A guide to intensive and extensive study activities
So I've tended to study 2 ways: either cramming a lot of explicit intensive study to understand something I could not understand before, or just extensively reading/watching things I understand the main idea of and guessing unknown stuff from context.
I'm going to discuss the usefulness of intensive activities, and extensive activities. And maybe what kind of person would prefer which, which type will help with what goals.
Intensive study: great for quickly increasing things you are 'vaguely familiar' with extremely fast, great for reviewing things in a focused way so you do a lot of reviews and end up learning something to the 'recognize and understand' point quicker. For me, the point at which I 'fully learn to instantly understand' words/grammar is still the same amount of time encountering words whether I do intensive or extensive study. But intensive study speeds up the words becoming 'vaguely familiar' and 'recognize and understand' to me.
When might intensive study be useful? Here are some examples:
You want to speak quickly for a trip, so you intensively study a bunch of phrases for travel and things you might say on that trip. So you go through a phrasebook and read everything, to get some vague familiarity if people say those phrases to you later in travel. You repeat a lot of phrases out loud, repeatedly, over a few weeks, to get yourself to 'recognize and understand' them if people say them to you and hopefully to make it possible for you to say them on the trip.
You want to study for a test. Reading the vocabulary list and the grammar points repeatedly before a test, looking up anything unknown that you think will be on the test, will give you at least a 'vague familiarity' so you can guess some things, and hopefully a 'recognize and understand' level with the words so you can understand what's being asked on the test and respond to some degree.
You want to watch a specific show in the target language. Intensively watching a few episodes, looking up every unknown word for say 8 episodes, will quickly give you a 'vague familiarity' with the most common words in the show. Then continuing to look up those 'vaguely familiar' words as they come up again and again, or studying an anki deck with those words, will eventually make you 'recognize and understand' them. At which point, it becomes easier to 'recognize and understand' the main idea of the entire show's episodes. Then you can spend the rest of your time extensively watching (no word lookups) and guessing other new words from context from that main idea you understand.
You want to read a specific book in the target language. Same idea as the show - you intensively look up every unknown word in the first several chapters. Then you keep looking up unknown words, or you study an anki deck of those unknown words, and you eventually get a 'vague familiarity' with many of those words. Then you 'recognize and understand' many of the words, and can start to extensively read (not need word lookups) to guess the meaning of the unknown parts. This is a great way to learn new words when reading - to pick a new novel, look up all the unknown key words you need to understand the main idea, then keep looking those words up until you 'recognize and understand' them. Then the rest of the author's books become easier, and books written with similar types of words. Eventually extensive reading becomes possible, reading without needing to look anything up to follow the main idea. At which point you can build up 'fully learn to instantly understand' skills.
You're studying a language like Japanese or Chinese and want to read characters. Intensively studying anki flashcards, or a textbook, or a list, of radicals and then characters and common words, will make a decent chunk of characters 'vaguely familiar' to you in a short amount of time (less than years). Then you can keep reading (like graded readers and textbooks or flashcards with sentences) and looking up characters regularly until you fully learn to 'recognize and understand' them. Then as you continue engaging with the language, you'll eventually just 'fully know and instantly understand' more and more characters. I think a lot of Japanese learners cram study anki flashcards (or at least I cram studied lol) for characters, because having at least a 'vague familiarity' makes the characters quicker to get to that point of 'recognize and understand.' You already have a memory of the character, from a flashcard or textbook or website where you initially intensively studied it, so the next several times you run into it you are just building up more memories to attach to the characters. The more memories attach to that first memory, the more you understand it. So if you build a bunch of initial memories of characters with intensive study, it's much easier to recognize the character again in a textbook or graded reader or immersion and be reviewing the character instead of learning it brand new (whether you review by looking up what it means again until you remember, or understand it from context).
Studying grammar of a language unfamiliar to your own. Like the characters example above, if you study grammar ahead of time with explicit explanations, then when you run across grammar again in the language - you already have an initial memory to attach the new example to. That initial memory of the grammar point you read about, is your 'vague familiarity' and each time you run across the grammar point in a book or show or conversation you recognize 'ah it's this X point, I should look it up again because I don't remember how it works.' You remember the grammar point EXISTS because you studied it before. That alone makes it easier to identify in the future, even if you'll need to keep looking it up, or keep understanding the grammar point in context, to finally 'recognize and understand' it easily. And then to eventually 'fully learn and instantly understand' it.
