Where to put the duration of an action?

[Erbse]

I'm a little confused about where to put the duration of an action. Here are some examples.

1) 我休息了一个小时。

2) 我睡了一个小时的觉。

3) 我学习了一个小时。

4) 我学了一个小时习。

3) and 4) are particular confusing to me. My friend from Shanghai say both are okay, although 3) is more common.

Can anyone point out some guidelines? Which verbs require me to put the duration into the middle, and which ones require me to put the duration after them?

[chrix]

I just started a thread on separable verbs

学习 is usually not among them, so either 4) is wrong OR used by only very few people (there's a lot of interindividual and intergenerational differences as to what is acceptable with separable verbs and not).

As a rule, dvandva compounds rarely tend to be separable, but there are some exceptions, such as 睡觉

[Erbse]

does your reply imply that if a verb is separable the duration should be put in between? And I should just learn that list of separable verbs...

[chrix]

Radio Yerevan says: in principle, yes

EXCEPT for those separable verbs that don't allow this, or allow either.

Unfortunately the rules are different for every separable verb. This is one area of Chinese grammar where few generalisations can be given. We can discuss this on the separable verb thread if you like...

[coolnicholas]

I must say （4） is not right, we can't say 学了一个小时的习，we should say 学习了一个小时！

[gougou]

I just got a message from a Chinese friend two days ago where she said something like "看看书，学学习，上上网"; was pretty surprised by that, too.

[doraemon]

I've never actually heard of anyone using "学学习". It's always been "学习学习" as far as I know. I dunno, it could be right, but this verb certainly is a weird compared to some of the others.

[HashiriKata]

Although 睡觉 and 学习 look like they belong to the same category, they are very different and therefore behave differently. 睡觉 is consisting of a verb and a noun whereas 学习 is verb+verb.