Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

New Super Challenge Discussion thread2014

  Tags: Super Challenge
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
766 messages over 96 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 14 ... 95 96 Next >>
rdearman
Senior Member
United Kingdom
rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4995 days ago

881 posts - 1812 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin

 
 Message 105 of 766
10 May 2014 at 8:00pm | IP Logged 
What does the little "bomb" icon on the right mean?
1 person has voted this message useful



Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4668 days ago

2151 posts - 3960 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

 
 Message 106 of 766
10 May 2014 at 10:29pm | IP Logged 
rdearman wrote:
What does the little "bomb" icon on the right mean?


It means that person is "tha bomb"...

... but actually it means the person has a streak going.
1 person has voted this message useful



PeterMollenburg
Senior Member
AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5235 days ago

821 posts - 1273 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: FrenchB1

 
 Message 107 of 766
10 May 2014 at 11:34pm | IP Logged 
Hey guys,

This SuperChallenge is pretty cool. For me it's giving me the 'push' to use more native
materials, and for me the 'course collector' that's certainly a good thing. As I was
slightly slow off the mark with this challenge and didn't really get going for a good
few days or more into the challenge with my reading and watching I went on a mission
and became rather enthused by the 'leader board' and climbing up the ladder some
ways... I went from 41s to breaking into the top 20.

But in my madness to read and read and watch and watch I began to wonder relative my
language level (French B1) how effective watching movies really is. It so happens this
article mimics some of my suspicions, adds a few more and elaborates in a balanced way
on how useful it actually is to your goal of improving in a language depending on your
level to watch foreign movies.

Are
You Wasting Your Time Watching Foreign Language Movies?


Just to balance this post out a little I'd like to include the following link which
says exactly why reading, and more precisely 'extensive reading' is so good for
language learning:


The inescapable case for
extensive reading


These articles may have come up before on HTLAL, but I just thought it would be
worthwhile reflexion for some of us who's main goal after all is fluency (whatever that
means for the individual)
6 persons have voted this message useful



Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4668 days ago

2151 posts - 3960 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

 
 Message 108 of 766
11 May 2014 at 12:42am | IP Logged 
All I can say about the first article is: wait and see. Yes, his points against watching films have an element of truth. But you can find flaws with any language learning method. So I say, wait and see. Watch your 200 films in French (since you signed up for a double), and I'm pretty sure you will see significant benefit. In the first few months, you will no doubt think that the article is absolutely correct. But the more you watch, the more you will find that the language is becoming familiar.

Okay, you will probably gain more from reading your 200 books. But that half of the challenge is a much greater time commitment, and generally speaking more taxing.

One thing I didn't get in the article is when the author wrote, "You can’t listen multiple times." I have watched the Hindi film Sholay at least a dozen times. In the last 2 years, I've watched Amélie 5-6 times. I'm now reading slowly through the script to Amélie, and I plan to watch it again a few times when I'm pretty sure I understand almost everything. What's interesting about this is that I find I understand most of the text simply because I've watched the film so many times with subtitles. So, clearly something has sunk in.

The advice at the end of the article is actually pretty good advice for how to watch films. I would add one thing: find a few films that you really enjoy and wouldn't mind repeating. Then study the films. Jot down notes while watching them, and build up more notes as you go. Over the course of the Super Challenge watch them as many times as possible. Initially watch with subtitles if necessary, but after a couple times, you should probably be okay watching without subs. In other words, use the intensive approach with a few films. Over the course of the Super Challenge you should see great improvements in your understanding of those few films, but also improved comprehension of other films as well.

To steal some advice from emk, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is dubbed pretty well in French, and transcripts are available. He has also recommended starting with documentaries, since the speaking is clearer and slower than the average film. I would add that another good option is 7 jours sur la planète, since you can read the nearly exact French subs while watching.

