One page down, means only 4999 to go
I spent all morning reading the same five pages in Russian four times, to get to 20 pages. It will get better over time.
Super Challenge 2016-17 DISCUSSION THREAD
- Solfrid Cristin
- White Belt
- Posts: 24
- Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 3:54 pm
- Location: Oslo
- Languages: Norwegian (Native), English (C2), Spanish (C2), French (C1), Italian B1, German (B1), Russian (B1)
- x 81
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- Orange Belt
- Posts: 195
- Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 3:15 pm
- Languages: Speak well = English (N), Deutsch
Speak poorly = יידיש (Yiddish), Français
"Speak," I guess = עברית (Hebrew), Русский (Russian), Español, Nederlands, Esperanto - x 338
Re: Super Challenge 2016-17 DISCUSSION THREAD
For anyone who is new to this or hasn't truly experienced the length and breadth of a Super Challenge, a personal reflection from the first one, which started in May 2012, IIRC:
I had been obsessed with language learning for decades, but still, amazingly, never managed to teach myself a language to a useable level where I could converse, nor read books, nor watch tv. I wanted to learn French. I was curious about Dutch at the moment, too, for no obvious reason. I signed up to do a half challenge in French (which meant 5000 pages, back then), and declared that I would "unofficially" do a half of Dutch, too. The "unofficial" label was soon forgotten, and I completed my half challenge in Dutch. I got through maybe 3k-some pages of French. I did some studying with Assimil for French (and years later, Duolingo), but reading, watching, and listening were always my primary methods.
Within the past week I have, inter alia, gone to a French conversation group and participated with little difficulty, and watched a Dutch tv show without really needing to think about the fact that it was in a foreign language. In all this time I have never traveled to either a French- nor a Dutch-speaking area (sadly). It works. Certainly for closely-related languages--but I suspect that others out there may have success stories from more distant language pairs? Anyone?
I had been obsessed with language learning for decades, but still, amazingly, never managed to teach myself a language to a useable level where I could converse, nor read books, nor watch tv. I wanted to learn French. I was curious about Dutch at the moment, too, for no obvious reason. I signed up to do a half challenge in French (which meant 5000 pages, back then), and declared that I would "unofficially" do a half of Dutch, too. The "unofficial" label was soon forgotten, and I completed my half challenge in Dutch. I got through maybe 3k-some pages of French. I did some studying with Assimil for French (and years later, Duolingo), but reading, watching, and listening were always my primary methods.
Within the past week I have, inter alia, gone to a French conversation group and participated with little difficulty, and watched a Dutch tv show without really needing to think about the fact that it was in a foreign language. In all this time I have never traveled to either a French- nor a Dutch-speaking area (sadly). It works. Certainly for closely-related languages--but I suspect that others out there may have success stories from more distant language pairs? Anyone?
7 x
- zhuzilu
- Yellow Belt
- Posts: 81
- Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2016 10:09 am
- Languages: Spanish (N), Galician (N)
English (C1-2), French (Upper-int), Chinese (Int),
Learning: Italian & Japanese
Stand-by: Korean & Portuguese
Lived in: Reims, France (4 months)
Durham, UK (1 year)
Taipei, Taiwan (6 months)
Firenze, Italy (1 month) - Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2618
- x 86
Re: Super Challenge 2016-17 DISCUSSION THREAD
geoffw wrote:It works. Certainly for closely-related languages--but I suspect that others out there may have success stories from more distant language pairs? Anyone?
I really enjoyed reading about your experience! It does work definitely! In my case at the moment, only in English (and French to some extent), except with engrenages the TV series I struggled a little bit with it. I also signed up with Chinese last year, but failed miserably (although I was living in Taiwan for 6 months, just recently came back to Spain) which high up my level indeed. So I hope at the end of this challenge I can experience as well the same improvement in my Chinese skills.
Good luck to anyone on your challenges!!
0 x
Super Challenge 2022/2023
English
Books:
Films:
Chinese
Books:
Films:
Italian
Books:
Films:
English
Books:
Films:
Chinese
Books:
Films:
Italian
Books:
Films:
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- White Belt
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Wed Jan 13, 2016 11:31 pm
- Location: Colorado Springs, CO
- Languages: Spanish (maintenance/improving), German (intermediate), Russian (upper beginner), Portuguese (N). Dabbling in French, Danish, Irish. Italian (dormant)
- x 37
- Contact:
Re: Super Challenge 2016-17 DISCUSSION THREAD
Solfrid Cristin wrote:One page down, means only 4999 to go
I spent all morning reading the same five pages in Russian four times, to get to 20 pages. It will get better over time.
I started reading a book in German about a month and a half ago. When I started reading this book, I was reading a paragraph a day. Now I'm up to reading a Kindle page a day (a page a day is what I am planning for both Russian and German for the first two months of the Super Challenge).
