Learning anything.
I have been watching a bunch of Ted talks, or rather mostly listening in the background while I work. Here is one I found interesting in the context of language learning.
I'm going to start by saying I totally agree. With the 20 hour. With the 10000 hour. With the specifics. With some caveats.
Firstly, I want to dive into the 10k hour argument and why. What this fundamentally says is that there is a threshold and we'll say, on average, it is 10k hours. It can vary by person and profession. But, once this threshold is passed, on average, people stop advancing at tangible rates. What is funny is, I'd believe this number is fairly generally accurate across the board. With so many different fields and studies how is it possible that they all gravitate towards generally the same number of hours for mastery?
Well, mastery is a relative term. It just says how well someone needs to be know a thing to be considered a master. It doesn't mean that there is nothing more to learn. Or that what has been learned cannot be further improved upon.
Consider competitive sports. Every year world records are broken. Every year, the average scores, times, or whatever is required to hit the podium gets more competitive. What this means is that a person who attained "mastery" in figure skating in the early 1900's would probably not even be able to compete at a national level today, let alone globally. And you'll probably find the same across virtually every sport. Those same 10k hours yielded different levels of ability and over time, the level increases.
This is because what ultimately defines what it means to become a master is how much time it takes for a person to reach, say, the top 1% of their field. But, we have limited attention spans, and limited time and we develop habits and get stuck in them. After a certain amount of time, unless competition forces us to revise how we learn and train, it seems that virtually everyone allows themselves to plateau at around the 10k hour mark.
If reaching that mark is too easy, there would be too many masters. We wouldn't consider the skill level exceptional. If reaching the mark takes too long on the other hand, there is a different host of problems. We can run out of people to compare ourselves against. I mean, we need a benchmark. Either it is a direct competition or a line drawn in the sand. If it is a direct competition, well, to surpass someone of a certain level, there has to be someone of a certain level to test yourself against. If it is a yard stick, then it needs to mark a distance which people can feasibly get to.
It would seem that in the scope of "human time", 10k hours marks the rough area of that threshold.
As for the 20 hours. This is a little harder to determine. What are we surpassing by this 20 hour mark? I think that there is definitely a way to frame the objective so that it is guaranteed to be true. But, here is the simple side of it, anything which takes too long to even get started will dissuade so many people from starting it, that the field would likely die out.
The speaker learned the ukulele in 20 hours. Well, enough to play a few simple chords and realize that those chords were enough to do a lot with. He would by no means be considered an expert. He probably wouldn't even be considered good. But, his progress would be. And I experienced something similar when I learned to play the guitar. In my first week I learned the chords to Knockin' on Heaven's Door by GnR. Within a week of that I had learned the lead riffs I wanted to know. And within 2 weeks of that, I had even started working on the solo.
That first week was probably 10 hours or less. The strings hurt my fingers so, as excited as I was, I didn't play long each day. By the 20 hour mark I figure I was probably at the point where I was confident in the chord changes and working steadily on incorporating riffs intermittently with my chord progressions. Anyone who didn't know that was the only song I knew would probably have though "hey this guy is good".
What I knew at this point was simple though: I could learn it. I had learned enough to start having ideas of the limits of what I currently knew as well as some ideas of what I didn't know and how to learn that.
I know many other people have probably tried the same with disastrous results. In hindsight, I also know exactly why I succeeded. My brother, who started teaching me, taught me the things which would yield appreciable results. I didn't know what those things were beforehand. And most music schools don't teach like that. I learned how to read Tab and chords in tab. Tab (or tablature) is basically a shorthand notation for stringed musical instruments. Which, instead of the typical sheet music shows 6 lines, one per string, with a number indicating the fret. He also stressed learning some basic open chords first. And focusing on one or two songs with simple progressions which I was interested in.
This helped cut through the BS. I still can't read sheet music. And I don't really care. I play guitar for myself. And I'm happy with my level. Without EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE SHORTCUTS though, after 20 hours I probably could have absorbed the same quantity of material. But the value of it for me would have been harder to see and I likely would have lost motivation.
So, here comes what I have to add to that lecture. 20 hours absolutely can get you started on learning something new. This also seems like a fairly reasonable threshold for humans as well. It is enough time that if we're interested and/or find the right way to learn a thing for us that we can get into it, but short enough that if it fails we can discard it. When you get too far past the 20 hour limit, barring some massive soul crushing failure you can generally devote yourself to that thing.
But, if you want to be able to learn anything you want... there is probably a bit of pre-learning required. Some things are more straightforward than others and one approaches works for almost anyone. But most things, aren't.
Looking back on my journey with Japanese, there are many things it would have been great that I had known when I got started. I had soo much free time I was basically guaranteed to be engrossed in it before it ran out. But, I definitely could have been further along and faster. If I had restricted myself to 20 hours before making a decision, I'm not sure I would still be doing it today.
But, here is the thing. Learning a new language is one of the most mind bogglingly difficult things to learn. And there are plenty of examples (usually of polyglots who have their shit together and know what they need to learn) who can get a good start on a language in 20 hours. If the 20 hour rule can apply to even just a small number of people with something so massive as a language, then it can definitely apply to things which are much less complicated. The keys to success are conquering the fear to try and not being afraid to make mistakes when you get started.
I had the extremely good fortune of just starting to feel confident saying some Japanese words at around the same time my daughter was learning to speak. It put my mistakes and hers into perspective. It helped me see more clearly how I was making progress. It also put into perspective just how long it takes a kid to learn their native tongue. And they don't have the knowledge and understanding to structure their learning.
