A shorter Super Challenge

Ongoing language-learning challenges, and team challenge logs (but not individual logs)
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Re: A shorter Super Challenge

Postby Serpent » Sun Jan 10, 2016 7:44 pm

FWIW I'm totally fine with giving this idea a different name. SC was all about improvement in *one* language. I don't really find these outrageous amounts necessary because related languages support each other.
For me the "jumps" don't necessarily correspond to the level but experience (and the need for input at, say, A2-B1 depends on how much formal study you do). You can have an okay level without being all that used to reading :P This all can also help with the confidence, consolidation, that sort of thing.
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Re: A shorter Super Challenge

Postby IchBinEinPoly » Sun Jan 10, 2016 8:30 pm

emk wrote:[All of the following is personal opinion. I did the original 20 month, 10,000 page challenge, but I do not speak for the Challenge organizers.]

The most important thing about the Super Challenge isn't the intensity, it's the total quantity of input. Based on people's experience with the last two challenges, it seems that 5,000 pages of reading is enough to "move the needle". When people start the Super Challenge, most of them can decipher text slowly. But when they've finished the Super Challenge, they typically have C1-level passive skills. They can read actual books, comfortably, without a dictionary. And they can read much faster, sometimes as high as half the speed they can read in their native language.

If you were to create a much smaller Super Challenge (let's say 1,000 pages), you just won't see the same results. 1,000 pages is enough to see real improvement, but it won't produce the night-and-day difference that 5,000 pages makes for so many people. If you cut the Super Challenge to 2,500 pages, that's still just enough to make a really significant difference for certain people learning certain languages. (Like sfuqua, recently.) And that's one of the reasons I originally argued that there should be a 2,500 page "half Challenge"—it's the smallest size at which the Super Challenge is still "super."

And this explains why the Super Challenge is so long, in calendar terms: It has a certain number of pages that need to be read, and it takes a lot of months to read them!

Now, it might make sense to have a shorter reading challenge with a different name. Serpent has posted an entire thread of L1 and L2 challenges. But the entire value of the Super Challenge, in my opinion, is the size. It should remain large enough to take people from A2 to C1 comprehension. Anything smaller should have a different name.


This makes a lot of sense actually. I didn't think about it like this.

That said, I like the idea of breaking the SC down into semesters. That way people could still participate in the whole 20 month odyssey, but people who can't commit for such a long time could commit for one or more semesters. Say we broke it up into 5 semesters of 4 months each? What's more, this could allow beginners who are daunted by the prospect of a 20 month challenge to initially just sign up for part of the challenge, and then reevaluate if they can or want to continue at the end of each semester. So for example a monogolot just starting a new language could sign up for the first semester, and if they find they enjoyed it after those 4 months, could renew their commitment for another semester, etc.

sfuqua wrote:While I seem to be too much of a loner to do a challenge with everybody, I have found that having a large, long term goal can be useful. I used to measure how well I was doing by trying to do a certain amount of work each day, which meant that when I got too busy or too sick, I would "fail". If I have a longer term goal, that gives me more flexibility.

I wonder if there might be a place for short term "bragging rights" challenges. A Lord of the Rings challenge (in your language of choice). A thousand pages in one month challenge. A Harry Potter challenge. A bible challenge. An every word in a newspaper for a quarter challenge. We could have a place in the profile for "challenges completed".


I also like this idea. Perhaps a stickied thread with challenges that aren't bound to any specific length of time? For example, to use sfuqua's example of LOTR, the challenge would be to read the entire series in a given language. The stickied post would list languages and people who have done the challenge in that language.
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Re: A shorter Super Challenge

Postby kanewai » Sun Jan 10, 2016 10:52 pm

I also believe that a shorter reading challenge might not be effective, for the exact reasons EMK gave. I couldn't binge-read in any of my new languages until more than half way into the Super Challenge. Before that my reading speed was too slow, and it was too tiring to focus for long periods without lots of breaks.

The other media might work, though - movies, tv, podcasts, etc. With these it's much easier to move fast right out of the starting gate, and much easier to binge.
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Re: A shorter Super Challenge

Postby Serpent » Sun Jan 10, 2016 11:05 pm

kanewai wrote:I also believe that a shorter reading challenge might not be effective, for the exact reasons EMK gave. I couldn't binge-read in any of my new languages until more than half way into the Super Challenge. Before that my reading speed was too slow, and it was too tiring to focus for long periods without lots of breaks.
That's exactly why I think it's better to read in more languages :roll: :?
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Re: A shorter Super Challenge

Postby emk » Sun Jan 10, 2016 11:09 pm

kanewai wrote:I also believe that a shorter reading challenge might not be effective, for the exact reasons EMK gave. I couldn't binge-read in any of my new languages until more than half way into the Super Challenge. Before that my reading speed was too slow, and it was too tiring to focus for long periods without lots of breaks.

The other media might work, though - movies, tv, podcasts, etc. With these it's much easier to move fast right out of the starting gate, and much easier to binge.

Perhaps it would be possible to design a shorter challenge for A2 students who want to get started with native materials? The idea could be to get people over that very first hump. Call it a "Mini Challenge":

  • 3 months
  • 300 pages of a book
  • 3 seasons of a television series
I'm open to other numbers—I just pulled these out of thin air. The idea would be to get over that first-book hump, and to try to make that first big chunk of progress with listening. How many pages and/or seasons did everybody feel they needed to make the first nice burst of progress?

