I found this interesting and thought some of my fellow skritterers might like to read it too: http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/nov/09/learn-language-in-three-months

It's about Joshua Foer's efforts to learn Lingala in a brief period of time in preparation for a trip to Congo, and what role spaced repetition played in his efforts.

I think most of us already know this, but a lot of how successful one is depends on doing a little each day rather than a lot in a cram.

Joshua Foer writes well. It's just a shame the article was such a stupid title. He learnt 1000 words using an SRS, with 22 hours spent reviewing cards - "just enough vocabulary to let you hit the ground running once you're authentically immersed in a language".

The widespread claims about things like learning a language in 22 hours, or getting to fluency in 3 months, only serve to give people a shock when they finally realize that learning Chinese well takes years and thousands of hours. But "How I learned a language in only three years!" doesn't get clicks.

Well actually I learnt to speak English in 3 months and came 6th in the high school entrance exam in English after 8 months. However I was 10 years old at the time so I think that made a big difference!

Yep, "thousands of hours" is the chinese ability measuring unit

Here's a discussion in Chinese about the article's contents. It's good reading practice! http://mooc.guokr.com/opinion/436785