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Super Challenge discussion thread 2014 | ||
Tags: Organization | Super Challenge | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5120 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 177 of 432 16 February 2014 at 8:21am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, very subtle. Anyway, I will think through some of your suggestions, but I cannot guarantee that the final result will be exactly like you want it to be. This was meant to be a one language challenge. Not a compilation of everything we study. By the way, today comes the one sporting event I never miss, and where both Russia and Norway may win medals. At 11.00 there is the 4 x 10 km cross country skiing competition in the Olympic Games. We have traditionally ruled that one over the last decade, but this year it is anyone's guess who will win. I would guess that both Russia and Sweden will do well, and I am crossing my fingers for Norway. Good luck everyone! More god advice on how to prepare for the challenge anyone :-) ? Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 16 February 2014 at 8:42am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6383 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 178 of 432 16 February 2014 at 10:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm really sorry if I offended you with that part, or with anything else. To me it's simply a fact, without any suggestions that you don't care about other people's goals. I can imagine how it might not necessarily make sense that I honestly have no single focus language that I want to improve above others, and presumably I'm not alone with this. And then I might have fuŃked up by switching between general and specific you in the same paragraph. I definitely don't mean that you are making your German suffer by focusing on Russian or anything like that.
I also suspect that our definitions of "aim high" might differ - for you it's about following the official goal and possibly exceeding or even doubling it, while for me the focus is on an obscene amount of media, and the language matters less. So I still think there's no need to call someone unrealistic if they aim to earn stars in several languages. They're just aiming high in a different way. :-) And I'm sorry to anyone who was put off by things I said. I guess I'm just scared because this challenge is the most certain thing I know about my life in these 20 months. I'm really hoping to graduate from uni, and then I have no idea what happens next or if I ever move to Finland like I want and how long it takes. The only thing I know is that no matter what I'll be doing, I'll be a part of this challenge. (and let me knock on wood here) I might have to reduce my load but I won't give up as long as it depends on me. And good luck for the relay! I have another Norwegian friend who's watching, so I don't really know whom I want to win. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6383 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 179 of 432 16 February 2014 at 11:56am | IP Logged | |||||
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BTW for me this challenge is definitely more like a relay than a marathon :)
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5120 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 180 of 432 16 February 2014 at 12:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Congratulations to Sweden for the gold medal in the relay, to Russia for the silver medal, which is the first
medal won in a relay since the Soviet Union, and to France for the bronze. Well deserved for all of you :-) 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4795 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 181 of 432 16 February 2014 at 2:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
While I see the kind of "refusing the Nobel for moral reasons" drama connected to the blue ribbons unnecesary, I fully agree with the logic behind this quote. The SC is primarily a way to motivate ourselves and it is a huge achievement no matter at which level you start. I think it is stupid to compare whose SC is more super.
I think the SC is actually even more needed for people in the intermediate and advanced levels. While it is beneficial to read and listen a lot for those under B1, there are so many tools you can choose from and that will help you progress. Once you hit the B1/B2, you need to get mostly to the native sources and you need lots of those. One book won't be a difference at all anymore. And that's where the SC helps so much. To help us keep the motivation to get throught lots of those in order to progress noticeably again. Even the reading part has more than enough to offer to advanced learners. I learnt so much even from French reading, where my reading skill was already like B2/C1 when I had begun. At such a point, it is not the struggle to get the gist or to snail through ten pages in a row. Other things come to play and that is why the standard SC is more than a worthy goal for high levels as well, in my opinion. Double SC is a bit of a madness, in my opinion. It is really a lot and it is a bit demotivating to "have to" do double the amount in order not to be seen as taking a too easy path. The new system of stars is much better, in my opinion. Everyone can take as many as we choose. Some of us will take even double the challenge in one part or even both. But even those in their B1+ levels can enjoy and use the standard challenge to nice progress. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Suzie Diglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4015 days ago 155 posts - 226 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Dutch | Message 182 of 432 16 February 2014 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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First of all, I'd like to thank you, Solfrid Cristin, for your great idea and effort to have created this super challenge and its structure. I just find it awesome. Having only spent a few months on this, I achieved very little, but it gave me the necessary goal and kick to pursue my language training. I wouldn't have watched as much videos and wouldn't have improved my French that much without this awesome challenge. Also big thanks to Surrealix and emk for providing great infrastructure and tools to keep your motivation. I loved the bot, and I really would love to get a such a fancy blue ribbon next time.... :-). I also think the rules for the next round are great: They are flexible and still keep the charme of the initial intention. I personally cannot wait to start...
I would like to add one comment to this topic
I understand Solfrid Cristin's rationale to have the language skills added to prevent people to become discouraged by other members that are advancing far more quickly with their stuff. But I also see that the language level alone (or whether this language is close to your native language) will not provide you with sufficient information to understand the reasons why person X is quicker than you. As pointed out by Patrickwilken, there are a lot of other factors involved that matter as much. And there are even more parameters that will influence your success in this particular challenge: How much will you bother about new words? Will you use ebooks or print versions? How fast do you read in your native language? You cannot list all those factors. The worst thing that could happen is that giving this partial information even would discourage people more, when they see other participants advancing quicker even if things appear more difficult for them. Just my two cents. As I stated, I will be happy to participate with whatever rules or infrastructure implemented, as I adore the general idea and use any excuse to improve my language skills. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6383 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 183 of 432 16 February 2014 at 5:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hm I can't find the post now but someone pointed out how in Tadoku (and 6WC) there are "leagues", ie groups of people with a similar pace. Many of us look at people with similar scores/at least sometimes study "just 10 mins more" to surpass someone.
In the super challenge, this is less common since we normally report per unit. For me it was more like the Tadoku tiers. Especially important since in the previous challenge we could sort by challenge type and now there will be none. So for these reasons the more sortable columns, the better. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4675 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 184 of 432 16 February 2014 at 10:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is an interesting observation. I've found a similar thing on my part. HTLAL is full of great advice on how to progress from 0 > A1 > A2. I've moved through the "B- levels" when I've lived overseas, but have never managed to achieve it just through studying and the occasional vacation. Now I know: intensive reading is one path. And even better, I know how to quantify it, and how much reading that took, at least for French. Although ... I really felt the benefits after book '80' (8,000 pages). So even if you don't earn a star or diamond for the extra reading this round, I'd still encourage people to aim for the original 10,000 pages! (I agree that a double challenge sounds rough, mostly because 200 movies sounds like a horrible time commitment). _______________________________ As an aside, I'm also finding this competitive aspect to be very unpleasant. I'd be in favor of eliminating anything on the twitter-bot that contributes to it. I really liked the non-competitive spirit of the original proposal, where we would celebrate our achievements, not bicker over who gets "credit" for what. I want to talk about what we're reading, about any good movies we saw, or about that cool new graphic novel that came out. Fun stuff, yeah? _______________________________ With that, what were the experiences of people who tried Italian? I looked through the results, but it seemed that most people read works in translation. Is there enough good native material out there for this to be a good language for the challenge? Edited by kanewai on 16 February 2014 at 11:39pm 11 persons have voted this message useful |
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