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Super Challenge Update thread 2014-15 | ||
Tags: Super Challenge | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5388 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 49 of 198 31 May 2014 at 9:04am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I just saw in my Facebook feed that Au Coeur de l'histoire just did a show on how the Middle Ages was actually a good time for women. Complements the book I just read very nicely, La femme aux temps des cathédrales by Régine Pernoud. Also great timing as I'll be giving a presentation on the book next week. I haven't listened to it yet but I recommend it :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5233 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 50 of 198 31 May 2014 at 11:40am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Not me, I'm struggling with the books, but figure we should bump films up to 250. ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5979 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 51 of 198 31 May 2014 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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A May update from one of the plodders. There is no way I can keep up with the participants who have somehow already run an SC marathon in just the first month, but I keep telling myself I just need to make sure I get through 5 "books" and 5 "movies" a month and I am still on track. And I am on track at least for Japanese, but have had to take a major reality check on French and German. I don't want to feel like I have to drop French and German to continue with Japanese, so for now I'll keep logging what I do, but I think it's doubtful I'll complete an SC in more than one language.
Japanese 5.6 Books I have finished two graded readers aimed at third grade elementary school kids (I gave myself a 25% reduction on the page count to account for larger text and pictures): １０分で読める伝記３年生 offers a selection of biographies, including many characters I already know about. Everything is written in quite simple language with near complete furigana so scores pretty high for comprehensibility. １０分で読めるお話三年生 contains 10 short stories and 2 short poems. As it is fiction, there is more descriptive language than the biographies volume, so it's a little tougher. Also it assumes you have the kanji knowledge of a typical third grader, so there is a little less furigana but my kanji ability is up to that standard at least. I nearly dropped it because I'm getting totally bored of talking animal stories aimed at 8 year olds, but the stories in the second half of the book was much better, including a story about a diligent student who loved studying and never watched TV, until a god took residence in his head and sucked up everything the kid tried to learn. It's a feeling a can relate to! I'm now halfway through a kids fantasy novel: 地下室からのふしぎな旅 by 柏葉幸子 but I'll log the pages on the bot and give a proper write up once I've finished it. 6.9 films I've watched 9 episodes of the second season of cop drama 相棒, which combines a great good cop/bad cop duo with, on occasion, some utterly ridiculous storylines. I find it very entertaining. I've also watched a bit more anime than I usually do. I started rewatching ヨルムンガンド which I've seen once before with subtitles, this time I've turned the subs off. It's about an enigmatic arms dealer who has a plan to bring about world peace. A refreshing alternative to the oversupply of shows aimed primarily at teenage boys, but it's not easy watching. I've been trying out Crunchyroll too. I'm very excited to see they are expanding their range of dramas, since there is a real lack of legal online J Drama sources. But I ended up watching the special episode of the anime 蟲師 using their Android app, and had to watch it with subs as you can't turn them off on the app (shame). 蟲師 is kind of formulaic after a while, but the artwork and soundtrack are really rather beautiful and atmospheric. I also watched the first episode of 宇宙兄弟 to test out the web version of Crunchyroll, so I could turn off the subs. Too soon to say whether I will continue watching the rest of the series. French 1.4 films I've watched two documentaries. Firstly "Un oeil sur la planète: les nouveaux eldorados", which looked at the economic booms happening in Colombia, Mongolia, Ethiopia, and the boomtown Williston, USA, which has sprung up around the fracking industry. I found it fascinating. I also watched "Mc do une passion francaise" thanks to tastyonions dropping a link in emk's log! I tried making a start on reading Amélie Nothomb's Ni d'Eve ni d'Adam but I've only found the time for the first few pages so far. German 0.6 books Haifische in der spree is a Lernkrimi for A1/A2 level published by Cornelsen with book and audio combined. It's level appropriate and not exactly a bad read, but you don't get much for your money. I'd rather they dropped the audio and published more text at this level. 0.3 films I watched an episode of Hin & Weg, a travel show streamed on the DW website. It's really one big advert for the German tourist industry, but since I would like to plan another trip to Germany, I don't mind at all. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4580 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 52 of 198 31 May 2014 at 2:38pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Nooooo, I think films should only be 30 minutes :D I'm tempted to agree with kanewai re 100 pages per book, because it feels weird to me that I'm only reading my fifth actual book, but I'm already credited with about 30 'books' for the purposes of the challenge. It seems like reading 50 pages is much quicker for me than the 90 minutes required for a film. That said, looking at the stats I think I lot of people are finding the books more challenging than the films, so probably 50 pages per book is a fair balance. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5392 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 53 of 198 31 May 2014 at 4:44pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Wow, that is amazing! I would not call that a plodder. That's very respectable. Especially since Japanese is much harder to read. I am impressed. :) If you can get through 5 "books" in a month in Japanese, you won't have any trouble finishing the challenge. Remember, as you read more, your reading abilities will get better, and you will be reading faster. You are also at the right level where massive amounts of reading will do wonders for you. :)
