In the Conversations of Rav Nahman is brought how he would go through four pages of the large Shulhan Aruch of Rav Karo during the time when people would start to gather in the morning to pray until they started praying. [At a normal pace of reading that would take about 2 hours if you take about 40 minutes to get through one page with the Magen Avraham and Taz plus the other commentaries. But lets say that in his days the large Shulchan Aruch did not have all the smaller commentaries, just the two on the sides [Shach and Taz and their parallels in the other volumes.] Still it would take at least an hour. So we know that Rav Nahman was reading more than fast. He was reading very, very fast.
Ok you might say, that was because he was smart. But that is not the point. The point in Conversation 76 is that everyone ought to learn fast. As it says there "All you need in learning is to say the words in order and then to go on. And if you do not understand right away, eventually you will understand [by reviewing the book again and again.] And even of you never understand, so what? For the greatness of a lot of learning goes above everything else." לא צריכים בלימוד רק האמירה לבדה, לומר הדברים כסדר וממילא יבין ואם אינו מבין תיכף יבין אחר כך ואם יישארו כמה דברים שאינו מבין מה בכך כי מעלת ריבוי הלימוד עולה על הכל
[However in Torah learning, I could not do things in exactly that way. In fact, in Litvak yeshivas the morning is for in depth learning, and the afternoon for fast learning. However this advice of Rav Nahman I found to be the only way I could get any Mathematics at all. For lots of review in Math made no sense to me. If I did not understand at first, then review did nothing. It did not matter if it was lots of review, or a little. So the only way I could get into math at all was by this method of Rav Nahman, and in fact, eventually I would start to get the idea (just like he said). That maybe does not make me a Peter Scholze or Fesenko, but I certainly understand a lot more than if I would not have learnt at all.
