jeffers wrote:How are you approaching this challenge? What have you done so far? What are you planning to read and watch?
I don't have a great track record with Super Challenge participation, so thinking about how to make it different this time, and make a success of it both in terms of hitting the numbers and making genuine improvements in my target language. Getting the balance right so that I neither over commit or under commit at the outset is important, I think.
So I'm sticking to one language, German, my favourite. I'm already at a pretty advanced level - on the whole around C1. At this level it's hard to use standard tests to measure any improvements in listening and reading, however, my perception is that my German listening is almost native level (i.e. the things I find hard when listening to German I also find hard in English), but although my German reading is pretty competent there is still a noticeable gap between my German reading and my English reading which I'd really like to close and the Super Challenge seems to be the right challenge at the right time for this.
Also German is a very accessible language for me, in that the main German TV channels (Das Erste and ZDF) make a lot of their programming available without geo-blocking, including many episodes of my beloved Tatort. Also, over the last 4-5 years I've managed to collect a nice library of German books and DVDs through trips to Germany, London, a local charity shop, and online shopping, and I tend to collect books at a faster pace than I can read them.
I acknowledge that my Super Challenge experience is therefore going to be somewhat different to somebody coming in with B1 or less at the outset, or for people studying a language that is less accessible, which could be for many reasons.
But I still expect it to be a challenge. I've gone for a double challenge, because a normal full challenge doesn't feel challenging enough given the circumstances above. At one point I was toying with going quadruple on the reading (i.e. 20,000 pages) but, truthfully, while I could read 1,000 pages in a month, repeating this every month would be very difficult, would remove any chance of me reading anything in English during the challenge period, and is probably more than is needed to meet my reading goals. And whilst 500 pages in a month is easily achievable if I get hooked on a nice, meaty book, keeping this up over the 20 months is still going to be a challenge.
I expect to watch a few films and a lot of Tatort (each episode is self contained and about 90 minutes long, and before lockdown you could go out to watch it in pubs and even some cinemas in Germany, so it practically is a film in the genuine sense anyway). I also have a few other TV series on DVD which I may include, like Der Tatortreiniger and Mord mit Aussicht. I don't plan on counting podcasts or audiobooks, but may do if I get desperate.
I expect to read my fair share of Krimis, in particular from the Gereon Rath (Volker Kutscher, basis for the Babylon Berlin TV show) and Bettina Boll (Monika Geier) series, but would also like to try and throw in something a bit more highbrow, whether that's from shortlists for recent literary prizes (e.g. Deutscher Buchpreis or Preis der Leipziger Buchmesse) or some established older "classics". I'd really like to explore older works by female writers, but apart from Christa Wolf I am genuinely struggling to find anything.