Little and often may not be best?

[Guest realmayo]

I'd kind of assumed that 30 minutes study every day is better than three hours all together once a week. But now I'm thinking that this is no way to tackle difficult learning.

When I've been trying to learn something difficult, I've only really had that sense of joining-the-dots at-last-I-get-it progress after a period of sustained, solid work -- definitely an hour or two. I can't help thinking that the 'little and often' approach means it takes longer to achieve any real breakthroughs.

Lots of people discuss study plans on these forums and the advice to do daily amounts of study, even if that means doing it in small bites, regularly pops up.

I can see how regular study is important to remember stuff, and to maintain an existing level or ability. But for actual learning and getting to grips with new material, is there any real reason to advise the 'little and often' approach over the serious splurge alternative?

[li3wei1]

I'd advise little and often for characters and vocab, and the hour or longer for reading, listening, writing, talking, where you want to get to the stage where you're thinking in Chinese. So a bit of both. I'm not sure there's a minimum time for the serious stuff, but as long as you can go without frying your brain.

[Silent]

I recognize that hard work is needed to get breakthroughs. However imho it's not really study.but research that requieres the long hard work. If you've no clue how things work you have to invest time, long hard work, to figure out how it works. When it's known how it works it's a matter getting it into long term memory and internalising that knowledge by using it. Imho for both, commiting to long term memory and internalising knowledge, often is more effective then once long.

In my experience the research approach works best for subjects with some kind of logic as there the research will result in insights about the logic behind how things work. If you see the logic why something there is no real need te learn it as you can derive it when needed. Also when learning logic gives a strong anchor to tie that knowledge in making it easier to learn it by heart so a litt;e research about the logic behind the facts is very usefull.

With language learning there is no real logic. Sure, there are rules but usually with a lot of exceptions. There is no real why as its the way it is because of adhoc historical reasons rather then a rational. Consequently research and extended study hours to keep with the train of thought to find a logic makes no sense.

Nevertheless I agree with liwei that you want to get into a 'flow' for practical use. You want to start thinking in Chinese (or whatever language) and therefore longer timeframes may be better. But here also, is this really study? To me it's more utilizing instead of study.

Maybe it's more a definition issue. When is it study and when is it a different activity with a learning component?

[imron]

I think it's perfectly fine to do 3 hours all at once to tackle some difficult thing, so long as you don't stop doing the little and often bits in between.

Actually, IMO it's the 'often' part that is the most important.

[Alyssum]

I am doing the little and often approach after seeing how big time blocks weren't working. And I think the little/often approach works better.

I had a hiatus of several years on Mandarin study. Was near advanced at one point and then regressed during those years (Cantonese improved though!). During that time, I often "meant" to get back to regular studying. I would even have a brief false starts where I'd buy some new textbooks, study 2-3 hours and promise myself it would become a regular habit. Never went beyond 2-3 sessions before I felt uninterested / overwhelmed.

Last year I have been taking a Saturday Chinese which is exactly 3 hours and still am taking it now. I manage to keep it up because my classmates keep on me to show up and take the next class. Of course many times I felt that the 3 hours was a bit of a burden. And even though during class I often feel good and excited about studying more, by the time I get home, I am tired and don't look again at the materials until next Saturday.

Last month I finally decided that my progress was way too slow and I would be taking Saturday classes for the rest of my life without any significant improvement if I didn't change my routine. So I have started up habits to study a little bit everyday. I do that by forcing a reasonable portion of my daily routine to be in Chinese, e.g. news reading and tv watching. For instance, when waking up with my coffee in the morning I set my news page to be Chinese (love the new Chinese New York Times!). I try to read one or two articles depending on length. That's about 30 mins. Then in the evening I try to read an article or watch a Chinese show, depending on how much energy I have left. That's another 30 mins or so. Of course there days I miss one or the other. And then some days I get so into it, I read another article or watch another show. So it naturally can become two hours a day if I am enjoying myself. I never actually time this, and I don't have any hard-fast rules about what I read/watch. It's whatever catches my eye and if it bores me, I don't feel bad for closing it. I give myself an imaginary pat on the back every day that I have read or watched at least some Chinese.

