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How about the TAC 2013? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6447 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes  Studies: German | Message 9 of 12 24 November 2012 at 1:37am | IP Logged |
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Roll call for individual TAC participants. Please update your logs.
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| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6447 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 10 of 12 03 December 2012 at 8:50am | IP Logged |
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2013 should be the seventh year. A walk down the memory lane follows. I hope it gives a jolt to a few people.
Welcome to the Great 2007 Total Annihilation Summer Challenge Extreme Lol. Summer time, I imagine most people have some free time on their hands. How about a new, more extreme challenge where one tries to do as much as possible in a given period of time? I propose the duration for the entire summer to make it more interesting and challenging and hopefully rewarding as well. I think I'd like to see how people cope with everyday life and manage to cram as much language learning as possible. Hopefully we'll all learn a lot and change our procrastinating ways. An important reason to make it a whole summer affair is that by the time it is "over" we'll all be so much into it that we'll make it a routine and continue studying more than we used to. If you only have one hour to dedicate to "serious" study, and the rest is dead time that you can try filling in bathroom, metro or work, it's no reason not to participate. In fact, it's interesting to see how useful is this dead time. No stopping even if you can only afford bathroom learning time. If you decide to drop out, you have to write in your log, in capital letters, CAPITULATED on x x 2007 after xx measly days. For every day that you didn't study, you have to write a mea culpa. The ultimate goal is to have fun, remain motivated and learn a lot of new things every single day and in any case more that we were hoping to learn. No limits on the number of hours one can study or what is called "studying" as long as it involves the target language. All methods are allowed. If you can learn a language from the back of a cereal box, go for it! No rules regarding language families and the number of languages to be studied. You can do one or try juggling as many as possible. Both should produce interesting results. You can brush up on something you already know (or think you know lol). Ideally some participants would do only one language while others would try doing several and participants should have a general plan laid out before they start. Participation in the 6WC counts as work but you have to work on top of that to belong to this challenge, these select few language warriors... :) Basically, create long entries, and try studying as much as possible. Watch TV, movies, read comics, listen to music in the target language but do document any major effort. Please state your previous knowledge and write as much as possible in your logs regarding course materials, hours studied etc. Prior to your start, try reading a few different texts in your target languages and listen to some audio material. Try to get some kind of a feeling for how much you actually understand. Write down your thoughts. The three participants with the highest number of hours spent on one particular language and three hardest students overall would get honorary titles like "Dorkster extreme," "Ardaschir's heir" or whatever you can think of. Up to you to decide on the "prizes". Special prize for the most creative way or place of language study and for most posts per language learning log. The ultimate prize for the most effective use of time... Start date: June 15th 2007 End date: September 30th and hopefully never... Thank you for all the encouraging comments. Here are a few hopefully helpful guidelines. Individual time required: the most you can afford/sneak in/steal away from mundane things and everyday obligations. Try not to make excuses to yourself and others. If it's a family emergency you don't have to say a thing. If you were just plain lazy or distracted don't hide it. Make this forum procrastination anonymous. Fight it! Try changing your ways. It's one of the hardest things one can attempt to do. Calculate how much time you devote daily to your languages, how much you can realistically devote, and then try to beat that in any way you can think of. That's the single most important rule of the game. Try sneaking a lesson before breakfast. Tune your alarm clock to a foreign station. Make a word-a-day calendar. Change your home page to Yahoo France. Check your Netflix queue. Delete all English-only titles. Hit that SAP button on your TV. Check out Internet radio stations and podcasts. Do not stare each day at the back of some guy's head in the metro. Get that mp3 player! Grab a book! Try figuring out new and fun ways to study a language. Put sticky notes on furniture. Spend more time on foreign message boards (like me, lol). If you've figured a good routine to gobble down