600 one-to-one lessons a lot?

[Scoobyqueen]

mondane story

[li3wei1]

I think you're both right. 600 lessons of spanish and you'd probably be fluent, but 6000 in chinese and you'd still have things to learn.

[Lu]

So, perhaps 3 lessons a week for the first two years, that would add up to 300 lessons and pretty decent Chinese. Then perhaps one or two a week for the next 3-4 years, learning more subtleties, reading more difficult stuff, writing essays... No, it doesn't sound excessive. You can be a hard-working student with a good teacher and have enough to learn for all this. 600 lessons sounds like a lot when you add them all up, but it's not in any way too many.

At the same time this guy is probably right that he (or you) would have amazing, near-native Spanish had he put as much time and effort in it as you have in Chinese. Chinese is hard, Spanish (for a native speaker of a European language) is not. An English speaker can look at a Spanish newspaper and get the gist of what's going on in the world without ever having learned a word of the language, but it takes at least a year to get to that level with Chinese.

[abcdefg]

600 hours is a lot. I'm sure I've had at least that many, and there's still a long way to go.

My personal weakness is that I don't do enough unless I'm working with a teacher. Seems to keep me motivated. The first few years it was not that way. The pain of being linguistically dysfunctional when immersed spurred me on. Now that I can manage fairly well day to day, it's all too easy to relax and coast on forever at a mediocre "gringo" level.

[Scoobyqueen]

Now that I can manage fairly well day to day, it's all too easy to relax and coast on forever at a mediocre "gringo" level

I have found it to be useful to ask about words and phrases you do not understand when you interact with others. You have understood the meaning but not necessary the chengyu or one or two words. If you actually ask then you are forced to think about it and I find this has great recognition value and also encourages you to employ the words yourself. (I do this in my native language too :-)

[Shelley]

One of the reasons I chose to learn Chinese was because I thought it would be a something to keep me busy for the rest of my life. I grew up in Quebec , Canada and so learnt a lot of French my mother spoke German so I learnt some German and when deciding what language to learn in my 30's i chose Chinese as it seem to fit the bill for something to keep me busy.

I also wanted something different from European languages.

I have been enjoying learning Chinese for about 25 years now, and will continue to do so.

So 600 lessons sounds like heaven to me, I have mostly done self study with some evening classes and private (small group) lessons for the first few years.

600 lessons seems about right for Chinese, more would not be unreasonable IMHO.

[Ruben von Zwack]

I feel native speakers of European languages have quite low standards when it comes to their definition of "fluent".

In my opinion this is what's behind the "Europeans can learn European langauges quickly and easily" myth.

About those 600 lessons - sounds just right to me

Just for fun I did a little rough calculation - where I live (Germany) with the smallest school degree you'd be exposed to 2 hours English a week x 5 years = about 520 hours.

Now the English spoken by those graduates is quite basic - you would never make it in a work surrounding, let alone an office, and you can only have conversations about routine daily situations - but I guess in a lot of people's definition it is fluent and they get along just wonderful, so here you go

So, back to the initial question - I guess it is just a matter of what you want to achieve, and how you define "fluid" and "perfect"

[Scoobyqueen]

@ Ruben

Actually this reaction came from an American guy who wanted to learn Spanish.

I don't think one-to-one lessons are equivalent to group lessons. I also think Germans are at a disanvantage when it comes to English since everything on the telly is dubbed in German (instead of the use of subtitles). So this might mean that the English they are exposed to might in fact just be a few lessons at school at best.

[Shelley]

I didn't mean to imply that one-to-one lessons are equivalent to group lessons, that's why I said 600 hours of one-to-one would be heaven.

[abcdefg]

#5 -- I have found it to be useful to ask about words and phrases you do not understand when you interact with others.

Thanks @Scoobyqueen, that's a good suggestion. I do that when I'm with a teacher, but in daily life I'm probably overly sensitive about not wanting to slow down the natural flow of a group conversation. I try to blend in at a native level. Sometimes I make a mental note of things I don't fully understand, and then ask about them later. Should probably quit pretending that I'm fluent, and just ask my questions in real time when they occur.

[icebear]

Actually this reaction came from an American guy who wanted to learn Spanish.

I think the reaction is common of most westerners. I also agree with those above that 600 in Chinese isn't excessive, and that its a lifetime goal - most people get to a nice, functional plateu in their L2 and consider that "fluent enough," which is probably what this guy has in mind.

[edelweis]

a guy who was really keen to learn Spanish and he was not getting anywhere

He obviously knows nothing about language learning, why should he know anything about the relative difficulty of Spanish vs Chinese for a native speaker of English...

[Ruben von Zwack]

Why I chose Germans (who are exposed to English 24/7 really) as an example was just that I wanted to point out a fault of my own folks, rather than pointing fingers at others. I agree to Icebear, and I could have said Westerners or speakers of Germanic and Romanic or indo-euoropean languages or whatever (I have no idea how the Bretons and the Welsh fare ;)).

Anyway, again about those 600 lessons - just think about how many lessons a native speaker receives in their own language. And still there are people who have a broader vocabulary than others, who speak better, write better.

So, partially I agree to that American guy who intends to learn Spanish - everyone can get fluent on a decent level within time. And that is great! It is just a question of what goals you're aiming at, or maybe, which interest drives you.

[Scoobyqueen]

Germans (who are exposed to English 24/7 really)

I do not agree. Most of my German colleauges have very little exposure to English. But ok this is for another dicussion.

[wezel]

I've taken about 170 private tutoring sessions, mainly through a variety of teachers at italke. Also signed up with Chinesepod for a year. been at it for around 3 years on part time basis, working full time etc.

so i'm at an intermediate stage which is not quite good enough to understand a movie or the radio but was decent enough to get through basic conversations in a recent trip to beijing