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Learning to Learn

kevin.the.li

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Re: Learning to Learn

#131

Post by AlchemistCamp »

dinobones wrote: post #7

I've been wanting to try this approach for learning a language. In English for example, learning the 800 most common words, you can understand 75% of the language: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-44569277 . I'd love to start fresh on a new language, take 800 new words, try to learn 10 a day, and see where I get after 3 months. Can I really understand 75% of text if I have perfect recall of those 800 words?

No. Just memorizing words won’t get you there. Looking up the definition of “go” and memorizing it won’t teach you that “go over” means review, that “go under” means to go out of business, that “go on” means to continue, etc, etc, etc.

You need a lot of input before you’ll understand 75% of the text in a language. Vocabulary flashcards (preferably with audio) can help make some very simple dialogues or stories comprehensible at the beginning but flashcards are not enough for learning a language.

Re: Learning to Learn

#132

Post by AlchemistCamp »

jamager wrote: post #60
joshdavham wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can I really understand 75% of text if I have perfect recall of those 800 words? This thing you're talking about is called 'word coverage'. It's the percentage of words you know in a given text. I've created lots of word coverage graphs in the past, and, as research has shown, you won't really be understanding much until you reach the high 90s in terms of word coverage. The famous number for being able to read Engl…

This is exactly correct. With graded readers, thou, you can have good reading experiences with around 3k words (ofc depending on language, book, etc).

The Oxford Bookworms collection has a 400 headword level that includes quite a few interesting ~45-50 page stories. Their 700 headword level is more interesting of course, but for popular like English or Spanish there are a lot of options even for very early stage learners.

Re: Learning to Learn

#133

Post by RaftPeople »

cloverich wrote: post #86
setgree wrote: post #75

Something from Andrej Karpathy on learning that stuck with me [0]: > Learning is not supposed to be fun. It doesn't have to be actively not fun either, but the primary feeling should be that of effort. It should look a lot less like that "10 minute full body" workout from your local digital media creator and a lot more like a serious session at the gym. You want the mental equivalent of sweating. It's not that the qu…

A counter point, or maybe complementary point (b/c I agree w/ the quote). I killed myself trying to do more than 8 pull ups in a gym for ages; at times I'd be going to the gym 4x a week doing full body workouts, always working hard, always sweating, always gassed at the end; consistently doing pull ups to exhaustion on multiple sets. Yet 8 was a kind of ceiling. At some point I stopped working out, but got a pull up…

A recent study that I read showed muscle strength is best developed by not performing the maximum number of . It showed that stopping somewhere around 90%-ish was optimal, beyond was suboptimal for strength.

For muscle size, going to maximum is optimal, but it's less optimal for strength.

Their example was: instead of doing 8 reps of bench press where you can barely get the final rep, do maybe 1 fewer. They were more precise in the point to stop, but it's not something avg person can detect compared to their analysis, so this is just ballpark-ish.

Re: Learning to Learn

#134

Post by stopyellingatme »

setgree wrote: post #75

Something from Andrej Karpathy on learning that stuck with me [0]: > Learning is not supposed to be fun. It doesn't have to be actively not fun either, but the primary feeling should be that of effort. It should look a lot less like that "10 minute full body" workout from your local digital media creator and a lot more like a serious session at the gym. You want the mental equivalent of sweating. It's not that the qu…

Great quote. I often feel like the best learning occurs when I’m a little angry at the problem.

Re: Learning to Learn

#135

Post by somethingsome »

cloverich wrote: post #86
setgree wrote: post #75

Something from Andrej Karpathy on learning that stuck with me [0]: > Learning is not supposed to be fun. It doesn't have to be actively not fun either, but the primary feeling should be that of effort. It should look a lot less like that "10 minute full body" workout from your local digital media creator and a lot more like a serious session at the gym. You want the mental equivalent of sweating. It's not that the qu…

A counter point, or maybe complementary point (b/c I agree w/ the quote). I killed myself trying to do more than 8 pull ups in a gym for ages; at times I'd be going to the gym 4x a week doing full body workouts, always working hard, always sweating, always gassed at the end; consistently doing pull ups to exhaustion on multiple sets. Yet 8 was a kind of ceiling. At some point I stopped working out, but got a pull up…

Actually, what you experienced is a well known technique to increase the number of pullups, the idea is that your previous training only allowed to get 8 reps, which is a low volume for a muscle, so you are not working optimally, by doing one by one, you can focus on giving maximum power at each rep, so if you want to increase even more, do series of 2-3 with explosiveness, pause 30-60 sec, start again, and try to reach a volume of 20 or something. It should feel easy enough to be able to do the 2-3 reps at maximum strength. If you are already at >15 you can increase the number of base reps, but the key is that each one should be kinda easy.