large chunks of vocabulary, share it. Like a particular comic/tv series or movie both for its content and language material? Share it with others! Whatever works or doesn't work, we'd like to hear about it. There's plenty of time to start from scratch. Check local libraries for free stuff, spend a weekend at Borders. Look for free stuff online. Before June 21, set up a language learning log with Total annihilation or similar in the subject heading, state your languages and general plans. You can change these on the fly, add new languages, explore, experiment, do whatever you please just as long as you're doing something language related. The important thing is to start and always work on something and share your thoughts with others. Have fun! That's the surest way of learning a language. Have fun and do as you please. Serpent, my suggestion is to watch a movie or do something fun during a break from your obligations (term paper) and you have time till June 21. Jiwon, bring your MP3 player to Korea. I'm sure you'll have a little dead time over there. Twenty minutes a day and you're still in the challenge (if that's the most you can afford). It's a long plane ride there and back. Bring your flash cards as well... The point of the challenge is to try and do more than you usually would in these situations. Sergiu, Julie, others, you've got the right spirit. Jiwon, copy your precious flashcards, you'll remember better and if you lose them it won't be a problem. Burn your mp3's onto a cd. Did you check vorleser.net for free German audiobooks? Sergiu, I did write two jumbo posts that contain answers to your questions. June 21 was my idea of a start date for those who like strict(er) rules. Since a few have ants in the pants to start early (which is a good thing) if you want to stretch it, we can consider summer from um, Friday the 15th (let's give others a little warning) until the end of September. It's "allowed" lol and the results can only be better because of it. Whoever has not made up his mind till Friday will have to work harder to catch up later. If you manage to work hard all summer you'll be so glad about the results that you won't care for the grand prize of dorkster extreme. It is very important to keep a detailed "diary" of your progress for the benefit of others and yourself, so you can see later where you wasted time, what was effective etc. You don't have to do it on a daily basis but do take note of what you did, how many hours you approximately worked that week, how you waste your time, what can you do about it etc. Do not turn the challenge into a chore or it will be a losing battle from the start. Pen and paper can help if you don't want to log in often. This challenge is about pushing the envelope and therefore the puerile title. If you plan to take it easy, go about your usual business and maybe do a course the 6WC would be a more appropriate venue. This one is for language warriors grrr... :) Edited by reineke on 12 June 2007 at 11:05am Edited by reineke on 03 December 2012 at 8:52am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6447 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 11 of 12 03 December 2012 at 9:10am | IP Logged |
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...The 2008 Total Annihilation Challenge is closed. We are passing the following judgment:
2007 TAC Finalists: Sheetz, Volte, Serpent, Egg-uk Winner: Sheetz 2008 TAC Finalists: DaraghM Honorable mention: Sheetz, Charlmartell, Sunja, Evita, rekunoto, zenmonkey Tricoteuse – Although not officially a contestant, Tricoteuse participated in spirit and certainly deserves a mention. The same goes for Luke and his monster Spanish log. The most entertaining log: Charlmartell Charlmartell started very strong but lost steam at a crucial moment. Winner: After 48 long pages of log entries We can safely proclaim DaraghM THE WINNER OF THIS YEAR’S CHALLENGE. All other contestants have been annihilated and should bow their head in shame. No special titles will be awarded. We are not impressed. The 2008 TAC is now closed. The early closing will allow future contestants about 30 days to gather materials and ponder about their greatest challenge ever: The 2009 Total Annihilation Challenge – extreme. Unlike the other two, this challenge will last one whole year. It’s TAC, therefore the official goal to try to do at least two languages. TAC is about going the extra mile. You can try and do four. You should be able to achieve something concrete. It should be something you will be proud of in 2009. You can do one language and win if you do a great job and others prove total wieners. Languages like Mandarin, Japanese etc. deserve special consideration. Progress will be weighed using common sense. Even if you officially don’t “win” but accomplish something and break a vicious circle YOU ARE A TRUE WINNER. If a man should conquer in battle a thousand and a thousand more, and another man should conquer himself, his would be the greater victory. (Comment: OMG) ... Welcome to the Great 2009 Total Annihilation Challenge Extreme – New Year Resolution’s second breath of life Lol. For me personally the original challenge crashed a few times. My hat off to