RULESMain principle of the challenge:1. Choose one or more languages to study every single day for a year with a minimum requirement of 30 minutes per day.
Start and end dates:1. The competition start date is 1st January, 2019, but will extend out for late-comers to February 1st, 2019. The end date comes after 365 days of study, so if you begin studying on Jan 1st 2019, your last day of study is 31st Dec 2019. If you begin studying on February 1st, 2019, your last date of study will be January 31st, 2020.
2. Those who begin later than 1st of January 2019, but before the cut off date of February 1st, 2019, must finish after 365 days of study, so if you begin yon Jan 20th 2019, your last day of study will be Jan 19th 2020.
3. You can start after the 1st of February, 2019, but you must finish 31st Jan 2020. Therefore, you can still participate, you just won't be participating for a full year.
4. If you post that you want to join the challenge on a date earlier than your post, you can do so. For example if it's February 17th and you post that you want to join but your start date is January the 21st, this is acceptable. If you have studied every day since January 21st the same language(s) you are announcing to participate with and you have been completing 30 minutes a day for your language(s), then there are no penalties. If you have missed days, then the usual penalties apply from your back-dated commencement date (in this case January 21st).
As a reminder, if your official start date is between Jan 1st 2019 and February 1st, 2019, your finish date will be after 365 days of study (if you take one day off the same date the following year - eg. you first day of study is Jan 27th 2019, your last day of study will be on Jan 26th 2020) However if you sign up for a commencement date after February 1st, 2019, the latest possible competition end date remains Jan 31st 2020, so the competition will not be a full year for such competitors.
There is currently no limit set on retrospective start dates, as to how far back your start date can be, so for the moment this will be a case by case discussion until further notice.
Time required to study each day:1.
30 minutes per day minimum of language study for each of your announced chosen language(s)...
...and/or 30 minutes per day minimum of language study for each 'generic study block' which allows for learning a combination of pre-announced (by the competitor) languages without having to necessarily study all of your announced languages every day, just so long as you meet the minimum time requirements of 30 minutes for the block. (see
The 'generic’ option, below for further details).
2. Daily study must be completed not necessarily before midnight, but before your longer period of sleep except in special circumstances (see 3 below). Therefore you may have fallen asleep after midnight, realised you've not completed your study upon waking after a short period of sleep, then go ahead and complete it, say from 2am - 2.30, and then return to sleeping for a lengthy (longer) period. As long as the study is completed before your main block of sleep.
3. There is an exception to the above ‘before your main block of sleep rule’. That is, let’s say you studied Saturday afternoon, or even in the evening, didn’t go to sleep (or perhaps slept a very little amount) until early Sunday afternoon when you slept properly or for a lengthier period, but before your longer sleep you also studied at 10am on Sunday prior to that Sunday afternoon sleep, for example. To clarify. You studied Saturday afternoon/evening did not sleep (or very little overnight), studied again Sunday morning, slept Sunday afternoon. Thus there’s no main block of sleep between the two study sessions.
Such studying is not encouraged, but if you struggle with insomnia, poor sleep patterns, or need to arrange studying around night shifts for example (before you go to work Sat evening, post coming hope Sunday morning), this is perfectly understandable and acceptable. Be reasonable and fair with yourself and if unsure request some feedback.
However, if you’re watching a movie from 23.00hrs Saturday night and continue from 00.00hrs to 00.30hrs on Sunday morning, this is really pushing the rules and simply not accepted. Your study sessions should be distinctly apart from each other (by a number of hours preferably) if you cannot sleep between them, but they still must be on separate days, and you must have a fair reason for such study methods. In the end use your own judgement, or if unsure seek some feedback.
4. Studying 30 minutes per day does not have to be in one continuous block. As long as you reach a total of 30 minutes minimum (you can do more if you like).
5. More than 30 minutes learning a day is fine, but the minimum requirement is 30 minutes, so no double, triple challenges. You can opt to do as much as you like (I'll personally be aiming for more), but for this challenge it's just 30 minutes you need, beyond that is your own business, since the idea is to develop a super strong habit of unbroken daily study - it's not to chase study hours per sé (although, sure, more time on task is better), the aim is to create consistent effort EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR, or as close to that mark as possible.
