The Super challenge! (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

The Super challenge!
Tags: Super Challenge \| Movies \| Fluency \| Time to learn \| Reading
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Jeffers
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Message 41 of 713

11 April 2012 at 11:12pm | IP Logged

geoffw wrote:

So it looks like the "easy" part of SuperChallenge(TM) is essentially equal to 100 units of 90 (or more) minutes of
listening to the TL, for about 150 hours, or in practice likely more like 200 hours, making for a rate of 10 hours per
month.

How long do people expect to need to finish a book in a TL where you are probably about B1 for reading (I think by
definition you can't really read a book if your reading skills aren't at least around B1). In theory, "understanding
contemporary literary prose" falls under B2, but I assume we're all going to be stretching and using a lot of
dictionaries, L-R, and reading translations that we've read in other languages already for the first bit.

I'd assume a minimum of 1 minute per page (very fast, and probably only towards the end of the challenge) and a
maximum of 10 minutes per page (very slow, and probably only towards the beginning when it's still hard to read
for at least gist without a dictionary). If we assume it averages out to 3-4 minutes per page overall, at 200 pages a
book (seems average to me), we're talking 10-12 hours for a book, or 1000-1200 hours reading =

50-60 hours per month.

I think that's possible, but a bit of a stretch. Getting it down to 1 minute a page overall and assuming only 100
pages per book gives us a much more practical 10,000 minutes total = 500 minutes per month =

8.5 hours per month.

Food for thought. That's what makes it the "Super" Challenge!

I was thinking the same thing. It will be a bit difficult to watch 5 movies a month, but to read 5 books a month in a newish language will be monumental. I propose an idea for a "half marathon" approach: the half goal is to reach 100 total (books + films).

To keep it in the spirit of the mixed challenge, we could say if you sign up for the half version, you can do no more than 2/3 in one type (e.g. you could watch 66 films and read 34 books, or the other way around, if that makes any sense).
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g-bod
Diglot
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Message 42 of 713

11 April 2012 at 11:40pm | IP Logged

Well given that "every book counts" I fully intended to start with children's books. I've got a nice selection of graded readers for elementary school children. Each volume is around 170-80 pages but the fonts are nice and big and there are lots of pictures so hopefully it won't take me too long to get through them while my reading speed is still relatively slow...and hopefully my reading speed will increase in the process to give me half a chance of getting in some adult books too!
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geoffw
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Message 43 of 713

11 April 2012 at 11:41pm | IP Logged

Serpent wrote:

LR doesn't really do any stretching other than forcing you to read faster, without necessarily
understanding.

Well, whatever the reason, I know that when I read along in the Dutch in a book with a matching Dutch audiobook, I
understand MUCH more than just listening, or trying to read without listening at anywhere close to that speed.
That's all I had in mind, but I'm sure we can come up with plenty of other tricks along these lines.
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Serpent
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Message 44 of 713

11 April 2012 at 11:55pm | IP Logged

That's interesting. I suppose some things are easier to understand orally and some in writing, so having both L2 audio and L2 text sort of fills in the gaps :)
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Solfrid Cristin
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Message 45 of 713

11 April 2012 at 11:55pm | IP Logged

Serpent wrote:

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

Football matches definitely count, provided there actually is a decent amount of talking, and not just grunting while they kick the ball around :-) I must admit that my experience with fotball matches is extremely limited, bordering on non existant, but there usually is some very talkative guy commenting, right?

yes, pretty much always :D so a full match is one "film"?

BTW if a book has like 75-99 pages, can I just reread the needed number of pages and count it as one book?

Yes. And I have no clue as to what AJATT reading is, but provided it includes the neceassary pages, that will be fine.

And as for half Super challenges I am fine with those, but again, to keep it simple, I suggest you either sign up for
- just the reading
- just the films
- 50 of each.

If we start dividing up more than that I know I will be lost, at least:-)

Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 12 April 2012 at 12:02am
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fiziwig
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Message 46 of 713

12 April 2012 at 12:18am | IP Logged

Jeffers wrote:

It will be a bit difficult to watch 5 movies a month, but to read 5 books a month in a newish language will be monumental.

A lot depends on the target language and the resources available. With Spanish I can tune in Univision on hulu.com, Spanish-language movies on Netflix streaming, and Caracol soap operas or UNED documentaries on YouTube and watch a movie (or the equivalent 2 hours of programming) every evening after supper instead of watching so-called "reality" TV or "Dancing with Is-That-supposed-to-be-someone-we-know." That would add up to over 600 movies in 20 months!!!

Of course I'll need some of that time for reading too, so I plan on reading 5 evenings per week and watching a movie one evening per week, and an hour of soaps or documentaries one afternoon per week (=1/2 a movie). That should get me 1.5 movies per week = 120 movies in 20 months.

I'm not sure about the reading part, but I'm hoping as time goes on my reading speed will pick up. For now I plan to stick with "young adult" fiction rather than anything super-heavy. I may get braver as time goes on.

And since I'm taking a night school Spanish class as well, I need to leave time for homework. Thank goodness I'm retired! :)

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The Real CZ
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Message 47 of 713

12 April 2012 at 1:37am | IP Logged

I would love to join this, but then I saw the 20 month "requirement." I'll be joining the
Air Force in January or so, so I obviously wouldn't be able to do 20 months. I have been
doing something like this for myself though, as I have a bunch of Korean books and
roughly watch 2-3 hours of Korean TV a day, so that would be the equivalent of 300+
Korean movies a year haha.

To all of you who attempt this, good luck.
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GRagazzo
Diglot
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Message 48 of 713

12 April 2012 at 3:41am | IP Logged

I accept, I'm at a b1/b2 don;t really know which one in Italian. I hope I can still join!
anyway I am super excited for this and truly do believe this will help. And if I read
news in Italian should I do 100 articles= 1 book, also is it ok to watch 2 hours of
Italian TV and count it as a movie?

also what is your stance on watching music videos, or just listening to music?

Edited by GRagazzo on 12 April 2012 at 3:45am

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