Edited by Jeffers on 11 May 2014 at 12:44am

3 persons have voted this message useful



Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 4925 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 109 of 766
11 May 2014 at 12:54am | IP Logged 
My 2C: watching dubbed series was quite comfortable after the first series. Watching
native films is still hard after 1 1/2 year of watching at least 10 minutes each day.
Maybe reading scripts in the beginning will be the best thing to do in order to make sure
you will actually become familiarized with the French employed in those films.
2 persons have voted this message useful



PeterMollenburg
Senior Member
AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5235 days ago

821 posts - 1273 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: FrenchB1

 
 Message 110 of 766
11 May 2014 at 1:07am | IP Logged 
Jeffers wrote:

Okay, you will probably gain more from reading your 200 books. But that half of the
challenge is a much greater time commitment, and generally speaking more taxing.


I think I'll be 'leaning' more on the reading side of things but still continue some
watching of course. I will utilise more of the pause and play type method and Yabla I
think as it makes you focus on the language. Then my entertainment/down time I could
spend watching the movies/series. In Yabla I can watch short clips over and over and
play a game in which you fill in the missing words from the dialogue. I know I need to
hear language spoken at normal speed also so I won't ignore films and series but I will
certainly try to use more active methods of study. I'm beginning to doubt the
likelihood of me completing a 'double' given the time commitment in the last few days,
which cannot be sustained when I return to work (i'm on leave), and that when I do use
Yabla/pause and play method it takes me at least double the time to watch something- ie
a 30 min episode of sth takes at least an hour, more if I enter some flashcards at the
end, which I find is important if I want to get something out of what I watch. The
thing for me too is to not drop my courses as I do indeed get benefit from them, so I
need balance of decent learning strategies.


Jeffers wrote:

One thing I didn't get in the article is when the author wrote, "You can’t listen
multiple times." I have watched the Hindi film Sholay at least a dozen times. In the
last 2 years, I've watched Amélie 5-6 times. I'm now reading slowly through the script
to Amélie, and I plan to watch it again a few times when I'm pretty sure I understand
almost everything. What's interesting about this is that I find I understand most of
the text simply because I've watched the film so many times with subtitles. So,
clearly something has sunk in.


I totally agree, I found that point a little weak as well.

Jeffers wrote:

The advice at the end of the article is actually pretty good advice for how to watch
films. I would add one thing: find a few films that you really enjoy and wouldn't
mind repeating. Then study the films. Jot down notes while watching them, and build
up more notes as you go. Over the course of the Super Challenge watch them as many
times as possible. Initially watch with subtitles if necessary, but after a couple
times, you should probably be okay watching without subs. In other words, use the
intensive approach with a few films. Over the course of the Super Challenge you should
see great improvements in your understanding of those few films, but also improved
comprehension of other films as well.


Sounds good to me :)

Jeffers wrote:

To steal some advice from emk, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is dubbed pretty well in
French, and transcripts are available. He has also recommended starting with
documentaries, since the speaking is clearer and slower than the average film. I would
add that another good option is 7 jours sur la planète, since you can read the nearly
exact French subs while watching.


Yeah, I have been pondering whether I should buy Buffy, I think I will at some point.
Documentaries sounds like a good idea too. As for 7 jours sur la planete, i need to
look into that. I have the app on my phone but have not tried it out, but I think that
would be different to what you're talking about, i'm sure a search online will land me
in the right place, so I'll check it out. Thanks for your input Jeffers :)
1 person has voted this message useful



surrealix
Diglot
Groupie
New Zealand
languagechallenge.su
Joined 4363 days ago

66 posts - 152 votes 
Speaks: English*, Swedish
Studies: French

 
 Message 111 of 766
11 May 2014 at 2:25am | IP Logged 
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
@surrealix, that is absolutely amazing! Thank you so much for
all you have done :-)


Thanks :). I'm glad everyone seems to like the facelift.

Serpent wrote:
If anyone still sees the old design, clear your cache or if you don't
know how, just refresh the page repeatedly until the design changes.


Yes. If you don't see books in the background, you're sill seeing the old design. It
takes a while for some broswers to realise there's a new version of the page.
    

The big discussion seems to be the daily sprint badge - and I'm happy to remove this
(or more likely, convert it into something else). But before I do, I'll play devil's
advocate and present a counter argument ;-).

Jeffers wrote:
We need something to encourage the people further down, and the weekly
tweet streak is something they can feel is achievable. But seeing all those 7-day
badges above them might also be discouraging: one more reason they aren't succeeding.