sheetz, egg uk and a few others. Egg, time to let go of that old log and start a new one! While the ultimate outcome of the challenge may be questionable, I personally did find it motivating and I did squeeze in dozens of hours more of study time just because I was competing and I needed to “report” to the “community” lol. This in itself may be problematic, I know. The (unofficial) guidelines, short and simple: At the very start please state your current knowledge of your target language(s). Work out a plan or simply start without one. Do declare your target languages and whether or not you intend to follow a particular method. Maybe you CAN do Assimil every day. You may start a new log or rename an old log. Add TAC/09 to the name. In case you’re reusing an old log edit the first post to account for this. Mention the page number where your 2009 log entries begin. It is ok to keep a record somewhere else and link to it. Create log entries, blog posts etc. and try studying as much as possible – certainly more than you would normally do. Write about course materials, hours studied, and document any major effort and this includes things like TV, movies, comics and music. It’s ok to give weekly, biweekly, or even (hopefully detailed) monthly reports. Log entries should not be a chore. The ultimate goal is to have fun, remain motivated and actually accomplish something concrete. As the very minimum for 2009 you should try to bring a couple of languages to a useable level. This may include languages you have previously studied or that you are currently studying. If you can only afford time to do one language, or you intend to do an intensive course in only one language and don't want distractions that's ok -do a great job. On the passive side you should be able to read and follow TV programs with relative ease. On the active side, let me quote from Black Adder’s conversation with the Comte de Frou Frou, an escapee from Revolutionary France: BA: Do you speak English? F: A little... BA: Yes, when you say "a little," what exactly do you mean? I mean, can we talk? or are we going to spend the rest of the afternoon asking each other the way to the beach in very loud voices? F: Ah, no. I can, er, order coffee, deal with waiters, make sexy chit-chat with girls -- that type of thing. BA: Oh, good. F: Just don't ask me to take a physiology class or direct a light opera. BA: No, no, I won't. For your other languages, those that qualify as "intermediate" or "advanced" you should be able to declare a noticeable improvement and claim the next proficiency level. For a language that is very advanced but neglected, you should be able to report that tingly sensation that your favorite language has been revived and is alive and kicking. For anything deemed advanced you should present a sizeable reading list. Start date: December 2008 End date: December 31st 2009 Edited by reineke on 20 December 2008 at 3:03pm The (unofficial) guidelines, short and simple: At the very start please state your current knowledge of your target language(s). Work out a plan or simply start without one. Do declare your target languages and whether or not you intend to follow a particular method. Maybe you CAN do Assimil every day. You may start a new log or rename an old log. Add TAC/09 to the name. In case you’re reusing an old log edit the first post to account for this. Mention the page number where your 2009 log entries begin. It is ok to keep a record somewhere else and link to it. Create log entries, blog posts etc. and try studying as much as possible – certainly more than you would normally do. Write about course materials, hours studied, and document any major effort and this includes things like TV, movies, comics and music. It’s ok to give weekly, biweekly, or even (hopefully detailed) monthly reports. Log entries should not be a chore. The ultimate goal is to have fun, remain motivated and actually accomplish something concrete. As the very minimum for 2009 you should try to bring a couple of languages to a useable level. This may include languages you have previously studied or that you are currently studying. If you can only afford time to do one language, or you intend to do an intensive course in only one language and don't want distractions that's ok -do a great job. On the passive side you should be able to read and follow TV programs with relative ease. On the active side, let me quote from Black Adder’s conversation with the Comte de Frou Frou, an escapee from Revolutionary France: BA: Do you speak English? F: A little... BA: Yes, when you say "a little," what exactly do you mean? I mean, can we talk? or are we going to spend the rest of the afternoon asking each other the way to the beach in very loud voices? F: Ah, no. I can, er, order coffee, deal with waiters, make sexy chit-chat with girls -- that type of thing. BA: Oh, good. F: Just don't ask me to take a physiology class or direct a light opera. BA: No, no, I won't. For your other languages, those that qualify as "intermediate" or "advanced" you should be able to declare a noticeable improvement and claim the next proficiency level. For a language that is very advanced but neglected, you should be able to