How long should I study Spanish a day?
How long should I study Spanish a day?
4 Answers
For me personally I spend around 5-7 hours studying, but I don't have any specific study pattern I follow. For you, it really depends on your spare time and your desire to learn. If you're the type of person that only can study for an hour or two before they need to take a break, then do so. But if you really want to learn, I say study as much as you can, as long as it doesn't interfere with other important things. Don't just spend your time poring over books and reading grammar articles, but actually get out and practice what you learn from time to time. Not necessarily conversing with natives, but at least try to read articles in Spanish to help your studying, Something else that helps is to get involved with the chat on this website. For me that's been a good study experience all around.
So, just study with spiserinctum and gusto! Don't let anything that might be boring let you down. Hope this helps!
It depends on a lot of factors. What do you want to accomplish? To get an A in a class? Be able to speak well enough to function on a trip to Spain? To understand what the housekeeper is trying to tell you about the washing machine? I suggest more hours if you want an A, not so much if you want to communicate with the housekeeper. Then there's how fast you learn and what works best for you. If you have to go over material many times to get it to sink in, you're going to have to put the hours in. If you learn better though demonstration, some of that study time can be watching Spanish language programs with subtitle. If you really want to improve your Spanish, you'd benefit from finding practice speaking and listening to someone fluent.
That's as close as I can get to answering your question.
With any learning - from what I know about this - there is critical 'down time' which allows the brain to internalize learning. Sometimes this can occur when we rest/sleep (some experts believe that dreaming is an important component in the process). In some peoples' overly busy lives this is the only time when this process can happen! But the cycles of studying/resting have different relevant intervals for each person - and indeed on different days you will notice that learning comes easy and you are excited to carry on, while other days not so much! If you can go with the flow and aren't under so much pressure to learn a certain amount in a given time, then try to pay attention to your own feedback. For instance, how easily can you immediately comprehend a new concept/phrase/word in Spanish - if it feels 'too hard' maybe it's time to take an assimilation break. If new ideas are coming easy and you are hungry for more - gobble-on!
I was taught back in the day that if you are dreaming in the foreign language then you're there! It's one of those 'indian signs' you're supposed to watch out for!
Good luck with your learning - we're all students here too!
HI, please do a search on the site, amigo, there are lots of threads open on the topic