Intensive study, which for the intents of this discussion is any time you look up explicit explanations of things in the language or translations, is really good for building a 'vague familiarity' and 'initial memory' of something you're trying to learn. Once you have an initial memory then it becomes easier to recognize that same language piece again in the future, and easier to attach a memory of it's meaning to the existing initial memory (whether the new memory of meaning is you looking up translations/explanations Again or you understanding the meaning through context). If you know something Exists, it's easier to recognize and pay attention to, and eventually remember the meaning of. Intensive study is great for learning certain aspects of a language exist and getting your mind to pay attention to those aspects.
Intensive study is also great if you want to 'recognize and understand' something quickly. NOT necessarily understand it well, there will still be a lot of ambiguity, but understand it QUICKLY. It's like if I told you the word blue and showed you a picture of turquoise stone as your initial memory, and then you watched shows where people said 'blue' a lot about things that were NOT turquoise color. You'd vaguely know the word 'blue' has to do with turquoise stone, and that would maybe help you guess 'blue' is a color or stone, and then over time you'd keep looking 'blue' up and seeing the definitions and example sentences, you'd keep seeing 'blue' said in the show in different context, and eventually understand it's a broad range of color. Your initial vague familiarity with 'blue' was that it was a color or stone, or related to those, and then that would be enough to help you guess the meaning of 'blue' with the context you kept seeing it in, and with the examples/definitions you kept seeing for it. Language learning is like this, translations are not one to one. You get a vague familiarity but it will take a WHILE to recognize and understand what it actually means, it will take seeing it in different contexts and seeing different explanations until the word finally clicks for you fully. Then more exposure for it to be understood 'instantly' without thought. Well intensive study of say 2000 common words, means when you go into a show you have at LEAST a vague guess of what a majority of the words you hear might mean. And you have an initial memory of those 2000 words, to start attaching the meaning of the new contexts you see those words used in. Intensive study of 2000 words in anki can be great for prepping to read, or to watch a show, because even a 'vague familiarity' is useful. It is more context to rely on, to attach memories to.
I think a lot of Chinese and Japanese learners study 2000+ words in anki before watching shows, because even a vague familiarity gives them something to attach more meaning and context to over time. With a language with a lot of cognates to your own, like me knowing English and learning French, a lot of the cognates do that work of providing additional context I can use to guess unknown words. With Chinese, once you know a certain amount of hanzi, the hanzi provide that additional context to guess the meaning of new words, and radicals give some initial memory to use to build up the meaning of new hanzi in your head. But in the beginning, knowing zero characters, you've got few cognates to rely on, no common roots or word endings to English, studying intensively gives you some 'vague familiarity' information in your head to start tying memories to.
Intensive study is a great way to get a lot of initial vague familiarity with lots of words or grammar, fast. If you keep looking up words repeatedly, or keep doing anki reviews/textbook reviews/list reviews regularly, it also gets words into your 'recognize and understand' level quicker since you're regularly reviewing/running into those words again and again. You still get long term 'fully know and instantly understand' of words just as fast as extensive learning - it takes repeated exposure of many contexts many times. But the initial part can be sped up, and you can control WHAT you are initially vaguely familiar with, with intensive study of the material you choose.
Extensive study, which for the purpose of this discussion will just be engaging with anything you understand the main idea of, and can guess/infer other thing's meanings from the context of that main idea.
Extensive study is great for improving comprehension SPEED. It's great for improving ability to understand the language without tools. It's great for improving confidence in using the language. It's great for practicing understanding and using the language the way you would in real situations, when there's nothing to help you.
Extensive reading builds reading speed, and reading comfort. It is necessary to build reading fluency (including in your native language). You will never read fast if you never practice reading without looking things up. You will never develop the skill of inferring meaning from context, a skill often used in reading, if you look up every single unknown thing. These are necessary skills.
Extensive listening builds up the speed at which you understand words/grammar, how 'instantly' you can understand what you've learned to 'recognize and understand.' Until you listen to things spoken at native speed, things spoken with normal amounts of slurring and normal accent variations, you will not have any practice understanding the language in regular conversational use. You have to practice understanding language as it is actually spoken, to get better at understanding the language spoken in Real Time as it's Actually Spoken. And again, like reading, extensive listening builds up the skill of inferring the meaning of unknown parts when listening. Which is a skill you have to develop. Some people will say certain words weird, have hard accents to understand, speak super quickly, say a word you don't know, and you need to develop skills to cope with those situations when there is no ability to ask them to repeat themselves and no ability to look something up.