For reasons of narrow reading and narrow listening, I think the default should be to focus on one book and one series, in order to maximize the feeling of triumph by the end. But people could split that up if they wanted.

If people were interested, we could perhaps start this in the month of February. That's late enough to miss the New Year's rush, and it would end just when the Super Challenge was starting. Consider it a "pre-challenge." :-) Would anybody be interested in an idea like this? What would we need to change to make it feasible?
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Re: A shorter Super Challenge

Postby Expugnator » Sun Jan 10, 2016 11:36 pm

Would this challenge consist of intensive reading then? Because what you describe would work well as a warm up into the B1 stage as you'd say, that is more or less what I plan to do in my next opaque languages.
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Re: A shorter Super Challenge

Postby Serpent » Sun Jan 10, 2016 11:42 pm

Hmm, I was looking forward to some rest before the new SC :D I would honestly prefer if we just made the stats more flexible (at least enabling the totals :evil:).
The way I picture the semester thing, it would affect nothing for those who like the current system. I think setting up separate signups would be unnecessarily complicated, but it would be great to have a dropdown box with each semester, in order to see everyone's stats for it, only in the languages in which they've registered something (those zeroes are depressing :P) You would be able to announce in the SC thread if you sign up for all 20 months or a specific portion.
What does everyone think about tracking the totals by language family (well, technically group - Romance and Germanic rather than IE :lol:) or allowing people to sign up with a family rather than a specific language. (I can see why you wouldn't want my 50 Germanic books to be on the same list as your 50 in a single language)

Also, I think outside the original concept of breaking out of the textbook bubble, it's not very helpful to bring CEFR into this. I'd not pass even A1 in a few languages where I have a decent comprehension.
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Re: A shorter Super Challenge

Postby kanewai » Tue Jan 12, 2016 3:43 am

emk wrote:Perhaps it would be possible to design a shorter challenge for A2 students who want to get started with native materials? The idea could be to get people over that very first hump. Call it a "Mini Challenge":

  • 3 months
  • 300 pages of a book
  • 3 seasons of a television series
I'm open to other numbers—I just pulled these out of thin air. The idea would be to get over that first-book hump, and to try to make that first big chunk of progress with listening. How many pages and/or seasons did everybody feel they needed to make the first nice burst of progress?

For reasons of narrow reading and narrow listening, I think the default should be to focus on one book and one series, in order to maximize the feeling of triumph by the end. But people could split that up if they wanted.


This is the first time I've read any theory on 'narrow reading' - I didn't even know it had a name - , but I've definitely noticed the benefits of sticking with one author or one fat book for an extended period. I liked reading big epics during the Super Challenge. I'd struggle for a couple chapters, maybe even for the first hundred pages, of any new book - and then I'd start to learn the author's voice. The second half of any book was always so much easier than the first half. For a fat mess like Les Misérables it meant that I struggled for 100 pages and then had it (somewhat) easy for 900 pages.

I've thought about focused listening, but haven't tried it yet. This might be a good motivator to giving it a try.

300 pages sounds in 3 months sounds about right for a 'light' challenge that is still challenging and rewarding.

3 seasons of a show in 3 months sounds intense, though I suppose it would depend on how long an episode was, and how many episodes per season.

It would make a nice warm-up for the super challenge. It could even make a nice side-challenge during the main Super Challenge - something we can do with our non-target languages.

The semester idea is intriguing, but I think it would be a logistical challenge. It's nice to have some uniformity, with everyone working towards a common goal.

Serpent's idea of allowing grouping by language families is also interesting. I'm not there yet, but in a few years I might want this option for myself!

Sfuqua's idea of a Lord of the Rings group read is awesome. Maybe you should organize one even if this thread doesn't pan out! I don't know much about the quality of the translation, but El Señor de los Anillos does have a nice ring to it ...
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Re: A shorter Super Challenge

Postby IchBinEinPoly » Tue Jan 12, 2016 5:34 am

kanewai wrote:I liked reading big epics during the Super Challenge. I'd struggle for a couple chapters, maybe even for the first hundred pages, of any new book - and then I'd start to learn the author's voice.


Yes, can't remember where I've seen this suggested before, but it was on the old HTLAL forums as well.

kanewai wrote:3 seasons of a show in 3 months sounds intense, though I suppose it would depend on how long an episode was, and how many episodes per season.


I've been known to do 5 seasons of English TV shows in a couple nights :lol:

kanewai wrote:The semester idea is intriguing, but I think it would be a logistical challenge. It's nice to have some uniformity, with everyone working towards a common goal.


In what way would it be a logistical challenge? The bot would have to be configured accordingly, but other than that? And there would still be plenty of people in it for the long haul. Also, think of all the people who drop out 5, 6 months into a Super Challenge. Now, at least, those people are more likely to be active, since they'll get a sense of completion after every SC.
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Re: A shorter Super Challenge

Postby sfuqua » Tue Jan 12, 2016 4:08 pm

I had my major improvement in reading, that shocking shift from, "I can sort of understand this" to "wow, I just read for an hour in Spanish without noticing it was Spanish" during the first 500 pages of extensive reading.
I definitely have done "narrow reading" of Ken Follett's "Century Trilogy". I can read this and find it pretty effortless after 2000 pages or so. Even though it scores at a decent level on the online readability calculators, my familiarity with the idiolect of the author and translators makes these books the easiest thing for me to read in Spanish right now.
Reading through 500 to 1000 pages of a single author/translator, would have been a useful thing for me to do to warm up for a superchallenge.
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