6. Studying 29 minutes (or less) is not acceptable. You can't make up that minute or few minutes the next day. That's a fail - loss of 7 days (see 'penalties' below)
7.There’s no loss of time for any narration/instructions in a langauge other than your target (announced) language(s) (excluding TV, see paragraph below). For example a French course with lots of English instructions, bilingual dictionaries, a podcast with loads of English narration. If you do an hour of ‘French’ and you’ve been going over detailed grammatical explanations or introductory background of a course and it’s all in English, it still counts for your French study session, as that’s what you’re reading about, and using, content to learn your target language.
However, when counting movies and or series you must count only the time you hear or read (subtitles) in your target language(s) you are counting towards this competition. This doesn’t mean you have to eliminate short pauses in dialogue (a long pause of many minutes is different- use your own judgement), but a movie in Mandarin and Korean with 20 minutes of Mandarin and 90 minutes of Korean can only count as 20 minutes of Mandarin learning if Mandarin is your target language (unless of course you’re learning both languages, in which case you can also count 90 minutes of Korean study). What you can’t do is count 110 minutes for Korean or 110 minutes for Mandarin.
If you’re using a TV-like program to study with, such as Yabla, then if you learn German as your target language with Yabla for 30 minutes and again there’s lots of English instructions, translations and ‘guidance’, then it still counts as 30 minutes of German study.
What constitutes as acceptable study/learning?1. As long as you are doing an activity in which you feel you are learning, then it is acceptable. In other words, if speaking is how you want to spend your learning/study time, then that's fine (provided it's not something that comes so easy to you that you're not really learning much at all- be honest with yourself and this challenge). So, yes you can read, watch, speak, use grammar books, whatever. As long as you are learning!
2. You do not have to do the same type of activity every day or even within one day. Do what you like/want. The idea here is to stay motivated, so stay in the game using whatever keeps you engaged with the language. Use grammar books but you're now on holiday? Read something, speak to people in your TL if you're on location. Just ensure you're learning and you're meeting the minimum requirement of 30 minutes/day.
Other language competitions/challenges:1. Study/learning time can overlap with any other language challenges (eg Super Challenge, 6 week challenge, Output Challenge). 30 minutes of reading for example which equates to x nbr of pages for the SC can definitely be seen as your daily requirement. Speaking out loud for language exchanges to add to the Output Challenge? Again - are you learning? (or at least trying to learn
- we don't always actually appear to have learned much, but if you're trying that's fine), it counts for this challenge.
Requirements for competitors in this or other threads :1. Announce your intention to join here in this thread, for which language(s), and your start date.
2. You do not need a reply from me or anyone else of your announced intentions before you can start. Start on the date you announce and at some point you will appear on the
List of Competitors with your announced start date. I say this in case of my absence.
3. It is encouraged that you announce when you fail to study here in the
The 2019 365 Day Language Challenge - SCORING thread and deduct the days accordingly (see 'penalties'). Although this can simply be done at the end of the month scoring (see below).
4. If you wish to withdraw (at any time), please announce it in this thread or the scoring thread:
The 2019 365 Day Language Challenge - SCORING5. If you withdraw after a string of missed days, and are wanting to calculate and provide your final score, calculate only up to your last day of study. For example, you have a score of 10 on January the 10th, 2019, with no missed days, then miss 2 days and decide to withdraw on day 13, your final score will be 10. Missed days will not be counted post your last day of study even if you decide to withdraw some days later. Thus according to the above example, your final score would be 10, not negative 4 (10 - 2 missed days, i.e. 10 - 14) for the 2 days you missed before deciding to withdraw.
6. A monthly update of contenders and their 'scores' can be found in this thread:
The 2019 365 Day Language Challenge - SCORING to keep track of scoring.
7. At the end of each month each person should announce their score for the month and their overall score (so keep track of your own scoring!) in the scoring thread. The second person to do so should copy the first person, so that the second person’s score is listed with the first (and placed in the correct position, so it works as a leaderboard), the third person copies the first two and adds themself and their scores, the fourth copies the first three and adds themself and their scores, and so on.
8. When announcing your monthly scores in the list of competitors please include your username, languages studied, scores for each language and ensure you adjust the scores and show why you have done so. Example:
January: PeterMollenburg, French 23 points (missed one day)
February: Petermollenburg, French 12 points (missed 2 days). Year total: 35 points
Studying more than one language each day:1. There are two options for studying more than one language -
*30 minutes a day per language, or
*
generic, which means 30 minutes of any language (see 'generic' option further down - more than 30 minutes of 'generic' is possible).
The 'generic' option:1. You can opt to join with 'generic' language if you cannot foresee being able to study your chosen languages (plural) every day (30 minutes each), for example, or perhaps you want to study one language for a while then swap to another later in the year (and not have to do both all year).
