You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Metus comments on Open thread, Sept. 29 - Oct.5, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: polymathwannabe 29 September 2014 01:28PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (339)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Metus 30 September 2014 10:19:59PM 1 point [-]

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.

I'll keep that in mind, thanks.

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.

My question more generally is, how far can you divide this? I recognised some time ago that even when I literally can't read mathematical formulae anymore, I am perfectly able to learn a language or read prose except for the slight exhaustion. Could I learn math, a language and after that some biology? Where is the limit, except for the obvious time constraints? Should learning of math be interrupted by short burts of learning a language or by complete rest? And so on.

Comment author: ChristianKl 01 October 2014 03:52:34PM 1 point [-]

Learning languages can have many forms. Browsing through vocabulary at 4 secs per card on Anki is challenging to keep up for 2 hours in a row. On the other hand it's quite possible to do 2 hours of a Pimsleur tape in one setting.

Should learning of math be interrupted by short burts of learning a language or by complete rest?

I think it makes the most sense to switch mental and physical activity.

Could I learn math, a language and after that some biology?

Traditionally that's what's done in high school.