Imagine being 4 years old again in your native language, and hearing the news for adults - you don't remember this probably, but the news for adults used a lot of words you didn't know and country names you didn't know, and you might have heard your parents discuss the news with each other and tried your best to follow what they said but couldn't. I remember it wasn't until I was 9 that I felt I could understand the news on TV, or my parents discussing the news. Well conversations in the target language are like that - some will be easier to understand sooner, like conversations about what to eat. Some will be harder to understand for a longer amount of time, and you need to develop strategies to infer what meaning you can, to ask people to rephrase things and explain, to judge what areas of language you Can Understand better versus worse so you know what to work on.
Extensive reading and extensive listening help you build the skills to understand in your target language, that you use in your native language every day. Over time these skills will make understanding the target language quicker for you, more intuitive, and more comfortable.
Extensive speaking with other people, or texting with other people, can help you develop the skills to talk about the things you want to even if you don't know a word. Say I couldn't remember the word melancholic in english, I might say "Today's weather is so - like heavy, it makes me feel sad.' and express the similar intent to me trying to say "today's weather is making me feel melancholic'. You learn different ways to express what you mean, when you can't look things up. (You can look things up, intensively, if you're trying to build up what you can say into more things). You need the skill to be able to communicate, even if imperfectly, in situations where looking things up isn't possible or easy. Practicing communicating with no tools allows you to learn how to do that.
Extensive listening, reading, speaking is also great if: you like learning primarily through guessing from context/by doing activities, if you can find material you understand the main idea of. Such as comprehensible input lessons on youtube (designed for the main idea to be understood from visuals), or nature method textbooks (designed for main idea to be understood using images and cognates to English), or graded readers (designed to be main idea understandable if you know the number of common words the graded reader recommends/have the language level the graded reader recommends such as A2/N2/HSK3), or a tutor who is tailoring their speech to a level you understand (while also saying some new words/grammar each session). I love learning from context, and learning by doing the activity I want to be able to do. So I love these kinds of resources. With French, after 1 semester class and reading a 1000 common words list, I pretty much exclusively used these kinds of resources until I could extensively read regular novels. With Chinese and Japanese, I did more intensive study at the beginning, and I used graded readers, manga, manhua, to extensively read as soon as possible. I love learning from context.
If you find learning from context-only to be intensely FRUSTRATING, then I would recommend avoiding materials made to be extensively studied, except when you're specifically trying to practice listening/reading comprehension and tolerance for ambiguity, trying to develop the skill of guessing from context (because you will need that skill eventually). I'd recommend picking extensive learning materials where you know as much as possible of what's in it - since you do not like ambiguity or guessing from context, you'll want to make what's unknown just a small part of the material that only happens once every 5 minutes or so. I also recommend using things with parallel translations for a while before diving into just-target-language stuff: things like bilingual texts, learner podcasts that include english explanations, and language/target language audio sentences like Glossika or pimsleur. Those study materials with translations will be easier for you to tolerate, so you can practice understanding then Check the translations for if you successfully understood/guessed, and help you work your way toward eventually some target-language-only materials to extensively practice with.
If you find learning from explanations intensely FRUSTRATING, and enjoy learning from context much more? I would recommend looking up materials that are more suited to extensive study: 'comprehensible input lessons' with a lot of visuals to provide context, graded readers, learner podcasts for the language level you're at (A1, A2 etc), especially learner podcasts that primarily stay in the target language, tutors that will use pictures and speak with mostly words you know (and introduce some new stuff to you regularly), and engaging with anything you understand the main idea of.
Visual materials will be easier for you to understand the main idea of, and the visuals will provide more context - so cartoons for toddlers where the visuals are directly related to what's being said, cartoons for 5-10 year old kids, comics for children and comics about daily life topics, shows and video games you know the plot of already (so you have context to guess what's going on and what words might mean what). Later, reading novels and listening to audiobooks of things you already know the plot of. Reading nonfiction and news can be easier too, because if you already know the nonfiction topic well then you can guess what more unknown words mean, with news you can see a lot of proper names and places and if you're familiar with the news already then you know what should be going on and can guess what the unknown words mean.
Intensive and Extensive activities can be used at any point, to develop most skills. They're both useful. Some people heavily rely on one type more than the other, and that's fine. Do what you like doing, what you can get yourself to do that helps your goals. I just felt like writing this because it can be useful to see where these activities can help.
