A language learners’ forum

Godryka wrote:I'd like to sign up for Mandarin and French, starting January 1st. I hope this is allowed, given that I am still participating in the 2019 365-day challenge until January 30th, so I would be scoring (or losing) points in January for two challenges at the same time...

I think that is fine. Are you doing Mandarin and French as a generic, or as two specific?

Sedge wrote:

Godryka wrote:I'd like to sign up for Mandarin and French, starting January 1st. I hope this is allowed, given that I am still participating in the 2019 365-day challenge until January 30th, so I would be scoring (or losing) points in January for two challenges at the same time...

I think that is fine. Are you doing Mandarin and French as a generic, or as two specific?

I want to sign up for Mandarin and French separately. This arrangement worked out pretty well for me in 2019, in terms of the progress I made in both languages, even despite many missed days.

Awesome. I will update the list, then!

I would like to sign up for a January 1st start. Spanish.

I think I'll start one as well, for Korean only. 1st Jan.
Thanks for organising.

Ser - Mandarin - Specific - Beginning January 1, 2020
Ser - Taiwanese Minnan, Ancient Greek - Generic - Beginning January 1, 2020

(It is December 31st, 1:25 p.m. at the time I'm writing this post.)


By the way, there is a small mistake in the Penalties section in the opening post:

Sedge wrote:3. Studying 29 minutes (or less) is not acceptable. You can't make up that minute or few minutes the next day. That's a fail - loss of 1 day.

This should be "loss of 7 days". This same rule appears correctly in the Time required to study each day section.

Ser wrote:By the way, there is a small mistake in the Penalties section in the opening post:

Sedge wrote:3. Studying 29 minutes (or less) is not acceptable. You can't make up that minute or few minutes the next day. That's a fail - loss of 1 day.

This should be "loss of 7 days". This same rule appears correctly in the Time required to study each day section.

ロータス is correct; this rule has changed this year. The reason for the change was discussed in the 2019 thread - there were some participants who did not like the 7-day rule - and at the beginning of the rules post I noted that there would be changes:

Sedge wrote:I am, with permission, re-using most of the rules from 2019, but a few things have changed, namely in the scoring and categories, so please take a moment to read through!

Thanks for checking regarding the rules, and for participating!

We officially start tomorrow! Can't wait! I'm so happy that we've had so many people sign up!

I'm signing up with generic (Slavic and Germanic languages), starting January 1st.

Won't count English and obviously no Russian either

ロータス wrote:The leader of this years challenge changed it to 1 day because people believe that people quit because -7 days for one missed day was too much. They talk about it in the 2019 discussion post.

Sedge wrote:ロータス is correct; this rule has changed this year. The reason for the change was discussed in the 2019 thread - there were some participants who did not like the 7-day rule - and at the beginning of the rules post I noted that there would be changes:

Oh, but if that's the case, then other points in the opening post should be corrected instead:

a) Time required to study each day section, point 6, still says the penalty is of "7 days"
b) Penalties section, point 1, says: "Thus, if you do miss/skip a day, you must study the next day, you cannot take a break and study 7 days later." This sentence only makes sense under the old rules, because previously people could miss a day and then be like, "urgh, that's negative 7 points, so I guess that's a week-long break that doesn't matter too", even though this was not true.
c) Changing or adding languages section, point 9, shows a calculation where the penalty per day is of 7 days

(It was this inconsistency that made me post my correction above. I didn't follow or read the 2019 version of this challenge at all.)

I was cool with a penalty of -7 days, although I did think it was surprisingly brutal too.


By the way, let me say this just now, I have only about 40% confidence that I will actually finish my generic (Taiwanese + Greek) challenge. That is, I think it is more likely I'll "fail" than not (if we define "failure" as less than 300 days, i.e. less than ~10 months). In fact I have only about 70% confidence that I won't give up near the middle in the summer. Nevertheless I'll try (even 40% is reasonably close to 50%).

(For Mandarin, my confidence is about 95% for a final score of >300 days, and I'm not gonna bother with a give-up-in-the-middle number.)

Ser wrote:

ロータス wrote:The leader of this years challenge changed it to 1 day because people believe that people quit because -7 days for one missed day was too much. They talk about it in the 2019 discussion post.

Sedge wrote:ロータス is correct; this rule has changed this year. The reason for the change was discussed in the 2019 thread - there were some participants who did not like the 7-day rule - and at the beginning of the rules post I noted that there would be changes:

Oh, but if that's the case, then other points in the opening post should be corrected instead:

a) Time required to study each day section, point 6, still says the penalty is of "7 days"
b) Penalties section, point 1, says: "Thus, if you do miss/skip a day, you must study the next day, you cannot take a break and study 7 days later." This sentence only makes sense under the old rules, because previously people could miss a day and then be like, "urgh, that's negative 7 points, so I guess that's a week-long break that doesn't matter too", even though this was not true.
c) Changing or adding languages section, point 9, shows a calculation where the penalty per day is of 7 days

(It was this inconsistency that made me post my correction above. I didn't follow or read the 2019 version of this challenge at all.)

Thanks for finding those. I have corrected your items a) and c). Item b) I believe is correct as written; basically whether we're doing a one-point penalty or a seven-point penalty, you can't take a multi-day break and call it a single penalty. Under the seven-day penalty rules, taking a weeklong break would be a 49 point penalty. Under the one-day rules (this year), this is a seven point penalty.