Then again, a day like that uncovers a lot of unconscious learning that happens along the way. Maybe it’s not so much new learning, but rather a consolidation of what I already know. I had this happen in Mexico City once. I met a woman from Bolivia who spoke no English. Naturally I was forced to speak Spanish with her, and I did. All day long for three days, and about a host of rather abstract subjects as well. Had you asked me a day earlier whether I would be capable to do so, I would have vehemently denied the possibility. The jist of all this is that I’m convinced that even quite unstructured exposure to the language makes a difference. These moments when it all comes together makes it seem like language learning has these spurts with times in between where nothing much happens. But I believe that learning is really quite continuous during times of exposure. Which of course is exactly what your adding of hours suggests.

Characters is probably an even more bizarre way of answering/asking, but HSK results are a lot better, I think. The tests aren’t perfect of course, but still cover a lot more than any single number of years/characters/whatever.

I don’t think I would normally ask this question to someone myself in English. But in China and in Chinese I’ve picked up the habit, too. If I meet somebody who is a learner of an instrument, if speaking Chinese, I would likely ask how long they have been playing, expecting the answer in years.

But really it’s just making conversation – it’s such a common thing for Chinese people to say in that situation.

It’s just interesting to me that I doubt I would ask this question to somebody outside of the Chinese context. If making conversation I would likely pursue a different line.

Do you agree there is a cultural aspect to this question?

Fair enough.

I think I might have to do a mini-log to enable me to make a new estimate.

I totally agree that hours put in is such a better measurement for anything in life. Whenever I get asked, “How long have you been studying?” there’s always that little voice inside of me telling me “We measure our time in hours, not years!”

I’m trying to collect data for Chinese, actually, but I’d still be interested in your data, although perhaps not through the survey? Regarding the level of detail, please check my answer to “A”. We could of course try to measure in much more detail, but I think that would be quite meaningless.

Of course. The scale is unlimited in terms of how detailed you want to be, but I think it’s completely impossible to estimate how much time you spent doing certain activities in retrospect. My own estimate here was very, very rough and with such accuracy, it stops being meaningful to go after a more detailed measurement. You’re right, of course, it’s just not very practical unless you keep a record while you actually study.