2024/25 Super Challenge Registration Thread

[unfaithlessnesscy]

Language: French
Challenge: Full
Current Level: Beginner
Comments: I dream of reading Proust, Flaubert, Balzac, Maupassant and other writers in the original. So far I know a couple of words in French, but knowing English helps with some vocabulary

Good luck to everyone!

[semblable]

Language: Portuguese
Challenge: double
Current level: I am gonna say strong B1 for comprehension, but output is significantly worse
Comments, links: I am staying in Portugal until the end of July so trying to get the most out of it before I head home

Language: German
Challenge: half
Current level: extremely rusty, but maybe B1 before
Comments, links: It's not my priority currently but once I get closer to completing my Portuguese challenge I will work on German

[MaggieMae]

I'm not even sure how to count the pages of things that I read, because I'm only reading short texts at this point.

You could try by word count. Every 250 words = 1 page.

As for me:
Language: German
Challenge: full
Current level: C2
Comments, links: Gotta keep my skills sharp, so I don't look like an idiot in front of my students. They're going to help push me for reading, though, since I promised I'd read a book from the school library of their choice every week. Too bad the thickest book in the place was picked for me in February!

Unofficial Sign Up:
Language: Swedish
Challenge: half
Current level: A1-
Comments, links: I'll be tracking this, but not really pushing myself. I get so frustrated still with how long it takes me to read: ~20 min per page of a graduated A1 reader, but it'll be a nice kick in the pants to finally crack those open again. On the other hand, I do like watching tv in Swedish, when possible. I REALLY love their Advent Calendar, and there's 2 of them per Super Challenge, so that's exciting! And there aren't any English captions, so no crutches!

[fenkoli]

Language: Swedish
Challenge: full
Current level: B1 reading, A2 listening
Comments, links: my reading isn't too bad, but my listening is absolutely atrocious, haha. I'll be using mainly YouTube videos, I think, as I'm not really into watching TV - anything that holds my attention is fair game, really. As for books, I'll be reading largely nonfiction and am aiming to keep it to books originally written in Swedish, though I'm not averse to reading translations if something catches my eye. I still use a textbook (Rivstart B1+B2) but am aiming to complete that by the summer, and will be reading/listening in tandem.

Language: Finnish
Challenge: half
Current level: A1, barely
Comments, links: this... is going to be difficult. My level right now is such that I can barely read or listen to anything beyond the very basics, but I'm hoping this challenge will kickstart some progress. I'll be reading and watching/listening in tandem with my textbook (Sun Suomi) here, too.

Good luck everyone!!

[nathancrow77]

Language: Spanish
Challenge: full
Current level: B1 listening and reading (very loose estimate)
Comments, links: I've (mostly) been following the Dreaming Spanish methodology and am a couple months from the point where reading is recommended (600 hours of CI). I average about 3 hours of listening/watching a day, but for the purposes of this challenge I'm going to try to only count actual TV shows/movies (rather than DS or youtube content). Reading likely won't start until June/July.

[Carl]

OK, despite my thoughts about wanting to devote more time to production in Spanish and German, I'll take the plunge for this reading/listening Super Challenge. I've been alerting friends to it and thinking about how I'd do it (if I were to do it), and I am just getting sucked into it... Thanks, everyone, for the peer pressure!

Language: Spanish (emphasis on Latin America)
Challenge: half
Current level: B2
Comments, links: For books, I'll start with Allende's La casa de los espíritus; I found her El viento conoce mi nombre to be at a perfect i+1 level for me. For movies, I'll finally jump on the Destinos bandwagon, plus watch Roma and El Ministereo del Tiempo. (Transcripts are available for the latter, so I'll get some reading in that way, too.) I'll rewatch The Three Body Problem on Netflix, with descriptive audio in Spanish and subtitles in German (or vice versa, for the other half).

Language: Germanic (primarily German, but also Swedish, Norwegian, and/or Danish)
Challenge: half
Current level: B1+ for German, C2- for Swedish, C1- for Norwegian, and thus I read Danish.
Comments, links: Targeting Germanic languages instead of just German is less daunting, since I can coast along in Scandinavian if I get behind on German. To start, I plan to listen to and read the transcript of Trisolaris Trilogie Hörspiel, to watch film versions of Emil und die Detektive, and to listen to and read Die 13 1/2 Leben des K-pt'n Blaubär.

[Querneus]

Language: Latin
Challenge: "full", 100 books only, so really half
Current level: B1
Comments, links:

Language: French
Challenge: half (50 books and 50 films)
Current level: B2
Comments, links:

[Nogon]

Language: Yiddish
Challenge: half
Current level: ?
Comments, links: Will probably only (try to) do the reading part due to lack of listening resources

Language: Afrikaans
Challenge: half
Current level: ?
Comments, links: Will probably only (try to) do the reading part due to lack of listening resources

[reverie]

Language: German
Challenge: Double
Current level: A1.5
Comments: I've really stagnated in my German study and this is a wonderful opportunity to get the ball rolling again. So far I have not read anything other than graded readers. I hope I'll be able to transition to native content soon enough.

[mothercondor]

Language: Turkish
Challenge: double
Current level: Perhaps B1?
Comments, links: I have read approximately 2500 pages in Turkish, mostly in the last 6 months. Currently reading ya fiction and detective/mystery novels, but I would like to be reading Turkish literature in a year's time or so.