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How to Learn New Things as an Adult

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Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult

#71

Post by davnn »

LanceH wrote: post #42
peruvian wrote: post #15

I really don't think there's much difference between learning as an adult or a teenager. It's just that we have less time. A few months ago I wanted to learn to appreciate and listen to classical music. I woke up an hour earlier every morning and read a book, listened to an audio course (Robert Greenberg's How to Listen to and Understand Great Music), and listened to actual music then and throughout the day. A few mo…

I'm mid 40's now. It is significantly different than when I was 20 or younger. It was like I had more horsepower back then. I could sit down and do 200 vocabulary words 90% retention after a single pass. I'm nowhere close now. On the other hand, I can organize my attack on learning something so much better than I could before.

> I could sit down and do 200 vocabulary words 90% retention after a single pass. I'm nowhere close now.

Would be interesting to quantify such changes, but my guess would be that the changes are smaller than expected or felt.

Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult

#72

Post by mattmanser »

criddell wrote: post #18
clentaminator wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brain plasticity and learning "power" aside, I believe the biggest difference between learning something as a child and as an adult is simple how conscious we are that we're trying to learn something and how much we self-reflect and analyse our own abilities and progress. As a child we typically do things just because we enjoy them, and often don't have an idea of a goal or target, other than simply doing the thing b…

How far along are you with the guitar? I bought mine in 1996 and have been trying to learn it on and off since then. I still don't know a single song, other than the little toy songs in the Hal Leonard books (and only if I have the books in front of me). It's incredibly frustrating. I bought a second guitar a few years ago to keep at work and I use it during times when I need a break. Even though all I do are scales…

Scales and nursery rhymes?

If you want to play songs learn chords. Learn A, D and E, play wild thing. Takes like 20 minutes play badly, a couple of days to play ok.

Scales are for soloing rather than rhythm guitar.

Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult

#73

Post by soniman »

There are certain tennis strokes that adults can't learn. For instance, adults can't learn to hit a "kick" serve that has a lot of topspin. I think part of the problem is that the kick serve requires counterintuitively hitting the ball to the sky and letting gravity and spin pull it down to earth. Adults can't handle the idea of hitting up, it just seems wrong. I learned kick serves as a kid and it's like riding a bicycle, I never forgot though I stopped playing tennis for ten years. Also, some strokes decline with age. Federer's backhand is now much better than when he was in his physical peak at 26, though his forehand is probably not as good; the same is true of nearly all players, the backhand improves but the forehand declines. The more instinctive a shot is, the harder it is to maintain and learn as you get older.

Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult

#74

Post by hvidgaard »

soniman wrote: post #73

There are certain tennis strokes that adults can't learn. For instance, adults can't learn to hit a "kick" serve that has a lot of topspin. I think part of the problem is that the kick serve requires counterintuitively hitting the ball to the sky and letting gravity and spin pull it down to earth. Adults can't handle the idea of hitting up, it just seems wrong. I learned kick serves as a kid and it's like riding a bi…

   There are certain tennis strokes that adults can't learn. For instance, 
   adults can't learn to hit a "kick" serve that has a lot of topspin.
Do you have anything to back this claim? I don't believe this at all. The plasticity changes as we get older, but the human brains does not lose the ability to learn things, counter intuitive or not.

Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult

#75

Post by hvidgaard »

LanceH wrote: post #42
peruvian wrote: post #15

I really don't think there's much difference between learning as an adult or a teenager. It's just that we have less time. A few months ago I wanted to learn to appreciate and listen to classical music. I woke up an hour earlier every morning and read a book, listened to an audio course (Robert Greenberg's How to Listen to and Understand Great Music), and listened to actual music then and throughout the day. A few mo…

I'm mid 40's now. It is significantly different than when I was 20 or younger. It was like I had more horsepower back then. I could sit down and do 200 vocabulary words 90% retention after a single pass. I'm nowhere close now. On the other hand, I can organize my attack on learning something so much better than I could before.

Retention is something you can train. In your teens you used to train your retention, so it was significantly better. After becoming an adult you spend much less time learning, and the ability to remember things after the first pass has declined.

I gurantee that if you train your memory daily, you will get the same retention as you used to.

Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult

#76

Post by coldtea »

peruvian wrote: post #15

I really don't think there's much difference between learning as an adult or a teenager. It's just that we have less time. A few months ago I wanted to learn to appreciate and listen to classical music. I woke up an hour earlier every morning and read a book, listened to an audio course (Robert Greenberg's How to Listen to and Understand Great Music), and listened to actual music then and throughout the day. A few mo…

>I really don't think there's much difference between learning as an adult or a teenager. It's just that we have less time.

Shouldn't cognitive science/medicine also have a say on this?

Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult

#77

Post by jw1224 »

hvidgaard wrote: post #74
soniman wrote: post #73

There are certain tennis strokes that adults can't learn. For instance, adults can't learn to hit a "kick" serve that has a lot of topspin. I think part of the problem is that the kick serve requires counterintuitively hitting the ball to the sky and letting gravity and spin pull it down to earth. Adults can't handle the idea of hitting up, it just seems wrong. I learned kick serves as a kid and it's like riding a bi…

There are certain tennis strokes that adults can't learn. For instance, adults can't learn to hit a "kick" serve that has a lot of topspin. Do you have anything to back this claim? I don't believe this at all. The plasticity changes as we get older, but the human brains does not lose the ability to learn things, counter intuitive or not.

I agree - surely adults can learn these tennis strokes, even if they are harder to pick up.

There is an absolutely fascinating video about plasticity of learning between adults and children that I'd highly recommend watching [1].

A man built a "backwards bicycle", where the handlebars steer the bike in the opposite direction to what you would expect. It was almost impossible for him to ride the bike more than a few feet at a time before falling off. Finally, after 8 months of consistent practice, he could ride it relatively well.

When he put his 6-year-old son on the bike (who'd been riding a normal bicycle for 3 years), he had it mastered just 2 weeks later.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0

Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult

#78

Post by josephagoss »

daodedickinson wrote: post #25
jacquesm wrote: post #8

The trick to learning new things as an adult is to never stop learning. For many people university (or highschool, for the slightly less fortunate) is the last time they will actively learn, after that they are 'done learning'. But you're never done learning! In a world that changes as fast as ours does you'll be learning until you die if you want to keep up and stay relevant in the near future. Even more so in the I…

I wish people would understand that such a world means that new children have less and less of a chance at success.

What is the alternative?

Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult

#79

Post by Disruptive_Dave »

I just re-learned skateboarding. I spent a lot of time skating in my late teens (37 now), and was decent at it. I noticed three things throughout the learning process this time around. First, there is so much more information available today than when I was a kid. YouTube videos alone could keep me busy for years. Then you add in the GoPro and my phone, and you have an entirely new world available. The one downside here is that I find myself edging towards "paralysis by analysis." Less doing, more thinking, which I never experienced as a kid. Second, I'm forced to take things a little slower because of my age and reluctance to get hurt. This means I've gradually progressed through the learning steps, which has resulted in a stronger foundation than I had as a kid. Third, and this is the big'un, I see angles I never considered before. I'll never be confused for a smart person, and I've always been one step away from "getting it" when learning most new things. Now that I'm older and more aware of what it takes to "get me there" I can better create that learning environment. Example: There is a very subtle part of the tail "pop" in an ollie that I just never fully understood until I started skating again recently, but this time I "got it."

(I realize this falls more in the "relearning" than "learning something new" category, but I've typed too much at this point to bail.)

Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult

#80

Post by bryanrasmussen »

cgriswald wrote: post #44
peruvian wrote: post #15

I really don't think there's much difference between learning as an adult or a teenager. It's just that we have less time. A few months ago I wanted to learn to appreciate and listen to classical music. I woke up an hour earlier every morning and read a book, listened to an audio course (Robert Greenberg's How to Listen to and Understand Great Music), and listened to actual music then and throughout the day. A few mo…

> I really don't think there's much difference between learning as an adult or a teenager. It's just that we have less time. I am a 40-year-old full time student with a kid, but no job. I disagree completely. I've got the time. When I was 20, I remembered everything I saw or heard even once. I could recall it with ease. Concepts came easily when they were explained in text or in lecture. Now? I'm still plenty smart a…

with a kid covers a lot of ages, are you sure you actually have as much time as you think you do?
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