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New Total Annihilation Challenge

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reineke
Senior Member
United States
https://learnalangua
Joined 6207 days ago

851 posts - 1008 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 1 of 182
27 April 2008 at 10:48pm | IP Logged 
Welcome to the Great 2009 Total Annihilation Challenge Extreme – New Year Resolution’s second breath of life

Lol.

I am rewriting last year's rules to save some time. 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.

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? It's a personal challenge rather than a competition but that's not a good reason not to take it seriously - quite the contrary. The real winners are those who actually accomplish something. I propose the duration until December 31st 2009 to make it more interesting and challenging and hopefully rewarding as well. The extended time period would allow serious participants to actually make that awesome, awesome claim that they have actually learned a new language. The second half of the year includes summer vacation time etc. so serious study time could be carved out easily.

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. It hasn’t happened for me yet, I am still a terrible procrastinator however I do now procrastinate more while doing something language-related.

An important reason to make it a long 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 and we won't call it "studying" either. If you only have one hour to dedicate to "serious" study, and the rest is dead time that you can try filling in the bathroom, metro or work, it's no reason not to participate. In fact, it's interesting to see how useful is this so-called dead time. I am very busy right now but if I can write all this I can obviously also be studying. If you decide to drop out, you should write in your log, in capital letters, CAPITULATED on x x 2008. For the days that you didn't study, you should write a short mea culpa – just so we see what’s keeping you from reaching greatness. Not a requirement. Nothing really is a requirement except to study for your own benefit. The ultimate goal is to have fun, remain motivated and actually learn a new language. Last year it was a bit different, "participating" and going the extra mile was enough. Hang that. I want you to tell me you've learned a new language to a useable level. More importantly, I want to tell YOU >I< learned a new language :)

No limits on the number of hours one can study (obviously the more the better duh it's TAC after all) or what is called "studying" as long as it involves the target language. All methods are allowed and anything you can do to sneak language study to work or other activities deserves extra points.

If you can learn a language from the back of a cereal box, go for it! If you’re following a particular method or course over an extended period of time it would be great to have a record of it. I would invite advanced, successful language learners to participate as their insight and study logs would be particularly interesting. Very little remains of Sir Richard Burton’s crash courses into exotic languages.

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. Ideally some participants would do only one language while others would try doing several and participants should have at least one brand new target language.

Participation in language courses counts as work but you have to work on top of that to belong to this challenge, these select few language warriors... :)

Create long log 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. It can be useful to others but also to the learner.

At the very start please state your previous knowledge and write as much as possible in your logs regarding course materials, hours studied etc.

All the participants who actually make the great claim would get the honorary titles like "Sir" (a la Sir Richard Burton)," "Ardaschir's heir" or whatever we can think of. Up to you to decide on this. This is not an organized, official competition but a call to do something concrete for your language learning. Who decides? A committee of "elders" allowed to post in the senior member area. The best methods (or lack thereof) would be discussed.

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

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qklilx
Moderator
United States
Joined 5946 days ago

459 posts - 477 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Korean
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 2 of 182
28 April 2008 at 5:40am | IP Logged 
Wow you started this thread kind of late given the day you want us to start.

I would participate, but I'm not free for language study until June, and even then I have no choice but to study Korean, which I've done in the past to basic conversational level. Unfortunately I'd have to sit this one out, but it sounds REALLY FUN. I missed last year's unfortunately.
1 person has voted this message useful



tricoteuse
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Norway
littlang.blogspot.co
Joined 6438 days ago

745 posts - 845 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, EnglishC1, Russian, French
Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian

 
 Message 3 of 182
28 April 2008 at 5:53am | IP Logged 
"Log entries", that mean that you should have a thread in the Language learning log part of the forum where you should (or must?) report?

I'm most likely in, I was going to attack Icelandic this summer but may just as well start now. I am however going to try to do it in a very restricted manner, with a certain amount of time dedicated to it every day, so that it does not take over my Russian studies.
1 person has voted this message useful



sheetz
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6137 days ago

270 posts - 356 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin

 
 Message 4 of 182
28 April 2008 at 6:01am | IP Logged 
I was just thinking about doing another one of these! Last year I started Japanese from scratch and crammed in a boatload of study hours in a few short months. It was the perfect jump start to the language, and I'd like to try another one with Japanese to take me to the "next level." Great idea, reineke!
1 person has voted this message useful



andee
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 6837 days ago

681 posts - 724 votes 
3 sounds
Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French

 
 Message 5 of 182
28 April 2008 at 7:30am | IP Logged 
I was going to experiment with Spanish over the coming months, so I may as well do that.. and I need extra motivation to actually study Korean more actively and get me over this intermediate hump.
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DaraghM
Diglot
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 5911 days ago

1947 posts - 2923 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian

 
 Message 6 of 182
28 April 2008 at 9:35am | IP Logged 
This challenge coincides nicely with my starting French on May 1st. The tricky thing is I'll also try to keep my other languages going simultaneously, and I'm pretty much a beginner in all of them.
1 person has voted this message useful



Zorndyke
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 6718 days ago

374 posts - 382 votes 
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: Czech

 
 Message 7 of 182
28 April 2008 at 11:10am | IP Logged 
Since my last day at school will be May 8th and my new occupation won't start until September, I have some extra free time to spare for this challenge during that time of the TAC.
I'm not yet sure which languages to study, but I tend to Persian. I've also ordered the first volume of that 1500 pages Cree course just 2 days ago...

Edited by Zorndyke on 28 April 2008 at 5:08pm

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Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6357 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 8 of 182
28 April 2008 at 11:18am | IP Logged 
I'm in!
Actually I'll try to reach basic fluency in two languages - Esperanto and Latin.
Not sure what counts as basic fluency in Latin though :/


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