Bryan Caplan”s go-to advice is to do ten times as much:
Almost no one learns how to speak a foreign language very well in school. By the numbers, it’s tempting to declare, “Learning a foreign language is impossible.” But that’s plainly false. Going from zero to fluency is ultra-rare, but I’ve seen it happen.
How does fluency happen? First and foremost, people who attain fluency practice a lot more than the typical foreign language student. “A lot” doesn’t mean 10% more, 25% more, or even 100% more. People who attain fluency practice about ten times as much as the typical person who is officially “learning a foreign language.” Sure, the quality of practice matters, too; immersion is the best method of foreign language acquisition. But unless you’re willing to give ten times the normal level of effort, fluency is basically a daydream.
When I see the contrast between people who succeed and fail, I generally witness a similar gap in effort. During my eight years in college, I spent many thousands of hours reading about economics, politics, and philosophy. Since high school, I’ve spent over ten thousand hours writing. When young people ask me, “How can I be like you?“ my first thought is, again, do ten times as much.
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But my advice is usually far more practical than it sounds, because most people who “want to succeed” barely lift a finger most of the time. Saying ten times as many kind words to your friends is easy in a world whether most people only say two or three such sentences weekly. Cold emailing ten times as many successful people in your field for advice is easy in a world where most people do so once in a lifetime. Never underestimate your fellow man’s lack of initiative.
Take parenting. Most readers summarize my Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids as “Parenting doesn’t matter.” But that is only one possible interpretation of the twin and adoption data. The data is also consistent, however, with the theory that most parents are barely trying to get results — at least on many relevant margins.
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If you want to learn a foreign language, you need to budget about two thousand hours. If you want to master a technical subject, you need to budget about five thousand hours.
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Either that, or admit that you’ve got higher priorities. No one succeeds at everything. If you’re not willing to do ten times as much, just level with yourself: “I’ve got better things to do than learn a foreign language.” “I’ve got better things to do than become a great economist.”
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Pick your battles, friends. And wherever do you choose to fight, do ten times as much.
Almost every single day I practice reading shapenotes for about an hour. Many others I know with the same interest seldom practice. I want to learn to read this stuff with ease, so I practice. And practice. :)
The “ten times as much” idea has a tiny kernel of truth but Caplan presents it very misleadingly. It is true that very successful people put forth ten times as much activity as their less-successful peers. However, increasing activity level usually does NOT increase effectiveness. Consider Stockton Rush, the persuasive salesman who recently sold a one-way trip to see the shipwreck of the Titanic. Stockton Rush did ten times as much persuasive selling as his peers. This was not good for Rush’s customers.
>Almost no one learns how to speak a foreign language very well in school.
Is he writing about the Western world in general, perhaps about one specific country? Does he have a data set of students?
>Going from zero to fluency is ultra-rare, but I’ve seen it happen.
Did he document his observations at all, or is he relying on memory?
>During my eight years in college, I spent many thousands of hours reading about economics, politics, and philosophy.
Did he have the leisure to spend eight years in college because he got merit scholarships or because he had rich parents?
>Since high school, I’ve spent over ten thousand hours writing.
Lots of people have spent tens of thousands of hours on writing. Some of them are productive. Many of them are semi-successful hucksters.
>When young people ask me, “How can I be like you?“ my first thought is, again, do ten times as much.
Caplan comes across as a salesman using vague anecdotes to look for more customers.
>Ten times as much of what, exactly? The answer is usually: Whatever you already think the crucial ingredient is.
That is horrible advice. If young people are coming to Caplan and they want to succeed, they don’t know what the crucial ingredient is, and Caplan is not responsible for his failures. Caplan can give bad advice to young people and then ignore the ones who fail.
>“Why can’t I get ahead in my career? I strive to study and emulate my role models.” Great idea; you just need to multiply your effort by a factor a ten.
This leaves out the questions of whether the role models are appropriate, whether the world’s circumstances have changed, etc. For example, John D. Rockefeller managed to succeed (by leveraging his psychopathic traits), and possibly some budding psychopaths managed to succeed by imitating him, but that does not prove he is an effective role model in the 21st century.
Bryan Caplan has looked into foreign language education (in the US), and it is awful:
An education professor who studies foreign language acquisition wrote to him in agreement:
Caplan’s homeschooled sons became fluent in Spanish — by doing ten times as much as normal students.
Caplan is apparently an actual expert who was writing in his field of expertise. My criticisms were unwarranted. Thanks for the correction.
I speak as a golf duffer who tried the ten times approach, as do millions of other duffers every day and yet our scores never improve. Perhaps we have reached the limits of our competence and it doesn’t take ten thousand hours to discover that. Two hundred hours would be ample.