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?
When learning languages there comes a point where immersion is much more useful than concentrated learning.
While traveling to or living in China for a while might not be an option, are there activities or things you can do in Chinese with native speakers which is not just about learning a language.
It’ll be more fun and require less focus.
Or get a Chinese friend / boyfriend / girlfriend! 😀
I’ve already studied Chinese full-time in a Chinese environment actually, and I’m preparing to do so soon again (which is one of the reasons why I’m extra locked in atm, just so I’m fully prepared). But yeah I try to mix it up with language exchanges and so forth where I am atm anyway :)