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The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

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Re: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

#11

Post by graeme »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #2

I like the doable attitude of this - and the words hold true. Very few 'inspirational' things I read actually manage to break things down to something reasonable. Once the teacher strikes here (In norway) stop, I start language classes. The teacher doing the initial questions told me I have 550 hours of required language classes - but then made sure I know I get up to 3000, with the note that 550 hours really isn't e…

That seems excessive. Pimsleur uses 45 hours of lessons over 90 days. I've used it for Italian, Portuguese and German.

In each case, I've been able to have conversations with native speakers after the program ended.

The next step, to really master any of them, would be going to one of those countries. Suppose I spend four hours a day in conversation with native speakers. 1 week = 28 hours. 3 months = 336 hours.

Total of 381 hours. I'd be astonished if that program didn't make someone fluent, at least in a language with some similarities to their native language, as close as any of the romance languages are to English.

I'm speaking from experience, having got part of the way with Italian and Portuguese, and having had a six month visit to Cuba make me fluent for all intents and purposes (but I didn't do Pimsleur before, just ineffective college classes)

The key to shortening is the intro lessons which make all additional practice much more effective, since you can simply practice by fluid conversation. This isn't the only method; I've heard very good things about Benny Lewis' method as well.

Re: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

#12

Post by jebus989 »

jliechti1 wrote: post #7
oskarth wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1000 focused hours for most European languages is really good, see for example these quotes: Deutsche Welle suggests A1 is reached with about 75 hours of German tuition, A2.1 with about 150 hours, A2.2 with about 225 hours, B1.1 with about 300 hours, and B1.2 with about 400 hours.[5] Cambridge ESOL said that each level is reached with the following guided learning hours: A2, 180–200; B1, 350–400; B2, 500–600; C1, 700…

> They key is to make the practice good practice, and not just mindless repetition. This - it needs to be emphasized more. I feel a bit pedantic when I make this point, but I really think it's crucial. If you read the original research, it's not 10000 hours of just practice. There is a reason many people can play golf for 30 years (and probably accumulate 10000+ hours of play), but still never even get close to shoot…

Absolutely right, Anders Ericsson has called Malcolm Gladwell out for misinterpreting his results for this exact reason. Not sure how widely available this is for playback but "More or Less" did a great podcast on this earlier this year: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01sqly1

Re: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

#13

Post by [deleted] »

diminoten wrote: post #10

10k hours rule is not general to a topic, and is quite specific -- 10,000 hours of a skill-based, feedback giving action in which productive practice takes place is different from, "spend 10k hours learning about history and you become a history master." And 1k hours is completely unsupported by experimentation. Why do people think they can just randomly throw nonsense at a wall and expect it to stick?

[deleted]

Re: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

#14

Post by NickPollard »

noahl wrote: post #6
TeMPOraL wrote: post #5

I have my own take on this - if you triple-Pareto the 10k hours rule you end up with 80 hours of work responsible for 51.2% of your skill. I round it up and call 100-hours rule: if you put one hundred hours of actual practice into something it might not make you an expert, but you'll be proficient and/or good enough to impress people around you. I started applying this to random things, and I think one could cut it d…

If we combine your rules of thumb with the original essay and the 10,000 hour rule, we get a rough order-of-magnitude scale of work and levels of ability: * 10 hours: familiar * 100 hours: proficient * 1000 hours: good * 10000 hours: expert Not perfect, of course, but it's sort of intriguing in its simplicity.

I like this, I think as an aphorism it actually has a good bit of descriptive power.

A while back I started learning the guitar - having learnt drums and (some) piano as a child with a teacher and structured learning, I decided to teach myself at a much slower process for 'fun'. I'm probably somewhere between the proficient and good categories now and I think this trajectory matches my experiences.

What is an important take away for people is that you can learn something, and it doesn't take that long for you to get to a point where it is useful, enjoyable and satisfying. So many adults shy away from learning new skills unnecessarily. Learn to play guitar. Learn to code. Learn to paint, learn to speak Dutch, learn to write poetry, learn to bake, learn to woodwork. Your life will be richer for it.

Re: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

#15

Post by danielweber »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #5

I have my own take on this - if you triple-Pareto the 10k hours rule you end up with 80 hours of work responsible for 51.2% of your skill. I round it up and call 100-hours rule: if you put one hundred hours of actual practice into something it might not make you an expert, but you'll be proficient and/or good enough to impress people around you. I started applying this to random things, and I think one could cut it d…

Could you explain "triple-Pareto"? (I might be messing up by parsing it as an economic term.)

Re: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

#17

Post by joeframbach »

diminoten wrote: post #10

10k hours rule is not general to a topic, and is quite specific -- 10,000 hours of a skill-based, feedback giving action in which productive practice takes place is different from, "spend 10k hours learning about history and you become a history master." And 1k hours is completely unsupported by experimentation. Why do people think they can just randomly throw nonsense at a wall and expect it to stick?

Such a poor attitude! This isn't Science magazine. The entire article -- a hypothesis anyway -- is prefaced by "words I would have wanted to hear as a child". Were you expecting him to run experiments for this piece?

Re: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

#18

Post by erikb »

This is exactly my plan with most of my hobbies. Just continuously do it now and then and you ought to get better at some point. It still needs dedicated practise, though. Just "doing" it is not enough.

Re: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

#19

Post by TeMPOraL »

danielweber wrote: post #15
TeMPOraL wrote: post #5

I have my own take on this - if you triple-Pareto the 10k hours rule you end up with 80 hours of work responsible for 51.2% of your skill. I round it up and call 100-hours rule: if you put one hundred hours of actual practice into something it might not make you an expert, but you'll be proficient and/or good enough to impress people around you. I started applying this to random things, and I think one could cut it d…

Could you explain "triple-Pareto"? (I might be messing up by parsing it as an economic term.)

I meant the "Pareto principle"[0], or 80-20 rule, that says that you can get 80% of effect with 20% of work. If you apply the rule to itself, you get the 64-4 rule, and if you do this again, you get 51.2% of results from 0.8% of work ;).

[0] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle.

Re: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

#20

Post by DanielStraight »

danielweber wrote: post #15
TeMPOraL wrote: post #5

I have my own take on this - if you triple-Pareto the 10k hours rule you end up with 80 hours of work responsible for 51.2% of your skill. I round it up and call 100-hours rule: if you put one hundred hours of actual practice into something it might not make you an expert, but you'll be proficient and/or good enough to impress people around you. I started applying this to random things, and I think one could cut it d…

Could you explain "triple-Pareto"? (I might be messing up by parsing it as an economic term.)

The Pareto principle is that 80% of result comes from 20% of the effort. So 80% of the 10k hours worth of skill (8k) comes from 20% of the actual time (2k). If you continue multiplying the hours worth of skill by 0.8 and the actual hours involved by 0.2, you get 5120 hours worth of skill in 80 actual hours of practice.

Of course, if you keep going, you get the first 800 hours worth of skill in less than a second (and the first 300 in a mere millisecond), so I'm not sure the repeated application is justified.

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