Much of the reasoning for the 18 months is simply to give people enough time to win the challenge. It should be a challenge, but also a reachable challenge by people who have a job or family or otherwise cannot devote full time to languages. If we do the math.
Many resources indicate that the average reading speed of most adults is around 200 to 250 words per minute.
The minium reading requirement for the SC would be 250 * 50 * 100 which equals 1,250,000. One and one quarter of a million words reading at 200 words per minute is: 6250 minutes or 104 hours. Films are considered 90 minutes for the SC, so 9000 minutes or 150 hours.
Therefore, we have a minimum investment of 254 hours. Theoretically, a year would be more than enough. But that is calculating "average reading speed" some people will read faster, others slower. And reading in another language, I would almost guarantee you're not going to be hitting the 200-250 words per minute mark. So more likely is to double the 104 hours to 208. This gives a more realistic figure of about 358 hours.
The original challenge was 100 actual paperback books, so the average page count would have been closer to 200 than 50, and therefore a quadruple the 104 hours to 416.
So we're looking at a time to realistically complete between 358 - 566 hours. So 18 months reading 1 hour every day will get you 545 hours, which should let you end the challenge.
Having said all of that, many people complete the challenge during the first 12 months, but others do double-challenges, or SC in more than one language.
Another good reason for not starting in January is it is the "resolution" month when people resolve to do something with will change their life, and by February the gym-membership is cancelled, the running shoes thrown away, the chocolate is back in the cupboard.
german2k01 wrote:Can there be a mini-challenge/ a variation of a super challenge simultaneously that starts from the first day of January xxxx year and ends on the last day of the year? or will it be a hindrance for the super challenge itself as language learners try to compete for both challenges?
Just curious.
To answer your question, there isn't anything stopping from doing this yourself and just recording your score in your own log. It will not hinder the SC, since the bot will not actually be active until May, so you can't record your scores until then anyway. In addition, many people run 1 or 2 challenges concurrently with the SC. For example, you can be doing the 365-day challenge, and count the books you read from May-Dec against both challenges. You could be doing the "Peppa Pig" challenge and counting all the Peppa Pig episodes you watch against your SC films total.
So you could run your mini challenge starting in January, then from 1st of May count the books and films against both until Dec. Entirely up to you.