Super Challenge registration thread (18/19)

Ongoing language-learning challenges, and team challenge logs (but not individual logs)
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jonm
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Re: Super Challenge registration thread

Postby jonm » Wed Apr 15, 2020 2:37 pm

rdearman wrote:Shouldn't be a problem, and I can always add a number if there is a conflict. Of course someone might look at the code and fix the problem before then.

Thanks! I wish I could be of some help with the code. I did take a look at the database file on GitHub, and I noticed that the two-letter code for Indonesian is currently set to "in", which I gather is the old code, changed in 1989 to "id".

Serpent wrote:While it's technically possible, wouldn't that be a bit too much? I do Romance, Slavic and Germanic challenges too. What's your issue exactly? You don't need to set goals for each subgroup if you don't want to :) You'll get a star for each 1250 pages completed in the same "language".

I wouldn't propose doing the whole family if I wasn't also studying the ancient languages, but I find that the ancient languages reinforce one another in much the same way that modern languages from a given branch do.

Right now I'm studying Latin and Sanskrit, and I'm planning to study Ancient Greek (and possibly others). Already with Latin and Sanskrit, I find lots of helpful cognates and parallel structures. They're not as close as, say, French and Spanish, but I'd say they're appreciably closer than modern IE languages from different branches. And my understanding is that Ancient Greek and Sanskrit are closer still, especially when you get to Epic Greek and Vedic (as I hope to), which are as close in time to their common ancestor as they are to their modern descendants.

(Incidentally, that ancestor and the ancestors of two other Super Challenge families, Sino-Tibetan and Semitic, were probably all spoken around the same time. Personally, I would approach different branches of those families the same way: I probably wouldn't think to do a family Super Challenge for Tibetan, Burmese, and Mandarin unless I was also learning the classical languages and really trying to bring out the commonalities.)

I'm even finding that the ancient languages help with modern languages from different branches. For example, familiarity with the eight PIE cases preserved in Sanskrit makes it a lot easier to see how those cases merged in different ways in Modern Greek or German.

So I'm basically trying to take an integrated, diachronic approach, working back toward some understanding of Proto-Indo-European and forward to follow how the languages evolved. And I really just have one goal for the Super Challenge, which is to do a lot of extensive reading and listening within the family, since right now I don't do enough of that.

I did consider doing a separate challenge for each IE branch, but it wouldn't really reflect that approach or goal. For example, on the page that tracks your progress and projects it into the future, it would be helpful to see my progress and projected finish for the challenge as a whole, but not so helpful to see four or five separate graphs. I would just have to mentally add them back up anyway. And with things like streaks and sprints, as this is my first Super Challenge, I don't know whether I'll actually find them motivating or not, but it would be nice for them to count whether it's Latin and Spanish or Latin and Greek that I've been doing consistently. I think there's a certain amount of helpful synergy either way. :)
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Re: Super Challenge registration thread

Postby jonm » Sat Apr 18, 2020 9:28 pm

Just a quick follow-up, we've been chatting about this a bit more, and I can see how doing such a large family as IE would be getting pretty far from the original challenge of doing lots of listening and reading in specific languages. So I'm good with doing branches, and I'm planning to sign up for the Romance family at least, and maybe also the Greek family that includes Ancient and Modern Greek.

By that rationale, it would probably make sense to count Indo-Iranian as two branches, Indic and Iranian. (That would also be consistent with the current IE Super Challenge families, because Indo-Iranian probably split before Balto-Slavic did.) Indic could include Vedic and Classical Sanskrit and descendants such Hindi and Bengali, and Iranian could include Persian and Kurdish and forebears like Avestan.

The only thing is, while I'm tempted to do something like a quarter challenge in each, I was thinking I'd see how it goes with the Romance and Greek families before signing up for more. Don't want to request new branches and not use them. So maybe no need for them yet, unless others are interested?
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Re: Super Challenge registration thread

Postby JohannaNYC » Mon Apr 20, 2020 2:19 pm

What happened to the Super Challenge website? When I go to https://super-challenge.language-learners.org/ I get this message:

Warning: mysqli_connect(): php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known in /var/www/html/database.php on line 15

Warning: mysqli_connect(): (HY000/2002): php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known in /var/www/html/database.php on line 15
php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known
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Re: Super Challenge registration thread

Postby rdearman » Mon Apr 20, 2020 8:00 pm

JohannaNYC wrote:What happened to the Super Challenge website? When I go to https://super-challenge.language-learners.org/ I get this message:

Warning: mysqli_connect(): php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known in /var/www/html/database.php on line 15

Warning: mysqli_connect(): (HY000/2002): php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known in /var/www/html/database.php on line 15
php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known

Maintenance! We've moved the DB in anticipation of migrating the site to the next Challenge which should be starting in 10 days or so.
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Re: Super Challenge registration thread

Postby JohannaNYC » Tue Apr 21, 2020 12:07 am

rdearman wrote:Maintenance! We've moved the DB in anticipation of migrating the site to the next Challenge which should be starting in 10 days or so.


Yay! Thanks! I'm counting down the days.
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Re: Super Challenge registration thread

Postby MamaPata » Sat Apr 25, 2020 9:34 am

Are we using this one as the sign up thread or will there be a new one? Excited!
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Re: Super Challenge registration thread

Postby Arnaud » Sat Apr 25, 2020 10:09 am

Oh man !! I was supposed to read 50 books in russian, and I didn't read one. I don't even understand how it's possible :lol:
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Re: Super Challenge registration thread

Postby Serpent » Sat Apr 25, 2020 2:27 pm

there will be a new one
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Re: Super Challenge registration thread

Postby JohannaNYC » Wed Apr 29, 2020 5:07 pm

Free French films until May 25th
https://www.myfrenchfilmfestival.com/en/
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Re: Super Challenge registration thread

Postby jeffers » Thu Apr 30, 2020 2:30 pm

Serpent wrote:there will be a new one


It starts at midnight tonight. Are we going to have a registration thread before then? And will the bot be active before then.

I don't want to pressurize the people setting these up, if it takes some extra time I don't mind waiting and tracking my progress myself. It does help to get new people in if we have somewhere to build up the excitement though!
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