sessions without killing yourself. It is not the burning-out syndrome itself, it is the approach that is at fault most of the time.

Sure, I am not using Anki. However, I read three hours a day in my target language. Reading can be a mentally exhausting experience as your mind has to keep deciphering unknown words and context. I do not feel burned out for every 25 five minutes of reading I take a five-minute pause, drink water, and then go back to reading for another 25 minutes session, etc. I use a Pomodoro technique. I can read for three hours straight in German without burning myself out. Again it is the approach at fault.

When it comes to language learning it is my feeling that people do not utilize their true potential. They spend one hour listening to their target language daily and expect superman-like results.

Even if you are dissecting your target language like you are performing an operation on a frog (the typical case study in a classroom setting, nonstop study of grammar rules) even then it does not feel like burning out; it feels more like boredom. The next day you go back to attending your class.

I would love to be proven wrong but I think most of the time problems lie with study approaches rather than blame it on burning out.
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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby Picaboo » Tue Feb 28, 2023 11:20 pm

german2k01 wrote:
Presumably you don't use anki


Lisa was making an extremely funny inside joke for language learners with that comment. :)

"Burnout" is pretty understandable with language learning because the ratio between effort and reward is absolutely horrendous. You can spend 100 hours grinding and make little or no noticeable gain. This is the hardest sort of behavior to maintain from a psychological standpoint. Even worse, the learner can often sense a diminishing returns in the result of their efforts during the intermediate stage. Worse still, the activity of language learning is pitted against many other possible, more immediately rewarding, activities.

Successful learners do many things to combat this motivation draining situation. Seek intrinsic motivation, changing things up, doing things they like, doing things that have measurable outcomes so improvement is visible etc.

So, yes, study approach is absolutely crucial, but it's really only one aspect of a larger picture when it comes to why people wake up one day, don't want to do it anymore, and quit.
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Lisa
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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby Lisa » Wed Mar 01, 2023 12:39 am

german2k01 wrote:Even if you review 200 cards a day in Anki, you do not have to review them in one sitting. You can tackle 50 cards per session and it takes 4 short sessions without killing yourself. It is not the burning-out syndrome itself, it is the approach that is at fault most of the time.


I love anki (really and truly, it's changed my life)... one day is trivial; and a few hundred reviews a day for months are as nothing :-) After your deck reaches thousands of cards, though, the numbers creep up and you go away for the weekend and can't catch up and eventually you'll be thousands of cards behind and trying to do 500 reviews a day and getting farther behind, and feel like you're on a never ending treadmill. I do believe it is possible to have perfect study technique and tune anki so you get exactly the right number of cards at exactly the right intervals so you can effortlessly keep up but still feel like you are challenged and learning. However, this requires, at least for me, spending more time organizing the words and tuning intervals than actually learning.

If you really are curious about burnout, I do strongly suggest giving anki a try, and especially, set yourself ambitious goals for learning new words; otherwise it could take a year to get to burnout. Learning entire sentences would get you there faster.
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Dragon27
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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby Dragon27 » Wed Mar 01, 2023 4:00 am

german2k01 wrote:I would love to be proven wrong but I think most of the time problems lie with study approaches rather than blame it on burning out.

Burning out is not the reason you blame it on, burning out is the result of improper ways of study.
Burnout essentially means mental and physical exhaustion from a prolonged work-related stress.
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alaart
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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby alaart » Wed Mar 01, 2023 6:35 am

I'm a heavy Anki user. I think that memory works a bit like digestion. Too much new and difficult material, and your stomach will hurt from over eating. If I notice that I get stressed keeping up with reviews I reduce inputting new cards for a couple days until I feel comfortable again. If I feel too comfortable and not stressed at all, I'll add more cards.

There are these times when you were busy in life and didn't do Anki for a longer time, and there will be a ton of cards waiting. But even a couple thousand cards of review can be reviewed in smaller chunks over a couple days, and if it's too much I'll just deactive the deck and start a new one. What is more frustrating is the realization that you might have forgotten stuff you think you shouldn't have. But over time I accepted this. I just relearn it then, it happens a lot juggling several languages anyway. But I do remember that this used to frustrate me a bit.
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Irena
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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby Irena » Wed Mar 01, 2023 9:35 am

german2k01 wrote:I would love to be proven wrong but I think most of the time problems lie with study approaches rather than blame it on burning out.

Burnout is a mental state, not a study method. Bad study methods can lead to burnout, but they're not the same as burnout. The problem is that if you burn out due to bad study methods, then you may find yourself mentally unable to continue with the language even if you switch to better study methods. Or you may continue but drag your feet and make very little progress. Think of it this way: your skin may burn if you spend too much time in the sun, but that burn will not immediately heal if you move into the shade. Depending on how bad it is, it might never fully heal.
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Irena
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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby Irena » Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:22 am

Picaboo wrote:"Burnout" is pretty understandable with language learning because the ratio between effort and reward is absolutely horrendous. You can spend 100 hours grinding and make little or no noticeable gain. This is the hardest sort of behavior to maintain from a psychological standpoint. Even worse, the learner can often sense a diminishing returns in the result of their efforts during the intermediate stage. Worse still, the activity of language learning is pitted against many other possible, more immediately rewarding, activities.

This is an excellent point, and that may be where experienced language learners have the biggest advantage over inexperienced ones. If you are an experienced language learner, you know (not because someone told you, but because you've experienced it yourself) that you may put in 100 hours into some activity and see little progress, but if you put in a few hundred hours more, you will see substantial progress. (You might not be sure exactly how much "a few" is, since that varies depending on all sorts of things, and you probably didn't use a stopwatch last time you went through the process. :D You do, however, know that there's some number and that if you just keep going, you'll get the results.) If you're inexperienced, how do you know whether you've invested 100 hours too many or 200-800 hours too few? Should you cut your losses or keep doubling down? If you're not convinced that doubling down will pay off in the end, then cutting your losses is extremely tempting. Especially since it is perfectly possible to waste 100 hours on activities that won't get you anywhere, even if you put in another 1000 hours.
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nebel11
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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby nebel11 » Tue Mar 21, 2023 9:13 pm

Haha, a topic for me.

In 2022 I decided to enrol in 4 language courses at our local uni. I'd started my journey in 2020 because they began offering online courses with live lessons from qualified teachers. This was just perfect for someone like me who hated commuting. I've always loved languages and taught myself little bits and pieces here and there but with my lack of discipline I did not make much progress. Had French in school for 3 years and back then I was pretty bad, I hated learning.

I started with German A1 in August 2020. Next year I see they're offering Russian (beginner) and I jump on it. NEXT year (2022) I think "hmm I have some time off from April to July when we don't have lessons, but the Italian course is right during this break time so why not try it out?" and so I started Italian in May 2022. Then in June I see that French A1 is available so I hop right on to that one. By September 2022 I am trying to juggle B1 German, A1 Italian, A1 French and A2ish Russian. Nov 22 I started A2 Italian, and I realised there was no way I could fully prepare for all of these exams I would have in March 2023. It took me some time but I decided to drop out of Russian because the teacher would just read exercises and have us orally solve them, which really isn't teaching. It was starting to make me dislike a language I really loved (I taught myself Russian using the 3 Pimsleur courses about 6-8 years ago!). All of these lessons to do, homework, vocab, it was starting to feel like drudgery instead of fun.

Mid-March I had French and German oral and written exams. It was a lot. I am still so exhausted haha. Important lesson learnt! I won't be doing more than 2 languages simultaneously because I just can't give it enough time!
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