In your opinion, is it better to listen to a 10-minute lesson once, or a 2-minute lesson five times? Do you think repetition or exposure to more materials is more important?
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This depends on you. Personally I do a mixture of both in regards to reading. So I sometimes review old stuff but mainly read new materials. But this is because I get bored by repetition super quickly. In regards to listening I split up one longer sequence (usually a podcast of about 15 minutes) into smaller pieces. I translate one section accounting for a few minutes of speech and than listen to that section. This way I don’t have to memorize everything the person is going to speak about. But I am still at a low level. If more advanced, I would listen to everything in one go.
However, it really depends on several factors and I’d say it is best you try out several options and see what works best for you. Over the time this may change, too.
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In my opinion, it depends on your concentration. If you are paying attention (noticing things, trying) for the whole 10 minutes, that is fine.
If the new content is 20-25 minutes, I sometimes notice that after 10 minutes my mind starts to wander: I am no longer paying attention. Then I stop. I might do the rest of the 25 minutes the next day.
I rarely repeat a lesson. I don’t find it helps me. But some people do. If it helps you, then do it.
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It will depend on your level. I am quite happy listening to an hour long podcast in French. Sometimes my concentration slips, if so I switch to more interesting content. In German I would struggle with anything more than a few minutes.
I suggest you experiment, see if you can keep your attention on the lesson for ten minutes, and if not, break it up. Or perhaps you will find you just prefer shorter chunks. Try listening again the next day, or the next week. See how it goes.
Relistening is a good way to consolidate words and grammar. I do relisten to French content, but usually after many months in which case it tells me how much progress I am making. Thus far I always see a huge improvement in comprehension, which helps motivate me and acts as a reward. Sometimes I listen to a podcast several times over a few days, I do this when the content is tricky, so I can pick up and ingest more details.
In the beginning stages I probably would favor the 2 minute lesson 5 times, but if you also have content that is 10 min, have at it!
In the beginning stages, I think it can be good to repeat the shorter lessons. I think after a few times you lose any effect because you’ve already memorized the lesson in your head (in your native language). But the repetitions can help…if you tolerate it. After a period of time you can probably go back and look at them again.
A 10 minute one…I know I repeated many of these a couple of times in my late beginner stages. Again, if you can tolerate it, it’s probably helpful.
Having said all that, it’s also not necessary to repeat anything. You will see these most common words again and again so you won’t miss out on any opportunities to see the words in different contexts.
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Whatever you enjoy more is probably the correct answer for you.
At first I couldn’t enjoy long lessons as they had too many new words. Shorter lessons were easier to focus on and usually had easier, more common words.
Repeating them occasionally was fun for me. Whenever I reach the point where lessons are too hard, I reread easier ones. Now I’ve reread some so much that I’d no longer gain much from them as i know most of the words, and its not challenging enough or new enough to enjoy.
I now enjoy longer texts about history or beautiful stories, but certain topics aren’t so enjoyable so I avoid them.
If I enjoy it more, I read and engage more. Otherwise I get lost doing word from word translations and not grasping the context or whole sentence.
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