2. Choosing 'generic', like choosing one specific language, means that it's one 30 min block each day of study that's required, you just happen to be changing languages (either within the same day or not - you could study one for months and then change to another later in the year for example, or study 10 minutes of three languages in a day).
To clarify, if you specifically choose two separate languages (not generic), Say German and French, then it's one hour a day (30 min of each language), not 30 min of any, as would be the case with 'generic'. Thus, generic is choosing to study a mixture of languages as per the 30 minute minimum (30 minutes total), while stated specific languages are studied separately 30 minutes each per day.
3. You can choose a language twice if you have it within a generic group and as an individual language as well. So if you have Spanish and Generic x 1, you would have to study Spanish 30 minutes a day and all your other languages (including Spanish as well) within you generic group of languages, so it might look something like this on a daily basis: 30 minutes of Spanish + 30 minutes of any of the following: Spanish, French, Russian, Swahili.
4. You
can change at any point during the competition and go from generic to specific languages or specific languages to generic. See the section
Adding languages, removing languages, not studying languages for long periods, dropping out (of one language or altogether) or changing study 'modes' below on how to go about this.
5. Those who choose generic are encouraged to announce their languages up front of the competition but it is not obligatory.
6. You can join for more than one block of generic. Why? Well you may want to challenge yourself to get an hour of study done each day, or 90 minutes, for example, since you could be studying 10 languages at once, all of which are very important to you.
If you join with 2 blocks of generic, you must study 60 minutes per day of your mixture of languages. If you join with 3 blocks you must study 90 minutes per day.
7. You can join for 'generic' and (an)other language(s). Eg. I want to join for 'generic' because I will be studying Spanish over summer and then later on I'll be in Russia, so i'll be switching to Russian. I also want to study French throughout the year, so I want to join for 'generic' and 'French'. This equates to 1 hour of study a day throughout the year (30 min for generic comprising of two languages and 30 min for French).
Scoring: 1. One day of study = 1 day/point
2. At the end of each month each person should post their score for the month and their overall score (so keep track of your own scoring!) including days missed (so that your calculations can be verified) in the scoring thread, found here:
The 2019 365 Day Challenge SCORING to keep track of scoring.
Please be honest.
To make it easier for reference and editing, you should also include your username and languages being studied. Remember to minus 7 points/days for each missed day. Examples:
January:
PeterMollenburg, French 23 points (missed one day)
February:
Petermollenburg, French 12 points (missed 2 days). Year total: 35 points
4. Missed days and scoring calculations:
If you have missed one day in January (a month with 31 days), your score should be 23 points/days for January. Why?
Well, this means you have studied 30 days. 30 - 7 = 23. Thus there should not be any scores of 24, nor of 30. So don’t minus 7 days (or 14, 21 etc) off the day you are up to! Minus it off the actual number of days you have studied (in these cases 30 - 7, not 31 - 7). Additionally, don’t report that you studied 30 days, or that your score is 30 as you’ve missed only one day (out of 31 for January for example) , report your score/days as 23 instead, also noting you missed one day, so that your calculations are clearly understood.
5. If you withdraw after a string of missed days, and are wanting to calculate and provide your final score, calculate only up to your last day of study. For example, you have a score of 10 on January the 10th, 2019, with no missed days, then miss 2 days and decide to withdraw on day 13, your final score will be 10. Missed days will not be counted post your last day of study even if you decide to withdraw some days later. Thus according to the above example, your final score would be 10, not negative 4 (10 - 2 missed days, i.e. 10 - 14 = -4) for the 2 days you missed before deciding to withdraw.
6. If you did not start on the first of the month, I'd still prefer you to post you scores at the end of each month (with a reminder of your start date), as it's easier to keep track of all competitors on an end of month basis.
7. The second person to post their score(s) should copy the first person, so that the second person’s score is listed with the first (and placed in the correct position, so it works as a leaderboard), the third person copies the first two and adds themself and their scores, the fourth copies the first three and adds themself and their scores, and so on.
8. If you have announced you’ll be studying/learning more than one language (and not as the ‘generic’ option) for this challenge, keep your scoring separate for each language, as some days you could miss one language, but not the other(s).
9. If you’ve chosen ‘generic’ and a dedicated sole language (eg generic and Japanese), keep your scoring for Japanese and generic apart, since as with the previous point above you might not study any languages from your generic block of 30 minutes one day but do manage to complete your 30 minutes of Japanese study. Thus, the penalty would only apply to ‘generic’ and not Japanese.
