A language learners’ forum

Note that you can only do the 6 Week Challenge with a language that you're a beginner at or lower-intermediate at most. This allows for a more just comparison between participants.

Can someone please define lower-intermediate? Would the last time you can do the 6WC in a language be while you are still A2 or B1? I'm hoping to finally achieve B1 this year--will that mean I'm officially out?

CarlyD wrote:

Note that you can only do the 6 Week Challenge with a language that you're a beginner at or lower-intermediate at most. This allows for a more just comparison between participants.

Can someone please define lower-intermediate? Would the last time you can do the 6WC in a language be while you are still A2 or B1? I'm hoping to finally achieve B1 this year--will that mean I'm officially out?

I think the rule is that you should be no higher than B1. I've always interpreted it as B1 is OK, but B2 isn't. So, if you still are B1, you should be able to participate.

CarlyD wrote:

Note that you can only do the 6 Week Challenge with a language that you're a beginner at or lower-intermediate at most. This allows for a more just comparison between participants.

Can someone please define lower-intermediate? Would the last time you can do the 6WC in a language be while you are still A2 or B1? I'm hoping to finally achieve B1 this year--will that mean I'm officially out?

"The 6 Week Challenge is a challenge to upgrade your language skills in one language from beginner to something more worthwhile, and to see if you can find more time to study languages when competing with other participants in a global highscore."

"Passive" or dormant C1> active C1 is definitely worth the effort. If you hold a B2 certificate would you feel treated unjustly relative to A-level participants? When did we last compare any of the participants? This setup unnecessarily penalizes people who play by the rules and those who may be overestimating their CEFR levels.

My main reason for participating is the motivation boost I get from the "highscore counter". It worked great in February but then I got bored with it in May and while I continued studying, I stopped reporting the hours. We'll se how it goes this time.

I'm a big believer in passive first, but I don't think you can activate all the way to C1 in 6 weeks.
I'm pretty sure passive B2/C1 is perfectly fine if you can't write or speak at this level. (Honestly I tend to think you can't be a passive C1 and active A2 anyway)
On the other hand, there's been some interest in limiting the challenge to explicit/intensive learning, regardless of the level. After all, the main idea was that at B2 or so you can clock lots of hours by just chilling out with native materials
But if we approach Sprachprofi about this I think this should apply to the next challenge, not the one that's about to start.

Thank you everyone. I've done several of the online tests (nothing official) and usually am rated at A2, but that's all written multiple choice. I've never tested anywhere verbally.

So we have one vote for B1 as the highest to participate and one as B2/C1 passive. An official answer for the next challenge would be good, but I won't improve that fast, so I'm good.

If anyone has noticed, when you go to Twitter to sign up, the bot has that "Rules Here" link. I tried it and the link is broken.

The official answer is B1. But I'm pretty sure it applies mostly to production, or to the overall level. If even one of your skills is still B1, you won't pass the B2 exam.
I also disagree with Sprachprofi that B1/B2 are low/high intermediate but that's another question entirely.

Is this possible without Twitter? I've never looked at these six week challenges because they never suited what I was doing. Now, however, I'm considering doing a short intensive burst of beginner French before the end of the year.

Originally it was done without twitter, but I don't think anyone does that anymore... However I suppose it's totally fine if you keep track of your score in your personal log and occasionally post it here. Remember that everyone has a target language score and total score. Each just refers to the minute spent learning the language you registered with, and your total time spent language learning, including linguistics (and including your main 6WC language).

That said, joining twitter is easy and once the bot follows you, you can even make your tweets private.

Serpent wrote:I suppose it's totally fine if you keep track of your score in your personal log and occasionally post it here.

I think it is totally UN-fine. If you're not listed on the scoreboard, then it renders the ranking of everyone below you wrong - the scoreboard says they're in 30th place when they're actually in 31st. If there're 50 participants and you come around 10th, then 40 people are affected. That's a lot for 1 person's convenience. And we don't even know if it's 40 or 49 who are affected - no one can know what position you are in until THEY take the time to come to this thread to check your scores, and THEY mentally insert your position into the scoreboard, and THEY do the necessary adjustments. That's a lot of work for 40, 50 people, when you could've just used Twitter like everyone else, and when Twitter's actually so easy to use. And then if there're participants not on the scoreboard then it makes the "past scoreboards" wrong forever; and you can't even tell which ones are wrong unless you, what, read every scoreboard together with its thread?

We may have started without Twitter but we've evolved for the better and I don't think we should go backwards.

Serpent wrote:I'm a big believer in passive first, but I don't think you can activate all the way to C1 in 6 weeks.
I'm pretty sure passive B2/C1 is perfectly fine if you can't write or speak at this level. (Honestly I tend to think you can't be a passive C1 and active A2 anyway)
On the other hand, there's been some interest in limiting the challenge to explicit/intensive learning, regardless of the level. After all, the main idea was that at B2 or so you can clock lots of hours by just chilling out with native materials
But if we approach Sprachprofi about this I think this should apply to the next challenge, not the one that's about to start.

Actually, if there's going to be a rule change, I'd like to see the B1 limit removed. I think it's often easy to motivate yourself to do a lot of intensive studying in a new language because of the novelty and because of the huge feeling of progress you get, but it would be nice to have a competition to motivate you over the intermediate hump. If non-intensive activities like watching TV and reading extensively were eliminated, then it wouldn't be any easier for higher level learners to rack up minutes, so I feel like any unfairness in that area would also be eliminated. And it would allow those who want to get really good in one language before moving on to another to participate.