Today I went back to the very beginning of the book and read all 10 pages that I've finished so far. Since I've been practicing the vocabulary with Anki, I was able to understand it pretty well.
Your idea is pretty good though. If I get behind schedule then I can just read pages that I've already read.
1 x
SC Russian Reading: Movies: 100 of each
SC Spanish Reading: Movies: 50 of each
SC German Reading: Movies: 50 of each
10000 SRS Cards Challenge:
SC Spanish Reading: Movies: 50 of each
SC German Reading: Movies: 50 of each
10000 SRS Cards Challenge:
- Serpent
- Black Belt - 3rd Dan
- Posts: 3657
- Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 10:54 am
- Location: Moskova
- Languages: heritage
Russian (native); Belarusian, Polish
fluent or close: Finnish (certified C1), English; Portuguese, Spanish, German, Italian
learning: Croatian+, Ukrainian; Romanian, Galician; Danish, Swedish; Estonian
exploring: Latin, Karelian, Catalan, Dutch, Czech, Latvian - x 5179
- Contact:
Re: Super Challenge 2016-17 DISCUSSION THREAD
I couldn't resist counting a 6 min video of how to use a dental irrigator It won't make a difference in the long run.
2 x
- Allison
- Orange Belt
- Posts: 248
- Joined: Fri Dec 18, 2015 4:21 am
- Location: New York City, NY, US
- Languages: English (native), Spanish (high intermediate-ish), American Sign Language (ASL) (I dabble occasionally)
- Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5177
- x 411
- rdearman
- Site Admin
- Posts: 7231
- Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
- Location: United Kingdom
- Languages: English (N)
- Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
- x 23120
- Contact:
Re: Super Challenge 2016-17 DISCUSSION THREAD
Allison wrote:What time zone is the bot in?
Tells you the local time of the server at the bottom of the main page. East Coast time (same as my hosting provider)
1 x
: Read 150 books in 2024
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I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.
My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter
I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.
- BAnna
- White Belt
- Posts: 19
- Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 2:57 pm
- Location: USA
- Languages: Native speaker of English, quite comfortable in Spanish and German but seeking improvement, have recently dabbled with Russian and Turkish, and long, long ago with French and Japanese.
- x 30
Re: Super Challenge 2016-17 DISCUSSION THREAD
I confess to being a rather ignorant user of Twitter. In this SC, upon tweeting I'm getting up to 15 "likes" by various odd entities such as a soccer school, clothing companies, etc. That did not happen the last time and I would like to turn it off if I can. Perhaps someone can point me to the settings on Twitter to block these? Many thanks in advance.
1 x
Turkish Study:
Half SC Turkish Reading:
Half SC Turkish Films:
Half SC Russian Reading:
Half SC Russian Films:
Half SC Turkish Reading:
Half SC Turkish Films:
Half SC Russian Reading:
Half SC Russian Films:
- zhuzilu
- Yellow Belt
- Posts: 81
- Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2016 10:09 am
- Languages: Spanish (N), Galician (N)
English (C1-2), French (Upper-int), Chinese (Int),
Learning: Italian & Japanese
Stand-by: Korean & Portuguese
Lived in: Reims, France (4 months)
Durham, UK (1 year)
Taipei, Taiwan (6 months)
Firenze, Italy (1 month) - Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2618
- x 86
Re: Super Challenge 2016-17 DISCUSSION THREAD
BAnna wrote:I confess to being a rather ignorant user of Twitter. In this SC, upon tweeting I'm getting up to 15 "likes" by various odd entities such as a soccer school, clothing companies, etc. That did not happen the last time and I would like to turn it off if I can. Perhaps someone can point me to the settings on Twitter to block these? Many thanks in advance.
It may happen because of the content that you post about. For example, last challenge I was doing some Harry Potter on French and I have got a lot of pottermore/harry potter/hogwarts and various account liking my tweet. I think they just like all tweets that include some keywords to win more followers/visibility.
If you go to https://twitter.com/settings/security you can protect your tweets, so that only the people that follow you (or that you allow to follow) could see your tweets.
Hope it works!
1 x
Super Challenge 2022/2023
English
Books:
Films:
Chinese
Books:
Films:
Italian
Books:
Films:
English
Books:
Films:
Chinese
Books:
Films:
Italian
Books:
Films:
- Aozora
- Orange Belt
- Posts: 234
- Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2016 3:46 pm
- Location: Canada
- Languages: English(N), Japanese (N2)
- Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17971
- x 203
Re: Super Challenge 2016-17 DISCUSSION THREAD
I'm getting this weird thing where when I tweet my book pages, the bot just tells me I'm not registered for Tibetan :/ I can't find anything wrong with the tweets ("I read 25 pages of "miyama" #book" and "read 25 pages #book") but only barebones tweets like "#read 25 pages" work. Is there something about the hashtag #book?
0 x
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