report that tingly sensation that your favorite language has been revived and is alive and kicking. For anything deemed advanced you should present a sizeable reading list. Start date: December 2008 End date: December 31st 2009 Edited by reineke on 20 December 2008 at 3:03pm ... This year’s TAC was supposed to last until January 1st. It was cut short because everyone lost steam. I dozed off several times reading the winner’s log but he dutifully punched the clock. The contestant won by default, 50% in life is about showing up. This is especially true about language learning. The official end date of the TAC is Dec 31. The winner will hopefully not be clear until the very last minute and everyone will do such a great job we’ll have to debate who deserves the title. This year, uh, that wasn’t a problem. Last year people complained about the short notice. Now there’s over a month to decide/prepare. Others complained about not being able to start at a certain date. You could have joined last summer and won had you used a little more elbow grease and shared your progress with others. Sunja, I’m looking at you, kid. About the exact start date. You should start gathering materials/warming up right now. Don’t fret. If you’re anxious about starting a new language or you are currently studying another one, don’t stop. Language classes count if you fully take advantage of them, make an effort and actually add to it and turn these lessons into something productive. Most people taking a class in 2009 will sleep through the whole process. Do better than Comte Frou Frou. When all the annihilators get parachuted into the challenge, you should hit the ground running and shift to a much higher gear. That will qualify you for the challenge; you only need to track your progress. Whether or not you kick into higher gear and join the challenge at around Christmas or on January 1st is sort of irrelevant. Use only one (b)log to track your progress. This forum allows you to link to your blog. You can use that feature. Hopefully that will take out some sting out of the whole reporting process. Track your progress on your blog, tag each language separately if you wish to make some order, have fun. Do remember to name your learning log on this forum TAC 09. For easier reference please start the title with TAC 09 and then call it whatever you please. You can edit the title of an existing log. If you’re not going to post here regularly simply write a sentence occasionally so people can see you’re participating. People who don’t have a log/don’t wish to post here but would like to participate and track their progress can simply say hello in this thread. This will also prevent having too many empty logs. In any case be sure to post/bump your learning log to the top of the queue in December 09. ... Study as much as you can, exchange ideas, inspire others and yourself. Annihilate procrastination, laziness and bad habits. Annihilate ignorance in your target language(s). If you’re a hard worker, work a little harder. Closing the 2008 challenge early allowed for a clean slate, a New Year’s resolution, a little discussion on how to organize it and make it more worthwhile and fun. Look at it as the first “real” challenge, one in which you will accomplish something great. Make the challenge work for you. Squeeze in more QUALITY study time just because you’re competing and you “need” to “report” to the “community”. Report when you’re pleased with yourself or you discovered something new about yourself as a language learner – positive or negative. DO NOT beat yourself over the head and waste valuable time doing a nasty chore. Providing monthly or quarterly updates and a detailed year-end annual report seems reasonable to me. I worked on Russian but I didn’t post on my efforts. I had very little free time and frankly the message board thing got boring. I am moderately satisfied with my efforts but last year’s New Year resolution was not met. Now, if life doesn’t bring new surprises I want to do better than that. Comment on the quality of the course, language material, what you like or dislike. Comment on any breakthroughs, bumps, pits, plateaus, ask for help, offer help, say hello to others. Hopefully you will not be doing only Pimsleur but trying to read books, comics, watching movies. This will automatically make your log more interesting. Your comments should be useful to yourself and others. You can use your blog so as to avoid writing in too many places. Get a notebook and write down the hours, provide weekly/monthly update as to the number of hours studied, and then add everything up at the end of the challenge. Alternatively keep an approximate record of the duration of your learning efforts and how much time you spent on different methods and your target languages. Was it time well spent? You don’t have to do this, or anything else for that matter. Participate in the challenge in your spirit. Try to have fun. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6447 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 12 of 12 03 December 2012 at 9:21am | IP Logged |
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... and what may happen half way through the game.