You are not competing with anyone. It is not a competition. It is a challenge, for yourself, to push you outside your comfort zone and do more than you otherwise would have. And (I think) part of the idea was to push you into native materials and start using the language. As opposed to those of us who will just go work on another textbook, and never actually use it. :) Don't give up on French and German, just because you did not "keep up" with a quota for the first month. Your French is perfect for this challenge. (Whether you decide you want to put the time and effort into the language is another matter, which only you can decide. Of course.) It really depends on where you want to go with each of them. You can also choose to aim for a full challenge in Japanese and French, and a half (or even quarter) in German. Last time, Serpent and I had a contest who could take on the most languages and stay at the top of the leader board. (I say this jokingly. Sort of.) We had people signing up for five or six languages, and those were the folks "at the top." Now we have a different issue. We have people who are focusing on *one* language at the top. When Cristina blew the starting whistle, there were already three dozen people sitting there waiting for a running start. I think it's amazing how many people are participating this time around, and how much so many have accomplished. However, I think it's really discouraging to a lot of people to see others reading 800-1000 pages in the first month. If you are starting at an A2/B1 level, this is practically impossible! I don't know everyone who's at the top of the list right now, but I would imagine most - if not all - of them started out at a higher level and reading is "easy" for them. Or at least easier. Between the SC threads and personal logs, I continue to see people discouraged because they are comparing themselves to what other people are doing. Don't be. This is not a competition. By the nature of the challenge, you will accomplish more next month than you did last month. You will get better and faster at reading, and it will be easier. Don't worry about reaching a "quota" for each month. Do your best to be consistent and motivated, and stay the course. Regardless of where you are "on the list" I guarantee you will find yourself leaps and bounds ahead of where you are now, when the challenge ends in nineteen months. I know that you can have the list set to random. Does anyone know how to do that? I think it would be really useful for a lot of people. This challenge was set up for us to make progress in our target language(s), and to support and encourage each other. Instead of looking at it as "I can't keep up with Vivian and Clare" - think about how you will be able to read that fast (if you want to) once you have grueled through 20 months of massive progress. And if you keep working on it with the goal in mind, you will get there. :)
I agree. I'm aiming for the original 10,000 pages over twenty months. I actually put my goals as my first tweets, so they will be at the top of my list. Now, I may regret that in eighteen months and I am not where I want to be and I end up scrambling, but.. LOL I think lowering the reading expectations made it a lot more doable for more people, and I think that's important. Regardless of the dozen or so people who are "at the top" right now, I think it's more realistic for the majority of people who are starting at an A1/A2/B1 level to read 5,000 pages and reach their goal, than to aim too high and get discouraged. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| VivianJ5 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4259 days ago 81 posts - 133 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 54 of 198 31 May 2014 at 6:00pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I completely agree with Kerrie! An A1 - B1 level learner can in no way compare to those of us at a higher level doing this challenge. I'm currently at the "top" of the list (in one way of ranking, anyway), but I'm very sure I won't be staying there, which is fine. I'm currently a high B2 - C1 in French (again, depending on how you rank these things); my only reason for doing the challenge in French was to give myself a bit of a push to refocus on the French I've been losing over the past couple of years. While my kids were home, and going to French lycées, I had constant exposure to French parents, French teachers, the whole French community. Now that they've flown the nest, I need to find other sources of French to keep up my level. For me, this is a completely personal challenge, but I love the boost I get from seeing my "numbers" increase. And seeing my French level again approach what it used to be... My language level is already high, I read fast, and I don't work. How many people in the challenge have that perfect storm of level, ability and free time? I would guess not many. So for this challenge, in this language, at this time, I'm the lucky one in terms of ranking. Trust me, next time, if I decide to focus on my Italian (A2) or Spanish (A1), I won't be anywhere near the top. And that's okay. Any sources of motivation that gets any of us to give that little extra push to our learning, whether it's a challenge, an upcoming trip, or a new relationship, is a wonderful thing! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6594 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 55 of 198 31 May 2014 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Well, saying "you only compete with yourself" is not enough. Just look at any other challenge. Telling people to ignore the ranking is about as useless as telling them to ignore what they read online. (emk posted this link at some point) It also sounds hypocritical when coming from people high on the list.
The single easiest way to get me to sign up with just a couple of languages would've been to discuss the ranking change in advance, by the way. As for random listing, you can see it by deleting your settings, at the bottom of the page. Edited by Serpent on 31 May 2014 at 6:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4580 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 56 of 198 31 May 2014 at 6:07pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Just to say that I would hate to discourage anyone else by the number of pages I've read!
I've only got so many because I've developed a 'Twilight' addiction (which is not something I'm proud of). I admire anyone who has taken on more than one language for this challenge; I know I couldn't do that. And yes, if you click "Clear Local Data" right at the bottom of the page it shows you the list in a different order each time you refresh the page, which is nice :) 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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