Open thread, Sept. 29 - Oct.5, 2014

polymathwannabe

Open thread, Sept. 29 - Oct.5, 2014 — LessWrong

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This might sound unusually specific, but here it goes.

When attending teaching seminars I unusually often encounter Russian authors and notice that the publication dates lie before the fall of the Soviet Union. As I am currently learning Russian and suspect that there are plenty of high quality didactics materials yet to be translated I ask if someone knows if and how I could dig these docments up.

Alternatively, point me to a comprehensive translation of the materials. A more specific question I'd like to have answered, in addition to discovering something I can't yet imagine, is how much a person could learn any given amount of time, that is if learning a language blocks out learning about, say, mathematics or if they draw from slightly different pools.

Shmi12y40

There are several native Russian speakers frequenting this forum who would probably summarize a link for you better than google translate. In case it makes your life easier.

As for the language vs math pools, my experience is that they are unconnected, except for the obvious bottleneck of having to divide your finite learning time between them. However, if you are learning, say, 3rd language, then your 2nd language will temporarily suffer unless you keep practicing it. This only applies to spoken, not written language skills, which are unaffected or may even benefit.

5ChristianKl12y

As far as learning goes, you can't learn two things at the same time. The hour you spent learning Russian can't be spent learning mathematics. Don't put background Russian radio on while you learn mathematics. It will distract you from learning math. You can learn a language in small intervals while you are on the go. Completing a Duolingo Session while you ride the bus is easy. Doing math while you ride the bus isn't. The second thing that takes time is memory interference. If you do Anki don't learn 6 new Russian animal names at the same time. Duolingo get's this very wrong... Learning 6 animal names at once is much harder than learning 1 at a week at a time. I think outside of SRS books are written the way that the introduce multiple items of the same class because while the makes learning harder, hard learning decreases long term forgetting a bit. I don't think there meaningful interference between learning Russian and math.

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