I'm going to start by saying I totally agree. With the 20 hour. With the 10000 hour. With the specifics. With some caveats.
Firstly, I want to dive into the 10k hour argument and why. What this fundamentally says is that there is a threshold and we'll say, on average, it is 10k hours. It can vary by person and profession. But, once this threshold is passed, on average, people stop advancing at tangible rates. What is funny is, I'd believe this number is fairly generally accurate across the board. With so many different fields and studies how is it possible that they all gravitate towards generally the same number of hours for mastery?
Well, mastery is a relative term. It just says how well someone needs to be know a thing to be considered a master. It doesn't mean that there is nothing more to learn. Or that what has been learned cannot be further improved upon.
Consider competitive sports. Every year world records are broken. Every year, the average scores, times, or whatever is required to hit the podium gets more competitive. What this means is that a person who attained "mastery" in figure skating in the early 1900's would probably not even be able to compete at a national level today, let alone globally. And you'll probably find the same across virtually every sport. Those same 10k hours yielded different levels of ability and over time, the level increases.
This is because what ultimately defines what it means to become a master is how much time it takes for a person to reach, say, the top 1% of their field. But, we have limited attention spans, and limited time and we develop habits and get stuck in them. After a certain amount of time, unless competition forces us to revise how we learn and train, it seems that virtually everyone allows themselves to plateau at around the 10k hour mark.
If reaching that mark is too easy, there would be too many masters. We wouldn't consider the skill level exceptional. If reaching the mark takes too long on the other hand, there is a different host of problems. We can run out of people to compare ourselves against. I mean, we need a benchmark. Either it is a direct competition or a line drawn in the sand. If it is a direct competition, well, to surpass someone of a certain level, there has to be someone of a certain level to test yourself against. If it is a yard stick, then it needs to mark a distance which people can feasibly get to.
It would seem that in the scope of "human time", 10k hours marks the rough area of that threshold.
As for the 20 hours. This is a little harder to determine. What are we surpassing by this 20 hour mark? I think that there is definitely a way to frame the objective so that it is guaranteed to be true. But, here is the simple side of it, anything which takes too long to even get started will dissuade so many people from starting it, that the field would likely die out.
The speaker learned the ukulele in 20 hours. Well, enough to play a few simple chords and realize that those chords were enough to do a lot with. He would by no means be considered an expert. He probably wouldn't even be considered good. But, his progress would be. And I experienced something similar when I learned to play the guitar. In my first week I learned the chords to Knockin' on Heaven's Door by GnR. Within a week of that I had learned the lead riffs I wanted to know. And within 2 weeks of that, I had even started working on the solo.
That first week was probably 10 hours or less. The strings hurt my fingers so, as excited as I was, I didn't play long each day. By the 20 hour mark I figure I was probably at the point where I was confident in the chord changes and working steadily on incorporating riffs intermittently with my chord progressions. Anyone who didn't know that was the only song I knew would probably have though "hey this guy is good".
What I knew at this point was simple though: I could learn it. I had learned enough to start having ideas of the limits of what I currently knew as well as some ideas of what I didn't know and how to learn that.
I know many other people have probably tried the same with disastrous results. In hindsight, I also know exactly why I succeeded. My brother, who started teaching me, taught me the things which would yield appreciable results. I didn't know what those things were beforehand. And most music schools don't teach like that. I learned how to read Tab and chords in tab. Tab (or tablature) is basically a shorthand notation for stringed musical instruments. Which, instead of the typical sheet music shows 6 lines, one per string, with a number indicating the fret. He also stressed learning some basic open chords first. And focusing on one or two songs with simple progressions which I was interested in.
This helped cut through the BS. I still can't read sheet music. And I don't really care. I play guitar for myself. And I'm happy with my level. Without EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE SHORTCUTS though, after 20 hours I probably could have absorbed the same quantity of material. But the value of it for me would have been harder to see and I likely would have lost motivation.
So, here comes what I have to add to that lecture. 20 hours absolutely can get you started on learning something new. This also seems like a fairly reasonable threshold for humans as well. It is enough time that if we're interested and/or find the right way to learn a thing for us that we can get into it, but short enough that if it fails we can discard it. When you get too far past the 20 hour limit, barring some massive soul crushing failure you can generally devote yourself to that thing.
But, if you want to be able to learn anything you want... there is probably a bit of pre-learning required. Some things are more straightforward than others and one approaches works for almost anyone. But most things, aren't.
Looking back on my journey with Japanese, there are many things it would have been great that I had known when I got started. I had soo much free time I was basically guaranteed to be engrossed in it before it ran out. But, I definitely could have been further along and faster. If I had restricted myself to 20 hours before making a decision, I'm not sure I would still be doing it today.
But, here is the thing. Learning a new language is one of the most mind bogglingly difficult things to learn. And there are plenty of examples (usually of polyglots who have their shit together and know what they need to learn) who can get a good start on a language in 20 hours. If the 20 hour rule can apply to even just a small number of people with something so massive as a language, then it can definitely apply to things which are much less complicated. The keys to success are conquering the fear to try and not being afraid to make mistakes when you get started.
I had the extremely good fortune of just starting to feel confident saying some Japanese words at around the same time my daughter was learning to speak. It put my mistakes and hers into perspective. It helped me see more clearly how I was making progress. It also put into perspective just how long it takes a kid to learn their native tongue. And they don't have the knowledge and understanding to structure their learning.
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