I’m constantly feeling guilty about “not doing enough” when it comes to my hobby of learning Chinese. I have been averaging around 3-4hrs every day (I often do 25-minute pomodoro sessions to ensure full focus) for these last 6 months, balancing it with a full-time job, working out and trying to be social. I have no co-dependents and my job is sometimes quite chill which makes this doable. Either way, I still feel guilty of not being able to “obsess” over it every day by studying 8hrs as, apparently, some internet people claim they do. Even while balancing it with other stuff. Or you know, just looking at students studying engineering/law/medical school and also saying they spend 8-10hrs a day studying. Like, I didn’t even spend a fraction of this time studying by myself when I went to uni.
In the end, how many hours of deep focus a day is reasonable? Are the people saying they study 8hrs a day just lying? Or is a lot of unproductive time counted into these 8hrs? Like yes, they sit for 8hrs, but every 10 minute they check their phone for 10 minutes and then resume studying?
3–4 hours of focus time, and another 3–4 hours of passive time where the brain gets to work on its own. Usually this is what a full time job is, so don’t expect to do more after that. (Mundane purely “mechanical” jobs add a bit of variables, let’s disregard those for now. Work is work and it takes its toll)
Those who say they’re active for 8 hours consistently don’t know how to measure time, or they’re super rare outliers, or outright liars. It’s just not sustainable.
Dude, don’t compare yourself to others and just enjoy learning a new language at a pace that works for you. The goal isn’t to learn Chinese the fastest, it’s to learn Chinese well enough that it sticks.
🙏 Absolutely
3 to 4 hours of focus on anything, every single day is so unthinkable to me I can’t even.
Even when I take my ADHD meds I don’t get those kind of numbers! Jesus. Maybe don’t feel like your existence needs to be justified by constant, sustained effort that can be measured? Sounds really stressful.
Yeah definitely fair enough, I get you. I don’t really care about stressing or putting in the hours for a boss or someone else’s sake, but when it comes to my own personal interests and what I’m doing for myself, I think I tend to pressure myself a bit more.
I don’t have ADHD and it still sounds insane to me!
When I was an engineering student, we spent more time on solving problems than just reading the books. The process of solving the problems helped learn the concepts. Didn’t feel like deep focus learning from that perspective.
I’m lucky to get 4 hrs a day of focus time. I know that for others it can be a lot more. However, ADHD hyperfocus is a thing and may be what these Internet people are referring to
The people who say they work 60+hr weeks for long periods of time are inefficient and are lying to themselves.
Those internet people are lying. It’s the Internet, after all.
It’s better for you to try to be a whole person, who has some social time and gets some exercise and maybe cleans up their living space once in awhile.
As long as you are actually trying everyday, I wouldn’t feel bad about the amount of time spent. If you only feel comfortable doing 25 minutes, you may retain that information better than doing longer but cramming it.
Especially in a language like Chinese where everything is extremely context sensitive like 是 and 时. (Have been doing 30 minutes a day of mandarin for a year and made a ton of progress. Right where you are just keep at it)
Absolutely, I try to avoid having any “zero-day”. There are days where I study a lot less, but it’s never zero. At least I’ll do my Anki cards. 加油 to you too!
Can I ask what resources you are using? I’m mainly using HelloChinese courses and Pleco for stuff in the wild I find. Looking to branch out. 谢谢
Yeah HelloChinese I’ve heard is great though I haven’t used it. I’d recommend you to try Pleco’s graded readers which you can buy in their store. DuChinese is another great option for graded readers (paid subscription) which has helped me a lot.
A more unorthodox suggestion is John DeFrancis’ “Chinese Reader”-series from the 60s and 70s starting with “Beginning Chinese Reader”. Those books, written in traditional Mandarin (but with simplified versions in the appendix) will start you from zero and teach you the most common 1200 characters and 8000+ words. He uses a spaced repetition scheme so every character is repeated in a calculated manner, like 10 times the first lesson it’s introduced, 5 times the next etc… They’re really amazing and available on the web if you search for it, or you can also buy them as they’ve been reprinted. I’ve been going through it steadily and even though I knew a lot of the characters already when I started reading, it has increased my reading speed and comprehension of what I’m reading drastically. It’s just so packed with good reading material, even though it’s a bit dated. It’s really hard to find that much graded reading material that progressively increases your skills.
For listening, I’d recommend podcasts like MaomiChinese, Talk Taiwanese Mandarin, TeaTime Chinese and Chinese Podcast with Shenglan. Hope this helps!
I can happily deep focus almost indefinitely, including putting off eating but only if I’m really interested in doing something. I can also doggedly persevere with something I feel like I ought to do but become progressively more depressed doing it. I’m starting to think I may have something like ADHD but need to look into it a bit more.
My advice to you is to listen to yourself. If you’re reaching a limit of how much time you want to spend on something take a break from it. You’ll get more done that way and your learning will probably be more effective. Or it may even be worth reassessing whether you really want to do it at all. It’s fine (and very important IMHO) to refine & update your goals to ones that suit you better. You might be tempted to beat yourself up about being a ‘quitter’ but it will be better.
Sail forth and find your dopamine :)
2-4 hours. For teaching you have about 15 mins to reach your students, for reference. Apply this to any presentation you give lol. Anyone that says they’re doing that much, take with a tablespoon of salt.
Do you work/study full-time as well as this?
Work full-time. But I do have a lot of downtime at work.
So you spend like 11 hours a day being focused?
My job doesn’t require my full focus. As said, I have a lot of downtime on my job too.
My lama always says “There’s no right time to let your mind do what it wants” i.e. be focused 24 hours a day.
But it sounds like you’re guilting yourself, which is not conducive to focus.
About 4 hours but not in one go. Everyone is different but I can’t imagine 8 hours straight at anything.
I would say deep thinking work, I average around 3-4 hours, but range between 0-8 hours. Like if I really feel in zone, it’s easy to go hard, but if I didn’t sleep well, or had too much caffeine, or didn’t eat enough, it’s just joever. I think months of grinding is possible with the right motivation, but I find that trying to force that motivation is pretty hard; I think that’s often more environment-based, rather than solely individual effort (ala being in a class of very motivated individuals)
The important part for me is trying to start every day (or whatever your schedule is), because it can be hard to know how well I’ll concentrate until I try for 30 minutes or so. And consistency over a long period of time is key.
edit: oh, fwiw, specifically for Chinese, I have been building this recently… although it’s not done yet. https://hanzi.bpev.me/
Maximum 20 minutes
Depends. I have ADHD. Unmedicated a “reasonable” amount of time could be 20 minutes or 10 hours. Medicated it could range from 2-8 hours depending on my engagement and motivation to stay on task.
Aggregate these data as you will.
Every person is different and every day is different.
Don’t try to push yourself beyond your limits.
Also, some people can do an hour straight through, while others need a break after 30 minutes.
The main thing I’d say is figure out what is best for you and ignore anyone else.
