Reading short stories challenge 2016

[Serpent]

@ Elenia, tomgosse - is it okay if for L1 I ask you to write some kind of review, even a really tiny one? And the total count should still favour L2

[tomgosse]

@ Elenia, tomgosse - is it okay if for L1 I ask you to write some kind of review, even a really tiny one? And the total count should still favour L2

I'm sorry for being dense, but are you asking me to write a review in English for a French language book that I read? Or, a review of an English language book?

Thanks,
Tom

[Serpent]

I ask you to review any L1 stories you want to read for the challenge. You listed English so I thought you were joining Elenia with that Sorry for the confusion

[Elenia]

I'm fine with the reviewing rule. I'll review in an L2, how does that sound?

[Teango]

You can also count me in! I'm still unsure as to how short a story can be, so I'll just play it by ear...

Languages and levels: French (Intermediate), Russian (Intermediate), Hawaiian (Intermediate), and German (Advanced).
Goal: Read 5 short stories by the end of 2016 in each of my designated major/minor study languages (planned total: 20 short stories).
Books you plan to read: TBD (easy readers and children's books for the large part, and perhaps something a bit more challenging for German).
A link to your profile/shelf on Goodreads: Teango.

[tomgosse]

I have read three short stories from the book Histoires à lire le soir. The first one, Émile et le microbe is about a boy who finds an old book on magic in his attic and creates a giant bug. Pleasant read.

[LunaMoonsilver]

Yay, this sounds fun! (And finally kicked me in the butt to join this forum, even though I've been lurking here since it popped up months ago...)

Languages and levels: Spanish (A1/2), Mandarin (B1/2)
Goal: Read two short stories a month (one in each language).
Books you plan to read: I currently own Spanish Short Stories for Beginners by Olly Richards aaaaaand that's it. I might see what I can find online, but if anyone has any recs for either language, I'll happily take them!
A link to your profile/shelf on Goodreads, LibraryThing etc: My Goodreads profile is here.

[Serpent]

Wow that's an honour to know this!
Note that I'm not keeping track of how many stories people read I'll be tracking mine in my sign-up post

[jeff_lindqvist]

I've considered joining this challenge - the most difficult thing is to find something that counts as a short story. Childrens books with pictures? I've read books like that in Chinese (aloud), and it didn't take long. Short enough? Too short? Something like the Grimm stories are longer but easy to read in my strong languages (say Swedish/English/German). What about comic books (e.g. Asterix, Tintin)?

[Serpent]

I'd say nothing is too short, other than stories like the "baby shoes, never used" one.
Too long is probably around 50 pages, especially if it's not the longest story in a collection. (ie if a book contains 10x stories 30 pages each, and then one 50-page one, it's more likely to be a story/novellette than if the book contains a few short stories and a couple of novellas)

About kids' books, imo the text either has to be "positioned" as a story or be part of a series (for example each Asterix book would be one story). The series can consist of multiple books or just a series of somewhat related stories in the same book, with more autonomy (suitable for reading as standalone) than any central plot.

Any short online fiction generally counts.