blaurebell wrote:smallwhite wrote:aka "leaving the comfort zone", which a lot of us refuse to do (and don't even realise it).
I totally agree with you smallwhite, getting to the point where we are willing to get out of our comfort zone is sometimes very difficult! The other day I listened to a little video of Luca where he speaks about the B2 gap. He said that at B2 we are at a point where what we did before doesn't really work anymore and we have to do things differently to make further progress - read things we wouldn't normally read, watch things that we wouldn't normally watch, speak about uncomfortable subjects and generally get out of our comfort zone. I thought that this was really sound advice. Basically my study plan for Spanish now contains mostly stuff outside of my comfort zone, because I've been stuck at B2+, i.e. B2 plateau, way too long now.
As for time estimates: I used to read a lot about efficiency and productivity and I became fascinated by this notion that you can get to 80% in 20% of the time and the remaining 20% take the longest. Basically perfectionism tends to be a huge time sink. My supervisor at university used to say to me "Have the courage to leave gaps" and it's my mantra now. I still fail at it badly, but it's not as bad as it used to be. One can spend unlimited amounts of time perfecting grammar skills before actually starting to use the language in any real way. I tend to start super early with native content precisely because my tendency would be to go on a course mission and then spend ages on low frequency grammar concepts that are better tackled at B2-C1 after plenty of exposure. Basically I jump in at the deep end with native content after 80% grammar to outwit my own perfectionist tendencies. It's really uncomfortable most of the time, but it works for me.
As for Benny and his Fluent in 3 months, it's simply another application of the 80-20 rule I mentioned above, although in this case a misguided one. Instead of jumping into native content after a quick 80% grammar overview he jumps into speaking without giving the language learning machine in his head any input at all. As a result he speaks without the vague "that sounds wrong" mistake detection mechanism in place and starts feeding his language learning machine so many mistakes that the result can only involve fossilised mistakes. Of course he can get to B2 in 3 months in this way, at least with easy languages, but afterwards he will remain at B2 forever because he broke the language learning machine in the process by feeding it mostly incorrect input at a vulnerable stage. Correcting the damage of such a learning strategy might be very time-consuming and difficult later on - some even think that it's impossible to correct. If getting his meaning across is all he wants, that's fine. For me it's not enough though. Even when I try to outwit my own perfectionism, it still remains there, judging me all the time, so C2 output is the goal for me always.
As for numbers - up to B2 they match class room hours quite well because of the 80-20 rule. Once you try for C1 you are reaching those last 20% that take the longest though. Decreasing returns means that you can easily spend 1000h on input - especially if you avoid reading - and still not hit a solid C1 comprehension. The problem here is the efficiency of acquiring low frequency vocabulary and if you don't have some sort of exceptional ability to pick up vocabulary easily from spoken language it's super inefficient to try to get there without reading a lot - 20,000 pages seems to be some sort of C1 consensus. Even at average native reading speed of 200wpm - about a minute per page - this would take more than 300h. My first 5000 pages intensive reading in French took me 330h and since then I've been averaging 1.5-2 minutes a page extensive reading. I can probably calculate up to 800h just for the first 20,000 pages of French. With Spanish I still have some substantial gaps in some regional slang / accents after almost 700h of TV, so I now aim to reach 1500h of TV to make my C1 level listening comprehension a bit more solid. French isn't quite as extreme with regional variations so maybe 1000h suffice? Add to this grammar instruction / courses, speaking and writing and we're already at 2000-2500h+ total just for a solid C1.
Judging from my experiences with English C2 near native university level comprehension actually takes thousands of hours of input alone. 50,000-100,000 pages, several thousand hours of TV, radio, lectures. And aiming for more than a medium sized novel in output (50,000 words) is also a good bet for near native writing skills! Of course speaking all day every day in all sorts of registers would also be necessary. It would be hard to estimate how long it really took to reach C2 in my case. Even with a rough estimate I'm well beyond 5000h though!
And with all these numbers I don't actually talk about passing proficiency exams, getting away with less for exams is probably possible. I mean actual honest self-assessment here.
So, A2 after 8 months and 800h doesn't actually have to be a sign of slow learning, you're probably just very thorough Carmody! You will probably have benefits from this style of learning once you approach the B2 plateau and you might not even experience a plateau at all. That's what my experience with English was like because I over-learned grammar in school. Other people leave gaps and spend just as much time trying to close the gaps / correct their learning mistakes later on! And as always there is only a fine line that separates efficiency from sloppiness.
Awesome post! Thanks for sharing your insights and experience blaurebell.