turvy
Banned
From: Japan
Registered: 2012-01-27
Posts: 430
I was wondering, does it make a difference to study (Japanese) 4, 8, 12 hours a day?. I am tempted to think that more is better, but is that really true?. I guess that number will vary among people but is there an optimal number or a formula or something?.
Last edited by turvy (2012 June 26, 12:17 am)
ta12121
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2009-06-02
Posts: 3190
From personal experience it varies but I noticed that when you get used to Japanese and it becomes "natural" for you(meaning you can easily study,read and understand it and do it in large amounts without feeling that stress that comes from listening to a language that's unknown to you). I initially tried to pour Japanese down my throat for a good portion of my days when I first started learning years back. Now I've learned just being accustomed to it and once that's done, then one should increase how much you study and immerse.
I can now go on for hours studying,immersing and still feel like doing more. Then again, it could just me.
Last edited by ta12121 (2012 June 26, 12:49 am)
turvy wrote:
I was wondering, does it make a difference to study (Japanese) 4, 8, 12 hours a day?
I wrote a long answer to this question, and then I deleted it.
My gut feeling is that you're doing something wrong if you have to ask a question like this. Although, if you worded your question like this, I probably wouldn't have trouble writing an answer:
turvy wrote:
I really like studying Japanese, and sometimes I find myself immersed in Japanese for up to 8 hours a day. Is this healthy? Sometimes I feel like I just can't stop.
(You can ignore this answer if your actual question was "Is there an optimal number or a formula or something?" If you were purely talking about a formula for knowing when to stop studying, then I guess that's a completely different question. I would say you should stop studying right before you begin to want to stop studying.)
Last edited by partner55083777 (2012 June 26, 1:46 am)
Nukemarine
Member
From: 神奈川
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2347
I see it not as the more the better. Instead it seems the more the faster. I assume you're talking studying in that you're systematically learning new things or reviewing older things to encourage retention. In that case, eight hours of study net the same things whether it's spread out over a day or 4 days or 8 days. If you need 300 hours to approach intermediate level, you have to expect 150 days if you're only giving 2 hours a day while 8 hours will bring you down to a little over a month.
Seeing that there's language schools with 6+ hours of active study a day, it seems reasonable that approaching it like a fun job will help overcome the fatigue that'll come from lengthy study.
The immersive stuff (watching TV, reading books, talking and listening to other people) that's more passive is needed. I doubt there's an upper limit on the benefit there. The more comprehensible, the better though.
erlog
Member
From: Japan
Registered: 2007-01-25
Posts: 633
I will say that the key is to keep your studying consistent. Have a kind of low-ish mandatory minimum of 30-40 minutes that you can easily accomplish and feel good about accomplishing. After finishing that stuff fill your time with practice and immersion.
On days you're busy you'll be able to keep up with your minimum studying to push yourself slowly forward. One days when you have more free time there's other activities you can do.
Even when I was out of work I only ever did about 200 flashcards in Anki per day. That would take me about an hour or so depending on how much new material I was adding to get myself up to 200. After that I would play video games in Japanese, watch TV, or make new flashcards for later.
Last edited by erlog (2012 June 26, 6:52 am)
turvy
Banned
From: Japan
Registered: 2012-01-27
Posts: 430
I love Japanese but I would like to study other things besides it (like other languages) but I don't want to give to my Japanese less than I could. In other words, since Japanese is my priority, I want to give it my very best but if there is an optimal number of hours I'd rather stick to that number and use the extra time more efficiently.
Last edited by turvy (2012 June 26, 7:46 am)
Well my suggestion wasn't fully serious, and since you meant other languages it may not be "optimal" to somehow use Japanese for it if you're not very advanced yet, no. Even though I have been attracted to the idea of SRSing some French with Japanese definitions in the answer fields.
What's optimal is kind of subjective though, isn't it? What is your studying like? Do you mostly use formal learning material or are you immersing? Because if it could be more towards the latter then you could be flexible with the times during the day you study. And perhaps have time over that doesn't have to be locked down on studying Japanese.
How much free time do you normally have left that you don't spend on Japanese, and would you be willing to spend some of it on another language?
What's your goal with Japanese, are you dead set on learning it as effectively as possible? Is that what you mean by "optimal"? Because you could just spend a really small chunk of your time on whatever other language you're interested in, to get a taste of the language. Maybe sometime later you'd know if you really wanted to invest more time on it at a small sacrifice of your Japanese, or if you don't want to.
I think Steve Kaufmann says that he can't do two languages at the same time as 50/50, but rather 80/20. Focusing on one language at a time, and after a while switch it up to focus on the other. And that wouldn't really feel like such a sacrifice, the output got rusty, but coming back to a language with a freshened mind was great for the learning process. I'm pretty sure there are some studies on that (don't make me try to confirm that though...), saying that as you've spent a lot of time on one language your brain gets into a certain habitual way of thinking, and if you take a break by studying another language, as you come back to the former one your brain will have a fresh perspective and supposedly takes in information better than before.
Damn I suck at constructing sentences, sorry to anyone who read that.
Last edited by TwoMoreCharacters (2012 June 26, 1:04 pm)