It's been six months. We've got six months left. Newcomers may still join. Going strong (or have simply updated by June 30): Fasulye, ExtraLean, Sunja, Crush, zenmonkey, peppelanguage, zanoni, GoldFibre, mick33 (and his poor overwhelmed brain), Anya, tricoteuse, DaraghM, g-bod, Marj, -Kupo-, Adrean, dmg, magister, farrioth, grwn, , sabotai, andee, TheElvenLord, evandempsey, Lindley, Sapphire, "oh Pimsleur how I hate you" Kuronue , Sierra (14 April 2009), "School has been killing my soul" Eimii (right after she finished Pimsleur), Absent (hopefully just respawning in a wall somewhere) roncy (last post 11 April 09) robertsl Last words April 06, 09: "It's Total Annihilation Challenge, its something on this forums where everyone makes a log of their language learning and at the end of the year they're compared and the people who have made the biggest achievements are recognised. It's just for fun times and a nice way of encouraging learning and recognising progression."), JonB, Volte: 31 March 2009 at 4:38am "I'm taking another break from the forum... I'll be back when my current language-learning experiment is over; in the meanwhile, this is a distraction I do not need. My initial rough estimate is "a few weeks".) messiah: (16 March 2009) "I'm also listening freakly, I listen about 8 hours of japanese every day... radio, podcasts, drama audios etc. I feel lonely when I don't have japanese to listen LOL...In English, I'm watching old cartoons withou subtitles, like Top-Cat, 2 stupid dogs and Power Rangers, I think I need listen and read more English, let's do it! " charlmartell ( silent but deadly!) 09 March 2009 Sprachprofi 07 March 2009 ANNIHILATED!! Participants and their dates of annihilation: "Eternal Procastination" Gon-no-suke 11 February 2009 konayuki 10 February 2009 ("I have a paper to write, but hopefully soon I'll give a detailed report on what I'm doing and my progress through the wonderful world of Japanese and Korean.") Qbe 09 January 2009 Sajro's "TAC attempt" one post on 09 February 2009 jesskit 07 February 2009 "I've been studying even though I haven't been updating" boyddr MIA bluejay390 "I don't have a plan anymore! Screw it!" 03 February 2009 flew away? The favourite quote from the previous TAC: "I didn’t realize how much time had gone by since I last updated this. I barely did anything between July 22 and yesterday. In total I only did 2 hours and 30 minutes. I don’t know what happened... 23 August 2008 17 November 2008: Mierda. Este log es viejo. ...sí, pues, desde que septiembre estudié un poco." anathema196 MIA 16 January 2009 "A year of improvement" dswans on 31 December 2008: "I have been busy for the last week, and thus I have not had time to update my TAC entry. However, this does not mean that I have not been studying:)" Sprachprofi asking how ya doing. We're asking how she's doing. JimmyJameskun 1 post on 29 December 2008 Jiwon "I can't thank reineke enough for telling me about the audiobook site. I'm downloading loads of it. My favourites are Andersen, Grimm Brothers and Tucholsky - and surprisingly, I can understand what is being said. :) " 06 August 2007 Oh, wait that's last year's victim. In any case anyone studying Deutsch should check vorleser.net or simply praise reineke some more. Faim de Siècle 17 January 2009 ALS 12 January 2009 RyanC. 