10. In my absence, someone else who has been nominated to keep scores may do so.
In the absence of anyone else having been nominated, then it's open for others participants or otherwise to present the monthly scoring here.
If I am absent for long periods of time, and scoring is in an apparent mess do not fret, the challenge goes on! Just keep a record of your own scores, so when I (or someone else) tallies everything up, we have all we need. Post it here as you go, even if it seems almost everyone else isn't. I need your scores to determine the leaderboard. If someone does not post for long periods it will be assumed they have dropped out, but of course, if they haven't and they return, no drama (I'd just be wondering where the hell you got to !
)
Exceptions to missing days of study:1. The only possible exception to studying every single day, is if you lose a day flying crossing the international date line, in which case, you can either add one day to your finish date, or do two days worth of study while travelling. Be reasonable, if you're just flying for a heck of a long period of time, this doesn't constitute actually losing a day. You can study in flight.
2. If you withdraw after a string of missed days, and are wanting to calculate and provide your final score, calculate only up to your last day of study. For example, you have a score of 10 on January the 10th, 2019, with no missed days, then miss 2 days and decide to withdraw on day 13, your final score will be 10. Missed days will not be counted post your last day of study even if you decide to withdraw some days later. Thus according to the above example, your final score would be 10, not negative 4 (10 - 2 missed days, i.e. 10 - 14) for the 2 days you missed before deciding to withdraw.
Penalties:1.
If you skip a day, you lose 7 days/points for each 30 minute block(s) of study you have missed .
Explanation: Basically, let's say you're up to 100 days in a row, but on day 101 you miss a day of study, and you’ve signed up for one language or one block of generic study, you impose a 7 day (or ‘points’) penalty on yourself, so your 'score' becomes 93. On day 102 if you study properly again, you score would be 94. The idea is to punish you (by taking 7 days/points off your 'score') for skipping a day. The idea is to discourage one from missing days so we remain consistent.
Thus, if you do miss/skip a day, you must study the next day, you cannot take a break and study 7 days later. You lose 7 days (or 'points'), but must continue. You can take a break if you want, but
each lost 30 min block of study = another 7 days off your score.
2. If you withdraw after a string of missed days, and are wanting to calculate and provide your final score, calculate only up to your last day of study. For example, you have a score of 10 on January the 10th, 2019, with no missed days, then miss 2 days and decide to withdraw on day 13, your final score will be 10. Missed days will not be counted post your last day of study even if you decide to withdraw some days later. Thus according to the above example, your final score would be 10, not negative 4 (10 - 2 missed days, i.e. 10 - 14) for the 2 days you missed before deciding to withdraw.
3. Studying 29 minutes (or less) is not acceptable. You can't make up that minute or few minutes the next day. That's a fail - loss of 7 days (see 'penalties' below)
4. If studying more than one language and you have announced it as such at the beginning of the challenge, such as French and German, which is a total of 60 minutes study per day (30 min each) and you miss a day for all of them, deduct 7 days for each language missed, since scoring for each language is separate. For the ‘generic’ option and missed days, read furher below.
5. If studying more than one language, and you miss a day, but not with all your languages, you’re only penalised for the languages you’ve not studied that day. Thus you will have separate scores for each of your languages. Therefore, it’s advisable to study your languages each day in order of priority on any given day. This isn’t a rule, just advice, as it would be a shame to be penalised for missing days with your priority language(s) while you remain unscathed regarding less important languages.
6. If you’ve chosen ‘generic’ and a dedicated sole language (eg generic and Japanese), keep your scoring for Japanese and generic apart, since as you might not study any languages from your generic block of 30 minutes one day but do manage to complete your 30 minutes of Japanese study. Thus, the penalty of 7 days/points would only apply to ‘generic’ and not to Japanese.
7. For those studying multiple blocks of generic and missing some of your studying on a given day, but not all-
Example; If you have joined with generic x 3 blocks and one day you only get one block (i.e. 30 minutes) completed, you will be penalised 14 days. Why? Well if you had chosen 3 languages instead of generic x 3 blocks, say French, German and Italian and you only got to study French for 30 minutes on a particluar day, then you'd be penalised 7 days each for the languages you missed, which would be both German and Italian, and that's a total penalty of 14 days. So the penalty is the same for those who choose multiple blocks of generic but don't get all their study done it just ends up applying to ‘generic’ and not to specific languages.
