The challenge: we all compete to integrate as many new language islands as we can into a TL in one month. From first draft to corrected by a native speaker to memorized/practised. The first Language Island Creation Challenge starts February 12, 2023 and ends March 12, 2023.
You can sign up with multiple languages, however their island counts will be separate on the leader board. Post your registration below using the following template
Languages: List your target languages you will write islands for!
Current Level: Give us an estimate of what level your languages are at!
Goal for the Challenge: Let us know what you are hoping to accomplish with this challenge!
Have you found a native speaker to correct your Islands?: Yes/No/I cannot find a native speaker for Toki Pona, my friend Sara will have to do
Are you interested in sharing the full transcript and English translation of some of your Islands?: Yes/No/I will decide later
Learn more about language islands here:
https://learnanylanguage.fandom.com/wiki/Language_Islands
Submitting Progress
There is a Google Form for this challenge. You will submit your progress using the Google Form. Once you register, I will send you a PM with a link to the Google Form. This is intended to prevent spam or other issues.
On the Google Form, you fill in your forum username, language, and how many additional islands to add to your total, and the list of new island topics (no email address required). I will update the totals on the table on the challenge website:
https://languageislandchallenge.neocities.org/
On the form, it asks you to submit a list of new island topics. This is the only requirement for "proof". Please list them in English, for example:
- Introduction
- About your family
- How you met your partner or best friend
- About your love of skipping rocks
- What you would say to Stephen Krashen if you met him on the street
- Your hot takes on Esperanto
You only need to submit of list of new topics, you do not need to submit all topics each time.
If you choose to enter for more than one language, you will need to submit a form for each update for each language.
Ideally, these will be shown on the website, but we'll see what I can manage to do, lol. This is just so other people can look at your topics and steal them.
Questions and Concerns
Do I need a native speaker to correct my islands for it to count in the challenge?
Barring some exceptions, the answer is yes, you do need correction from a native speaker. If you do not know a native speaker, now is the time to get on language exchange sites, or find a tutor you can pay to correct your work. You will probably need a few natives speakers, so you can distribute the proofreading load between them.
A learner who is more advanced than you is acceptable, but not ideal. If you are learning a language with few or no native speakers, like Esperanto or Latin, it's okay for it to be an advanced learner or who ever you can manage to locate. If even that is infeasible, just note so when you register, it's okay.
What does it mean for the island to be memorized/practised?
You know when you memorized it, just be honest.
If you don't like that, then you can try the following:
If you can say or type, from memory, 3 times, a close approximation of the island. Preferably, to three different people, or groups of people, with some time delay in-between each attempt, you can consider it memorized.
Do I need to share the full transcript of each language island?
It's up to you, it is not a requirement.
If you are willing to share, I would be interested in collecting everyone's islands + English translations and putting them into a PDF or website where they would be freely available for others to use. Since all islands are supposed to be corrected by native speakers, hopefully it would be a document of decent quality and some use to future learners!
Can I Redo an Old Island?
Yes, those count, as long as the re-write is significant.
For example, maybe you created your introduction in Chinese 2 years ago, and now you want to update it because you moved to a new city, you got new hobbies, and now you can use more complicated grammar structures. That's great and totally counts for the challenge!