How many hours of study time a week?

[muscle]

How much time do you put into your study of Chinese?

When you say, "I have been studying for 2 years but only seriously for about a year," how much time qualifies for serious study?

[jbiesnecker]

I put in anywhere between 10-20 hours per week. I shoot for three hours a day during the week, and a little bit on Saturday and Sunday. I've gotten to the point in my studies where most of this time is spent consuming Chinese media, with about four or five hours a week of sitting at a desk and pouring over characters and the like.

I don't know if this is serious study or not. I know people that put in a lot more effort, but it seems that most of the people I know don't do quite as much.

[gato]

I average about three hours a day reading Chinese.

Some earlier threads on this topic:
http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/8038-how-much-do-you-study/
How much do you study?

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/4964-my-recent-studying-methods/
My recent studying methods

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/8401-timeline-or-success-stories/
Timeline or success stories?

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/4072-study-time/
study time

[Shadowdh]

I would say 2 to 3 hours a day... an hour or so reading, an hour or so completing new lessons and learning new vocab and doing the exercises (usually more as for some reason it seems to take longer and I lose track of time) and then 30mins to an hour of character work... it fluctuates but thats about average...

[simonlaing]

I think the question is what do you think the minimum amount of time studying chinese is a week to learn it, make progress and not forget the characters that you've learned.

I think learning chinese with a system helps, (Such as breaking characters into radicals and learning them as 3 radicals instead of 8 strokes helps) Also learning all parts of the language at one time. I wasted a lot of time just learning Pinyin with very few characters and just had to relearn the same words again when I wanted to progress to the same level. I think much more than french or Spanish Chinese requires 1 1/2 hours - 2 hours of study at the minimum a day and 3-5 if you want to make fast progress.

I also knew friends in China who went through the motions and studied 1 hour a day with 2 sessions of tutoring twice a weak. They made very slow progress and often forgot what they had learned and had to go back. Plus their pronunciation didn't improve much either.

What are people thoughts on the minimum amount of time?

Have fun,

Simon

[Shadowdh]

What are people thoughts on the minimum amount of time?

That really depends on the person and how they learn I think... some days I can get by with an hour or two and I have it all fixed in, but other days I might have to work longer or even go over it again the next day... 怎么办?

[Toffeeliz]

I have 2 lessons a week that comes together as 3 hours. I have an hour or so homework on top of that. So, 4 hours chinese a week for me.

I'm told that the ideal minimum time is half an hour a day so that you remember it all. To be frank, I'm too lazy to do that at the moment in time, but I used to do it while I was in China. Watching TV and reading is all part of studiying the language too. I read what i can read but i can only understand the simpler texts. The amount of work you put in is what you will get out.

[PaoYu]

Probably about 30-40 hours a week, including classical Chinese. That's mostly learning new vocabulary, grammar and characters; my listening and speaking definitely take a back seat. I study Chinese at university, in case you were wondering :-P I should really be doing more.

[Pravit]

I follow a highly irregular self-study schedule but feel I've learned more in the past few months than in any other time(apart from in China). 0 - 4 hours a day reading Chinese - both intensive reading(looking up almost every new word) and speed-reading for understanding. I also spend 0 - 2 hours a day watching PPLive TV shows(my favorites right now are 炊事班的故事，阳光的快乐生活，and 血色浪漫)

[Strawberries513]

Studying a language shouldnt be something that you go and visit for a few hours a day, and then go back to your "real" life the rest of the time. It needs to be 24/7, coming at you constantly. If you're not looking up new hanzi or sentences, you need to be watching Mandarin movies, TV, or listening to Mandarin music, news or radio.

just go here:

www.alljapaneseallthetime.com

it is the most amazing site I have ever found. It is by a guy who learned Japanese in 18 months (really!!) by using very different, but effective methods and attitudes. I reccomend everyone go check it out.

[venture160]

1-3 hours a day reading Chinese. 1-3 Hours speaking Chinese. Right now my actual "learning" is at about 1-2 hours a week, that is sitting down and reviewing characters etc. being a full time student its just har to find time.

[edelweis]

Don't know what happened, 3 of the links in Gato's post now direct to unrelated threads. (Although the one about sneezing was interesting, that's not what I intended to read about...)

[roddy]

Fixed those links. I'd set up a script to re-write old format links (we've run on three different forums packages over the years, all with different URL formats) and it looks like it didn't work as planned. Will take a look...

[edelweis]

Thanks. (how about a "random thread" button somewhere? it's actually fun to read something unexpected.)