I did some reflecting and felt that competitors who really are sick of certain languages, or really really want to add a new one, seem to be too restricted, so I added the follwing section (below) to the rule book. It provides more flexibility and removes penalties for those studying the generic option, affording them the same flexibility. Why no penalties? Well, really by default, if adding a language later than February 1st, 2019, you're at a disadvantage, as the end date won't move from any later than Jan 31st 2020. And removing languages means they stop gaining days/points. That is enough to discourage frequent changes, imo. Furthermore those studying generic, their idea is simply to study every day, not necessarily one language, so adding and removing languages for them makes no difference either.
I also feel such rules provide the freedom to continue studying without stifling momentum.
Adding languages, removing languages, not studying languages for long periods, dropping out (of one language or altogether) or changing study 'modes'1. There are no penalties for such changes.
2. As with joining the competition for the first time, you may add (a) new language(s) after the initial start date of January 1st 2019 at any point of the competition.
The initial start date is January 1st 2019, but you can still join the competition for the first time or add a new language for a full year of the competition up to the cut off date of February 1st, 2019. If you add a new language between January 1st and February 1st, 2019, your end date for the newly added language(s) would be one year from your start date. Thus, you may have different end dates for your languages if you had commenced with (an)other language(s) earlier.
3. If you want to add a new language later than February 1st, 2019, then your end date remains January 31st 2020 no matter when you started after February 1st, 2019. The reasoning here is that there needs to be a fair end-date for everyone in the competition, thus a cut-off date avoids a never-ending competition, and if all competitors are finished by January 31st 2020, this facilitates the competition drawing to a close.
4. You are free to remove languages from your list.
5. If you do not study a language on your list, there's no consequence apart from the fact that the days you have not studied the language, if numerous, will soon see your score plumet. If you are not interested in continuing with the language (or the competition), please advise so and it will be noted on the competitors list.
6. There is no penalty for adding or removing languages with the generic option of study either.
7. Please announce any changes to your list of languages (including those who study using the generic option)
8. If you want to change from generic study to individual languages, you must do your best to calculate, honestly, roughly how much time you spent up to the date of change studying each language and convert it to individual scores.
Example. You were studying French and Spanish, you're on day 100. You studied French 60% of the time and Spanish 40% of the time (no need to be too technical, a fair estimate will suffice). Your generic score (you hadn't missed a single day) on day 100 was 100. On day 100 your French score is calculated to be 60 and your Spanish score, 40. You then must go on to study 30 minutes a day of each of your two languages (1 hour total).
Example 2. Same as above, but you only want to continue with French (and drop Spanish altogether). Your French score is again 60 at day 100.
Example 3. You did Norwegian for 3 months and Japanese for 1 month, you now want to study them individually and add Danish. You begin day 101 before studying with a score of 75 for Norwegian, 25 for Japanese and 0 for Danish. You must now do 3 blocks of 30 minutes of study a day for each language.
9. If you want to change from individual languages to generic.
Example. You are learning two languages - Korean and Irish. It is day 100. You have missed three days for Korean (100 - 21 = 79) and one day for Welsh (100 - 7 = 93). You want to combine both languages into one block of generic study. Add both language scores together and divide by the number of languages. Thus 79 + 93 = 172. 172/2 = 86.
10. If you withdraw after a string of missed days, and are wanting to calculate and provide your final score, calculate only up to your last day of study. For example, you have a score of 10 on January the 10th, 2019, with no missed days, then miss 2 days and decide to withdraw on day 13, your final score will be 10. Missed days will not be counted post your last day of study even if you decide to withdraw some days later. Thus according to the above example, your final score would be 10, not negative 4 (10 - 2 missed days, i.e. 10 - 14) for the 2 days you missed before deciding to withdraw.
Elimination:1. You won't be eliminated for continually missing days, but your score will look dismal and obviously be of no threat to others in terms of 'winning'.
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These rules are open to being altered but preferably not after the 31st Dec 2018. Realistically however, given the late notification of this challenge, there may be adjustments after that date, so they must be fair to those who've already started.
This entry is to be edited, expanded upon, revised, redefined etc in an ongoing nature
***I may be absent for long periods in 2019, in which case I am suggesting that this challenge and it's rules are
not solely under my control. I'd be happy for others to nominate themselves/ be nominated now or later for consulting on technicalities of rules. The challenge is pretty straightforward, so I think with some common sense and the occasional clarification, post initial commencement, it should almost take care of itself***