And indeed, this is working much better than before. For one, making it an easy, attainable task means that I get at least total 3 hours a week in if not more because I am having fun. Also, I am getting a lot more diversity of material in and choosing the things which I know I really need (e.g. expand vocab and phrasal knowledge). And diversity of materials is really good right now because I get to see the same vocab word pop up in multiple unrelated articles so I get an intuitive sense of how a word is used. I'm also starting sessions with a more relaxed and happier mindset, rather than forcing myself to trudge through that second or third hour tired and frustrated. Of course my little/often strategy is not just about time distribution but also study strategy. I don't do textbooks anymore because most of the time they bore me or make me feel guilty for not being thorough enough. I don't drill myself anymore. Flashcards seem more and more like a waste of time to me. Recognizing words in isolation is a pretty useless language skill. I want to read books and articles, not word lists. I might as well learn words in context (yay, popup dictionaries!).

I am still working out this method and am not claiming that this is a cure-all. But for myself and the level I am at, I do feel like this approach makes a lot of sense. I think that dedicated study blocks might still be required if you're in school prepping for exams or intensive language classes. Beginners and lower levels also need more structure to ensure they are covering the fundamentals which often means textbook lessons. But if you're doing self-study at intermediate/higher level then I'd suggest you that keep up little/often study on whatever interests you. Keeping up motivation and a positive mindset to continued learning is most important!

[Pingfa]

I believe 'little and often' is absolutely the best way.

My recommendation is to do it throughout the day in many small increments - for example, don't dedicate any time to doing flashcards if you don't want to, just do one or two here and there, more if you feel like it. Even if you only do 2 every few minutes, that can add up to quite a lot if you do it throughout the day. Just keep the flashcard system open.

Don't try to read a book. Read a sentence. Read another if you feel like it. Frequency is most important - having just read Alyssum's post as I was typing this, actually "Keeping up motivation and a positive mindset to continued learning is most important!" Which is why you should set yourself smaller goals.

Rather than treat Chinese as a big project, make it a part of your life, live it. Better 2 minutes of Chinese every 10 minutes than 2 hours every 10 days (if you force yourself to dedicate 2 hours to it, it may be 10 days before you even touch it again).

I believe that if you keep doing small increments consistently, you will want to do more. Set yourself small goals and inertia will carry you the rest of the way.

Also, as Alyssum said, learning words in isolation generally isn't very useful, so make good use of sentence flashcards. Context is especially important in Chinese.

[Guest realmayo]

If you gently push a stuck door 100 times it still won't open, but one big shove and you can be through immediately. And for how I learn, I think there are some areas where a shove is required -- where 'being in the zone' is really important.

I'm trying to learn a bit of Korean. A 'little and often' approach to any aspect of the very new, very tricky grammar doesn't seem to get me anywhere. Like a weak little sperm banging away at the outside of an unfriendly egg. But when I've sat down, focused on something, kept at it, then I've eventually broken through to a whole new level of understanding where it all suddenly makes sense. The next day or week, when I revisit the topic, I still have that overall understanding.

Or, recently I've started using Chinese textbooks again. One of these introduces 25 new words at the start of each chapter, with detailed usage advice, examples, and explanations of how similar words are used differently. I've been so surprised that just by working steadily through these I've got 'into the zone' where I seem to understand much more and remember much more clearly.

Again, reading a novel in Chinese, several sets of 10 minutes here or there and it feels like hard work; one bout of an hour and it feels like progress.

Silent, I almost agree but I think there are areas of language learning where you need to make a big leap (like the "research" you mention) and others where steady incremental work is best.

Alyssum: what you write suggests you're looking to regain previous competency and make small steady improvements in which case, sure, little and often. But for bigger stuff like finally understanding the principle behind Korean topic vs subject vs object particles, say, or finally 'getting' one use of 了 after never really understanding it before, or for really getting to grips with nuances of tricky vocab, for those kind of breakthroughs, I'm starting to think that a sustained period of hard work and focus is preferable -- for me, at least.

Pingfa, it's a good point, I'm quite lazy and weak-willed. So for me maybe a 4-hour block of work will disincentivise me for a month. But I'll try to be less lazy, and a bit more realistic.

As well as thinking along these lines from the examples I gave above, I've also been reading a couple of books, one a rather daft one called Mastery by Robert Greene, and the other the excellent The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge, which talks not just of an intense period in childhood when you can learn lots of new stuff, but also how intense focus can produce strong connections in your brain (the implication that these connections are stronger than those you'd get from less intense work) -- and I'm wondering if I can equate his idea of intense focus with my sense of being in the zone & really concentrating & learning. The first book is quite interesting on the topic of getting a buzz from hard work and suggests that hard work is important to do well at things.

Anyway, these are just thoughts that I've had recently which contradict my earlier assumptions.

