Super Challenge: questions and discussion

[Anya]

I am for simplified audio rules!

[rdearman]

This means we need to get ready with the rules and also with the various means that people can track their progress. So here are a few questions:

• Are people happy with the minor rule sinplifications I suggested above? Nobody commented either way.
• Does anyone mind if I discuss this on Reddit to encourage others to join in?

I will almost certainly participate, given the simplified audio rules, with the goal of a 2,500-page SC for Spanish. I've been pushing hard to get my reading from sub-A1 to a point where I can maintain the necessary daily pace.

I also think it's worth mentioning the challenge on other forums that are interested. The Super Challenge is the single best thing I ever did for my French comprehension, and the 5,000-page version is just about the right size to get people to roughly C1 comprehension in Category I/II languages. It's an idea worth sharing more widely.

Also, since I'm back and hopefully participating, the forum should be a bit more reliable. Umm, yeah.

Let me know the bot status—if someone else writes one, perfect! If not, I will probably eventually get frustrated enough to make a tracker website, though it wouldn't have X/Twitter integration. But someone else doing the hard work is definitely ideal, from my perspective.

I forked and updated the bot and put it on my GitHub page. I wrote a system for updates from Mastodon and via email, since Twitter stopped working. Although I think I could probably resign up for a twitter dev account. The original died when Elon took over and changed the rules on the dev accounts so the account which surrilix opened was shutdown.

I will try to start it up again before May and test the Mastodon part. Email is fairly flaky because the responses hit spam filters and get blocked, although the email did work when sent to my email server, you just didn't get a response and can't tell that it worked. I didn't do a web front end, but in hindsight this would have been the better option. I really should have done this before I started the new job!

[jeffers]

Does anyone remember how many times we have run a Super Challenge? Or what year we actually started?

[emk]

Does anyone remember how many times we have run a Super Challenge? Or what year we actually started?

May 2012 through December 2013, I believe. This is based on dates from my log.

The original challenge involved twice as much reading, but (1) only a few people actually read 10,000 pages, and (2) if so remember, the consensus afterwards was that 5,000 pages was often enough to get people to reading at a pretty high level. So I believe the modern version of the challenge would have first happened in 2014.

[jeffers]

I have posted about the challenge on Reddit. Feel free to add testimonials and support.
https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/1c6b8c7/super_challenge_202425_from_the_language_learners/?scrlybrkr=91f0a7d7

Any other forums or places I should post the same?

Could an admin please set up a new signup thread for the 2024-25 challenge?

[emk]

Could an admin please set up a new signup thread for the 2024-25 challenge?

If you want to make a thread, I can make it sticky!

[jeffers]

I've posted about the Super Challenge in the Language Reactor forum, and I've tried to post in linguaholic.com, but unfortunately Linguaholic doesn't like my IP address and won't let me post anything. It says I should try again without using a VPN (I'm not using one )

Could someone else post an advert for the event to that forum? Thanks!

[Carl]

The Wiki has been neglected for a few years, but it has a very useful section of "Super Challenge Recommendations":
https://learnanylanguage.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Super_Challenge_Recommendations

I found it interesting to skim through the recommendations for French, including some quick film reviews I wrote several years ago. Sadly, there are fewer recommendations in most other languages, but it would be great if people could add in books and films they enjoy while doing the current challenge.

For those who don't want to plow through this thread from the beginning, here's a useful tip from 2020. Sooo much of the rest of this thread is now-outdated progress reports for previous challenges or now-outdated technical problems with bots or spreadsheets. This post was one of the jewels I found.

[Carl]

Since this Super Challenge is attracting new users to the site, I'll also point out The Master List of Resources:
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2900

[ThebigAmateur]

Guys, is there a list of French beginner-friendly books on the forum? I have not read anything in French (except for Le Petit Nicolas) and would like to start with contemporary novels.
There are tons of French novels that I would love to read, but I want to begin with the easiest material. I can't stand not knowing too many words in a book.