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Comment by peruvian | Hacker News Reader

I really don't think there's much difference between learning as an adult or a teenager. It's just that we have less time.

A few months ago I wanted to learn to appreciate and listen to classical music. I woke up an hour earlier every morning and read a book, listened to an audio course (Robert Greenberg's How to Listen to and Understand Great Music), and listened to actual music then and throughout the day. A few months later I can recognize the structure of most pieces and if the composer "broke the rules" (and why). I can't read music or tell which note is which (yet!) but I made a lot of progress.

Unless it's a particularly difficult subject, simple daily practice and learning goes a long way.

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I'm mid 40's now. It is significantly different than when I was 20 or younger.

It was like I had more horsepower back then. I could sit down and do 200 vocabulary words 90% retention after a single pass. I'm nowhere close now.

On the other hand, I can organize my attack on learning something so much better than I could before.

I'm the exact opposite. Back in my 20s I was surrounded by countless distractions: bar-hopping, parties, girls, video games, you name it. Sitting down and applying myself to learning something took tremendous effort.

Now that I'm in my 30s though, I have way more focus. I can easily sit down and work on a project for hours at a time. On top of that, I have way more motivation, because I have a very good idea of what I want in life and I know how to get there.

I'm there to man. Just got into my 30's and things seem clearer now to me.

40s ditto.

I don't know about you but I also don't feel like I have that much time like when I was 20, so I at least try to squander less of it

Same, in fact I dropped out of college after the first two years (started immediately after high school). I took a few years off and then went back only to find that I was able to learn things much easier, and with less distraction that I had at a younger age.

As someone who's still in the "dropped out" phase, this is tremendously encouraging. I can tell that I am improving in my concentration, discipline, catching myself procrastinating etc, but sometimes I worry that it's too slow and that I'll never develop to the point where I'll be able to complete a degree.

> I could sit down and do 200 vocabulary words 90% retention after a single pass. I'm nowhere close now.

Would be interesting to quantify such changes, but my guess would be that the changes are smaller than expected or felt.

Retention is something you can train. In your teens you used to train your retention, so it was significantly better. After becoming an adult you spend much less time learning, and the ability to remember things after the first pass has declined.

I gurantee that if you train your memory daily, you will get the same retention as you used to.

> I really don't think there's much difference between learning as an adult or a teenager. It's just that we have less time.

I am a 40-year-old full time student with a kid, but no job. I disagree completely. I've got the time. When I was 20, I remembered everything I saw or heard even once. I could recall it with ease. Concepts came easily when they were explained in text or in lecture. Now? I'm still plenty smart and usually get the best grade in my class, but I have to work hard for it, where before I never worked at all at it. I have to spend time actually memorizing things. I have to take time to think about concepts in order to understand them. (Weird, right?)

As far as I can tell, the only real advantages I have over my younger self are that I am better disciplined and I appreciate my education more.

You also might be remembering your skills inaccurately. In jr high and high school I also got top grades easily and rarely studied. In college I finally had to. I wondered where my ease of learning had gone, but eventually realized the most likely explanation was that the material had simply been much easier/more intuitive and that I was tricking myself with selection bias.

I'm not the same person, but I never studied in college either. I would go to lecture and get 90%+ on the exam. I would get Bs and Cs because I would never do any homework. I could use concepts from math classes without having used them before, as long as they were explained in lecture.

  I am a 40-year-old full time student with a kid

One big difference may be: how much quality, uninterrupted sleep can you budget now vs. then?

I think another big one is stress. When I'm stressed out I cannot focus as well. This stops me learning. As a kid you just live in the moment and even what I thought of as stress back then really wasn't.

with a kid covers a lot of ages, are you sure you actually have as much time as you think you do?

You mentioned you have a kid and no job. So, you might also worry about the future of your family -- unless you're super rich. I think that makes a big difference. When I was 20 I had the great privilege that I simply didn't care much about my future most of the time. I was able to concentrate fully on what I was doing. Now, I have to handle all sorts of minor problems that occupy some space in my consciousness. I have to allocate time for learning new stuff in advance instead of just doing it when I feel like it and when I'm best at it.

This is one reason I want to make the use of some sort of spaced repetition software a habit for myself. I can't think of any better way to keep learning new things than structured practice..

I agree, but I'm finding it's hard to follow through with the extra hour in the morning, before the commute and everything. Maybe an audio book could still work.

>I really don't think there's much difference between learning as an adult or a teenager. It's just that we have less time.

Shouldn't cognitive science/medicine also have a say on this?

Who have you been listening to and what do you like so far?

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