[Guest realmayo]

Forgot to mention Imron's post: definitely need the "often" for some stuff too. Maybe it's more like:

Little and often: to stop forgetting, to stop falling back.

Intense effort: to learn, to go forward.

[OneEye]

For me it definitely depends on what kind of task we're talking about. Flashcard reviews? Little and (somewhat) often. I hate doing them anyway, and have long since quit forcing myself through long sessions of this. Intensive shadowing/mimicking of audio material? Little and often, or it gets tiring. But if I'm reading a novel or a book in my field, I need to spend time on it, otherwise I'd feel overwhelmed by how long it will take to finish. With 《流星·蝴蝶·劍》 by 古龍, which I'm reading now, I can sit down for an hour and read 12 pages or so, and really feel like I accomplished something. With 《文字學概要》 by 裘錫圭, I sometimes need an hour to process 5 pages fully, partly because I'm not used to the terminology in Chinese yet, and partly because some of the material is new to me. 10 or 15 minutes won't even let me scratch the surface. Even with the textbook I sometimes use, I'd much prefer to spend the time to read each article in one sitting, which might take half an hour anyway.

Now, with Japanese on the other hand, since I'm just starting, I find little and often to be more useful, because I can only process so much of a new language in one sitting. Maybe that's where the division is for me, now that I think of it: higher-level tasks like reading novels, articles, etc. require a deeper level of focus than flashcards or a beginners' textbook, and so require more time to accomplish anything. It's also more satisfying to spend time on such things. Flashcards for me are monotonous and don't really require much focus (or maybe that's my problem! I'm not focusing enough!), and so I can only spend a certain amount of time on them before I just can't stand it anymore. Writing is somewhere in the middle, because I burn out quickly.

Most of these things that I say require longer periods of time, I do on a daily basis, so I guess it isn't the opposite of little and often, but rather it's much and often. The variety of things on a daily basis, for me, is the key to avoiding burnout though. If I were to devote several hours in one day to any of those tasks, I'd get burned out quickly. Having several goals to accomplish each day works better and keeps my mind fresh. I waited until the last day to finish a translation job recently, and ended up having to spend 5 straight hours on it. I couldn't do much of anything for the next 2 days or so after that.

[renzhe]

I agree with imron. The best way to study, IMHO:

often and much

often and little

rarely and much

rarely and little

From best to worst. If you can dedicate 8 hours a day, every day, then this will work better than 15 minutes every day 1 hour every day is better than 7 hours once, on Sunday.

[Guest realmayo]

I think that's simplistic. And only the middle two of that list are relevant anyway.

Say you've got 90 minutes daily to spend on three languages. I'm suggesting that 30 minutes each isn't always going to be enough, that it might work better to do 60 mins on one language, and 15 mins each on the other two ... rotating each day of course.

Just an observation really.

I agree with OneEye that it depends on what you're studying. Little & often works fine for me for refreshing stuff, for maintenance, half an hour of easy TV or whatever.

[Guest realmayo]

Also, a bit away from the original topic, the The Brain That Changes Itself book I mentioned gives oblique support to the idea of "immersion" when learning a language. The book is based on the idea that there is a "use it or lose it" competitive environment going on with the neurons in our brains so, crudely, if you do an activity a lot your brain devotes more neurons to your ability to do that activity; and that is, to a certain extent, at the expense of neurons that were previously devoted to some other activity that you've stopped doing much of.

The book talks about stroke patients who have lost the ability to move their left arm. Of course they keep using their other arm. Under the use-it-or-lose-it theory, the part of the brain that controls the right, working arm will expand and grow, at the expense of the part of the brain which used to control the left arm. And so months later, by the time the body has got over the shock of the stroke and should be ready to try to use the left arm again, it simply can't, because the left-arm part of the brain has been taken over by the right-arm part.

So the new treatment is to put the right arm -- the working arm -- in a sling, preventing you from using it. This prevents the left-arm part of the brain being gobbled up by the right-arm part, so when it's time to try to use the left arm again, after recovering from the stroke, it should be far far easier.

If you're learning a language it could be that the new language has to fight with your native language for space in your brain and it will struggle to gain much ground because your native language is fully established there. But if you're not using your native language (i.e. immersion) then the new language has a much easier time establishing itself in your head. And also explains why my English goes weird after I come back from China. Common sense really but interesting to see a theory about how it works. Well, hopefully a teeny bit interesting to anyone who's bothered to read this far.