Comments on: Quantity Over Quality

By: Relja

Relja — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:59:40 +0000

Yeah, I know, but I’m always reminded of the sheer number of mandatory classes in schools over the years. For instance, here in Serbia classes of French, German or Russian (depending on which shool you go to) go on for a total of 10 years! If you’re doing something for 10 years, at a minimum of 2 times per week, well I would say that’s a large quantity 🙂 and something is definitely wrong with the system if after so much time you aren’t skilled in whatever it is you’re learning.

Though you’re right, I think that especially with language learning, the quantity has to be more, er, frequent 🙂 that is to say, 2 years of 12 hours of exposure per day are, IMO, way better than 6 years of an hour or two per day. Or maybe not, if the method is good enough?

By: uberstuber

uberstuber — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 03:30:42 +0000

@Relja
I wouldn’t consider a typical language class to be a lot of quantity. But yes, that is a good point.

By: Ceryni

Ceryni — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 02:33:50 +0000

Cause learning japanese is the thing to do?

By: nest0r

nest0r — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:47:28 +0000

I’m an AJATTeer, you can be one too!

By: Relja

Relja — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 11:32:23 +0000

I think it’s also important to note that the method is as important as the quantity. This might seem obvious, but it’s tempting to draw a conclusion that as long as there is quantity, no matter what you do, quality will follow. I think a typical language class is a good (and relevant 🙂 ) example, where you can participate actively and do all your homework for years and still not be able to produce a normal sentence.

Maybe a better choice of words would be “focus” instead of “method”? As in, focusing on what should be done a lot? (a lot of listening to your favourite music, TV shows etc. on your mp3 player will do you a lot more good than a lot of grammar studying)

By: Max

Max — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:58:53 +0000

On the subject of names, this is a cool site for learning family names:

park14.wakwak.com/~myj/lanking/zenkoku1b.html

The names are listed by how common they are, so it’s pretty useful. I usually just put the name into Wikipedia to get the most common reading.

By: AwkwardMap

AwkwardMap — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:48:14 +0000

I’ve started doing Japanese names now with an SRS and thought I’d give a link to this site:

www2.osaka-unicon.org/search/nameSearch.do?action=show

It looks like it’s research faculty’s names. Works pretty well because they’re in (五十音） order which means lots of repetition of family names.

By: Chiro-kun

Chiro-kun — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:05:16 +0000

“Practice makes perfect” isn’t the same as “Quantity always trumps quality” 😡

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:12:57 +0000

I love this – one of those almost common sense things that it is so easy to overlook (especially if you are a perfectionist).

Mark

By: uberstuber

uberstuber — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 05:55:03 +0000

英語のサイトを読み続けるといいAJATTeerには成れないよね 😛