11 January 2009 J-Learner 10 January 2009 "THIS LOG IS CLOSED!" ??? charleswfb (last update- January) Aquedita (last update- January) OCCASVS [TAC09] "Do it now! - German" 31 December 2008 "Hello. This is my personal thread for the 2009 TAC challenge. I don't know how often I'm going to update my log, because I've never been into logging. My resolutions for 2009? None at all. My only goal is to study as much as possible and to fight my laziness." pitwo (29 December 2008) MIA rayos deleted all his TAC posts on 30 June 2009 Last post 03 December 2008 The "2009 TAC Plan" tryllid 21 December 2008 Aras. 21 December "Although I study, this log is being discontinued " "Pre-TAC 2009" - Thistle 19 December 2008 Smurf36 on 15 December 2008: Goals: Overall by 2020 Native Fluency: French Spanish Czech Mandarin Advanced Fluency: Portuguese Japanese Russian German Italian Goals by December 31st 2009: French: C1 Spanish: C1 Czech: B1 Mandarin: B1 Japanese: A2 Portuguese: A2 Russian: A1/A2 German: A1 Italian: A1 Does everyone think that this is achievable, or do you think i'm aiming to high? no reply. JohnnyR 08 December 2008 "Pre-TAC 2009" Othar MIA 04 December 2008 Blindsheep’s TAC 2009 - "January to June" ENDED ON 28 November 2008 ExtraLean's kiss of death: "Cheers, but you don't need luck. Just patience and persistance, so I will wish you those as well." nooblearner: "I have finished the MT foundation course... I think I will take Thanksgiving off except a MT cd on the way to and from my aunt's house where we will be going to eat." noobs... Mojka 25 November 2008 "I suppose it's too early for me to state that I love Japanese or not. I need some more time to discover the language. Today I have gone through one Michel Thomas lesson"... 'nough said. Vai TAC 09 (...all ye who enter here) ...won't find anything SpankyTAC "2028" "I am taking the liberty of bending the TAC rules somewhat to establish on a trial basis a log for my study efforts in the form of an extended TAC self-challenge. I am keeping a separate log of a more narrative nature elsewhere, and intend here only to render a dry record for my own purposes of material studied or reviewed, so it is unlikely to be of any real interest to others. Feel free, however, to poke around: it is mostly the fear that others will see here what a lazy fellow I am that hopefully will motivate me to keep studying at least six days a week. Challenge: attain by the end of May 2028 at least a "just a shade beyond rank beginner" conversational and reading ability in the following languages (not necessarily acquired in the following order): French, German, Japanese, Italian, Norwegian, Indonesian, Czech, Swahili, Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic, Scottish Gaelic, Greek, Portuguese, Croatian, Turkish, Swedish, Russian, Africaans and one of either Thai, Laotian or Cambodian. Henceforth, only study log entries and no more narrative comment from me here until the end of May 2028, at which time I (a new, improved, multi-lingual and considerably more smug I) will come back to gloat and etc. Best wishes to everyone in their own mad TACs and learning language goals. Spanky Edit: After a night's reflection, I have changed my mind - two separate logs seems a little excessive, so I'll discontinue this one and diarize it for 2028 just to see how things have turned out." Edited by Spanky on 29 January 2009 at 9:22am Spanky, you don't bend TAC, TAC bends you. random member we should all poke fun at: krog "eeee" "100 Bücher" e= a book in English d = a book in German. qrwn's language trip sailed away? No, it moved to his personal blog! So has reineke's. And here are some of his resolutions: 1 Sleep more 2 sleep less but use the time wisely 3 try to relax; if unsuccessful, see no.4 4 try not to burst a vessel 5 stop posting Edit: I managed to write my 500th post. Posts 470-500 were reserved for the TAC. SOMEONE HELP ME, PLEASE!! Aaaahh! Edit edit: buy more Visine 01 January 2009 I will periodically provide updates on my blog (link on the left side). Or not, lol. I will stop posting here. If I missed you, or if you wish to expiate your sins you may post here. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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