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New Super Challenge Discussion thread2014

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rdearman
Senior Member
United Kingdom
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881 posts - 1812 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin

 
 Message 521 of 766
17 July 2014 at 3:57pm | IP Logged 
milesaway wrote:
Still a hot topic.

A few questions:
-I'll be reading Harry Potter in Russian and in Finnish, simultaneously, can I count
both? I looked at listening and reading for Finnish, but that would leave me completely lost, given that I only know about 3 words per page.

On that topic, do I have to understand the film to count it? :P


I don't see why reading the same book in two different languages is a problem. But you can only count the pages read in Russian against your Russian score, and Finnish against Finnish.
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rdearman
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United Kingdom
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881 posts - 1812 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin

 
 Message 522 of 766
17 July 2014 at 4:10pm | IP Logged 
Well I don't know if it is inspirational. But I've been logging my progress all through the SC and I've taken my French reading level up from a high A2 to B2 in only a couple of months.

So I have to say a warm "THANK YOU SOLFRID!!" because without the challenge I wouldn't have made anywhere near that amount of progress.

For films I haven't had any problems watching films because I watch them on my smartphone. This doesn't seemed to have helped me as much, but perhaps because I simply have no way to test if I'm progressing. I've decided for the very last month of the challenge in Dec 2015 that I'll rewatch the films I watched in May and see how far I've progress.

So if you're looking for a testimonial then I say the SC is the best way to go!!

EDIT:

Just wanted to add that I quite enjoy the little mini-challenges which Solfrid drops in every once in awhile. And I'd like to add a possible mini-challenge for a future month during the challenge. A "Non-fiction, fact only" challenge for either a week or maybe even an month. So the idea would be that for maybe one month of the SC you only watch documentaries or read non-fiction books on a subject which you want to learn about. For example if you are interested in fossil collecting, beer brewing, beekeeping, antiquities or some other hobby, you read non-fiction books in the TL or watch as many TV shows related to that hobby.

I would suggest a little lead time for this mini-challenge because people would have to find the resources. But I think it would be great to use my knowledge of a TL to learn something other than languages in the new language.




Edited by rdearman on 17 July 2014 at 4:37pm

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Serpent
Octoglot
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Russian Federation
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 Message 523 of 766
17 July 2014 at 4:38pm | IP Logged 
You can look into Listening-Reading, ie reading Russian and listening to Finnish (or the opposite). In the previous challenge I found it vastly superior to only listening or only reading, but unfortunately you have to choose one that counts, or listen twice.

edit: I love the idea of a non-fiction challenge! I'd prefer if you didn't have to choose a specific topic/language.

Edited by Serpent on 17 July 2014 at 4:47pm

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Jeffers
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United Kingdom
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Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

 
 Message 524 of 766
17 July 2014 at 6:35pm | IP Logged 
Thanks to Napoleon, I know how to post an image. So here it is, the Super Challenge Film Infographic:



Green is the core concept, each level to the right is one step further away. Orange are the borderline items which people could still count if they want. Red are the things which aren't allowed.
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sctroyenne
Diglot
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 Message 525 of 766
17 July 2014 at 7:20pm | IP Logged 
I think this record of my monthly reading times (including my time so far for July)
speaks to how well the challenge has been going for me:



I've been taking advantage of the Alliance Française library to have access to seminal
works of nonfiction (mainly history) that would be normally too difficult and too
expensive to access. I've been reading works by major historians of the Annales
school such as Fernand Braudel and Georges Duby. And I'm about to start some Claude
Levi-Strauss. I think this is just what I need to upgrade my level, not to mention I
can contribute very intelligently to intellectual discussions in French.

My reading time thus far has included articles, mostly long form types and editorials
(minimum 5 pages but all the way up to 30 pages) from sites/publications such as Le
Monde Diplomatique
and Slate.fr which comes out with some pretty good content. I
wanted to avoid the whole latest discussion like the plague but just to put my little
grain de sel in, I'd say the "normal" way of reading news is to scan through a
whole bunch of short articles in order to know everything that's going on in the world
in under 20 minutes. This contributes to an ADHD effect which is really hard to
overcome in order to devote the time to longer and more in-depth content mentioned
above. I can say that the SC has encouraged me tackle the more in-depth stuff. But
whatever is decreed goes. With that I'll duck out.
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rdearman
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United Kingdom
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881 posts - 1812 votes 
Speaks: English*
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 Message 526 of 766
17 July 2014 at 7:43pm | IP Logged 
sctroyenne wrote:
This contributes to an ADHD effect which is really hard to
overcome in order to devote the time to longer and more in-depth content mentioned
above. I can say that the SC has encouraged me tackle the more in-depth stuff. But
whatever is decreed goes. With that I'll duck out.


No, the graphic above is related to films. You can read anything, just count the words and 250-350 words equal one page for the purposes of the challenge.
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Kerrie
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Kerrie2
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 527 of 766
17 July 2014 at 10:48pm | IP Logged 
Jeffers wrote:
I have to second the appreciation of Kanewai in this challenge. He has led me to many good book and film choices.


Ditto that. Lots of great recommendations. His enthusiasm for classic literature makes me want to delve into it, too. For both my primary target languages. :)

Edited by Kerrie on 17 July 2014 at 10:50pm

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iguanamon
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 Message 528 of 766
18 July 2014 at 12:11am | IP Logged 
Though I'm not a part of this challenge, the original intent was, and is, to get learners to delve deeply into native materials in order to improve their languages. It's not about "winning", per se. Someone will win the titular title of SC champ. That doesn't mean that all others have "lost" Your win comes after you've challenged yourself to do the most you can do and, as a result, have made a dramatic improvement in your language. When that happens, you are, indeed, a winner, whether or not you have any stars!

I remember Cristina starting this challenge a couple of years ago. At the time, I didn't think the membership would take it on board as much as it has. It seems to have had a huge impact on the collective culture of HTLAL since its inception. As a result, posts asking about courses designed for B2, C1 and C2 are much fewer these days. More folks are accepting that doing more with a language outside of courses and srs can be highly beneficial to learning. People are having a lot of fun exploring their TL's cultures and media. This is an extremely good thing for learning and learners. The rationale behind books and films has been explained. The line has to be drawn somewhere.

I wish folks would try to keep in mind that this is about winning their own challenge not the HTLAL challenge. The competition isn't fellow participants. The competition is between the individual and the TL. Participants who are doing well are inspiring the others who may be having some difficulty. The SC isn't, and wasn't designed to be, an easy challenge. That's the point.

Good luck to everyone. I'm enjoying following your progress.

Edited by iguanamon on 18 July 2014 at 12:13am



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