The reason for adding daily sprint badges was actually to encourage people further down
the list. Achieving the weekly streak badge is a long commitment and the payoff is
months down the track. The daily badge gives a more immediate feedback for studying
now rather than leaving thingns until later because you've got 18 months. In
addition, even just 5 minutes every day for a week really helps to form the habit and
mindset of doing some study - which is important if you're going to keep this up for
over a year.

For people starting mid-way through the challenge, or for people who let their study
lapse, the daily badge is also a way to visibly "catch up" to people higher in the
rankings. I've only just started, and having a small, acheiveable first goal is going
to help with the kick-off.

(It's interesting at the moment that the people who have daily badges seem to be fairly
well spread through the list. Perhaps as time goes on those at the top will all end up
with them, but given that quite a few people are still sitting on 0 / 0, some kind of
inbalance is to be expected.)

kanewai wrote:
And I like the idea of a streak / sprint badge, but I agree with
Jeffers that it might impact the readability of the lists. I like to look at what
people are reading too, but if there are hundreds of five-page tweets it'll be rough.


I also like having a clean list with each book or film on its own line. There's an easy
solution : I could group rows with the same title.

01-05-2014 until 12-05-2014 : "Harry Potter et la Chambre des Secrets" 492 pages


Serpent wrote:
With gigantic lists, I only have a rather time-consuming suggestion.
completed stars could be just displayed as stars, and expanded/collapsed on click. So
by default the list is only for the star in progress.


Yes, this is also another option, although I prefer the idea of grouping titles.

Kerrie wrote:
Surrealix, would it be possible to put less space between languages on
the main page? For those who have multiple languages? It seems really (vertically)
spread out. With Serpent at the top, she takes up almost my whole 23" screen. LOL.


There are two points here. I've shrunk the row size for additional languages, so you
can now see more of Serpent's entries on your 23" screen ;).

Given we no longer have different super challenge types, sorting by individual entry
rather than participant breaks up the front page a bit more and gives people more of a
chance to climb in the rankings by focusing on one language for a while. What do others
think about this?

I've pushed the change to the live version, but it it's simple to switch this off
again. You can still see the old ordering by clicking on the 'Participant' column.


Serpent wrote:
Is the streak thing supposed to be per language? :/
Also, does it count according to the bot's timezone? i don't mind it per se but it
would be good to have an easy way to check how much time you have to report your
progress. also i hope editing counts?


Yes, streaks are per-language. It is the Super Challenge after all ;).

And the time-zone thing has been tying my head into knots. At the moment, it counts
according to the bot's timezone (you can see it at the bottom of the main page). You
need to record one tweet between midnight each day for it to count.

Serpent wrote:
Also, the buggy graphs thing seems to happen only if my browser has
been open for a while. looks fine after restarting Firefox, but after a while it gets
confused :O


It looks like this is probably a bug with the graphing library I'm using - I've logged
it with the developers, but there's no knowing when or if it will be fixed. The work-
around for the moment is simply to access your user page from the main list, or by
typing in the URL directly without hitting refresh.



Whew! I think that's it. The main points are : do we keep the daily badge? Do I group
entries with the same title? And do we keep the new default ordering?

Keep the comments coming :).

1 person has voted this message useful



Kerrie
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Kerrie2
Joined 5154 days ago

1232 posts - 1740 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 112 of 766
11 May 2014 at 3:06am | IP Logged 
surrealix wrote:
Whew! I think that's it. The main points are : do we keep the daily badge? Do I group entries with the same title? And do we keep the new default ordering?

Keep the comments coming :).


First comment: You are awesome, and thank you! :)

My two cents:

re: the daily badge: I can see either way, so I really don't have an opinion on that. I like the weekly badge. I think it'll be interesting to see how reading speed increases over the course of the whole challenge.

re: grouping entries with the same title:   Yes, I love this idea!

re: the new default ordering: I really like it. I think it shows those who are focusing on only one or two languages and making more progress, which is the point of the challenge. And I like the fact that you can rank by participant and see it the old way, too.

The only other request I have is to make more time in a day. Or cut my work hours (without cutting my pay!). But I think that's a little outside your abilities. :D


1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 766 messages over 96 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 3.0469 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.