There is a related concept called grease the goove if you want to Google.

Now, regarding learning, while some parallels between muscle building and studying exists, I find it a stretch. Yes consistency is often key, but now suppose that instead of focusing for 1h every day on difficult problems I only do 5min, certainly it will work, I'll learn stuff, but not as much as someone doing consistently 1h study.

Recovery time is important in study and muscle though

Re: Learning to Learn

#136

Post by proper_elb »

zfnmxt wrote: post #47
blackoil wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say "fun" is overrated. We have become so focused on everything being fun that everything including fun itself has become tepid and mediocre. It is important to slog through the hard parts to cross the barrier of expert beginner. We are over downplaying the value of hard work and grit.

In many ways I agree with your opening sentence---maybe I shouldn't have written "fun". I think I was trying to get at something more like that the experience of learning itself is itself a good thing (even if it's not fun, even if it's suffering, even if it's hard) and I think mechanical and stoic recipes to optimize the process fail to adequately appreciate that fact. The best part of learning piano isn't getting g…

I think 'joy' would be a fitting term, perhaps? Here (https://www.1517.org/articles/cs-lewis-on-joy) C.S.Lewis defines it well, and distinguishes it from 'pleasure' and 'happiness'.

Re: Learning to Learn

#137

Post by cloverich »

aoeusnth1 wrote: post #127
cloverich wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A counter point, or maybe complementary point (b/c I agree w/ the quote). I killed myself trying to do more than 8 pull ups in a gym for ages; at times I'd be going to the gym 4x a week doing full body workouts, always working hard, always sweating, always gassed at the end; consistently doing pull ups to exhaustion on multiple sets. Yet 8 was a kind of ceiling. At some point I stopped working out, but got a pull up…

Did you do them in full range of motion (starting from dead hang) and slow eccentric motion on the way down? Not all workouts which are equally exhausting are optimal for strength. Were you completely resting between sessions? How’s your sleep?

I did do the full range of motion and started from dead hang; sometimes I did them slowly, but often just at a regular speed, though definitely never fast. I did not usually do multiple sets so usually was fully rested between sessions. IIRC was sleeping fairly standard at the time ~8 hrs. I don't carry a lot of muscle / strength naturally which may or may not be relevant; e.g. my untrained grip strength is very low, only slightly higher than my wife's.

Re: Learning to Learn

#138

Post by cloverich »

nickburns wrote: post #109
cloverich wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A counter point, or maybe complementary point (b/c I agree w/ the quote). I killed myself trying to do more than 8 pull ups in a gym for ages; at times I'd be going to the gym 4x a week doing full body workouts, always working hard, always sweating, always gassed at the end; consistently doing pull ups to exhaustion on multiple sets. Yet 8 was a kind of ceiling. At some point I stopped working out, but got a pull up…

For anyone not familiar with this methodology, it's called 'greasing the groove.' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmOEgK5o2yg

Thanks for sharing, cool to see it has a name. I definitely agree it is pretty miraculous how it works; to just never shoot for more than 5 and then "suddenly" one day I'm doing 15+ like it was nothing.

Re: Learning to Learn

#139

Post by negoutputeng »

I will have to disagree with the author on specifics (but agree on the broad premise)

it is not what the foundational knowledge "is" - but "how" the foundational knowledge is "unpacked" by each person from the first principles.

this was articulated by Descartes in "Rules for the direction of the mind" which remains sadly unread and forgotten.

the difference between the 2 approaches is that the author's approach does not clearly delineate what is meant by "learning". In fact, it could even encourage rote-learning of the foundational material. Descartes outlines an alternative.

An interesting anecdote about Descartes is that he "unlearnt" everything he knew early in life, and attempted to "rebuild" his knowledge. Few of us have the luxury to do that.

link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_the_Direction_of_the...

Re: Learning to Learn

#140

Post by parentheses »

cloverich wrote: post #86
setgree wrote: post #75

Something from Andrej Karpathy on learning that stuck with me [0]: > Learning is not supposed to be fun. It doesn't have to be actively not fun either, but the primary feeling should be that of effort. It should look a lot less like that "10 minute full body" workout from your local digital media creator and a lot more like a serious session at the gym. You want the mental equivalent of sweating. It's not that the qu…

A counter point, or maybe complementary point (b/c I agree w/ the quote). I killed myself trying to do more than 8 pull ups in a gym for ages; at times I'd be going to the gym 4x a week doing full body workouts, always working hard, always sweating, always gassed at the end; consistently doing pull ups to exhaustion on multiple sets. Yet 8 was a kind of ceiling. At some point I stopped working out, but got a pull up…

This is called "greasing the groove" by some OG fitness gurus. It's the only way to break plateaus I know of.
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