The 2019 365 Day Language Challenge - Sign Up and Discussion

Ongoing language-learning challenges, and team challenge logs (but not individual logs)
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Re: The 2019 365 Day Language Challenge

Postby rdearman » Fri Dec 28, 2018 11:51 pm

PM, gIven that this is the first time anyone has done this challenge, and it is your idea if you want a 20 day penalty then so be it. It might be that for the 2020 365 challenge you'll make some modifications. For example in the Output Challenge I lowered the audio portion quite a bit because it was basically not an achievable goal.

So I'd be inclined to run it the way you originally thought it up, and modify the rules next year for some of them are unworkable.
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Re: The 2019 365 Day Language Challenge

Postby IronMike » Sat Dec 29, 2018 12:12 am

I'll second the -7 day penalty.
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Re: The 2019 365 Day Language Challenge

Postby kanewai » Sat Dec 29, 2018 12:18 am

I'm torn on the penalties. In general, I agree with PeterMollenburg that it should be high. I think letting folks retroactively make up the time would defeat the point of the challenge. I can easily spend many hours on a rainy day studying - but that is not at all the same thing as studying for thirty minutes a day.

But I also agree with Ani's point that we'll all have days where studying just isn't possible. I'd hate to commit myself to a challenge where I know ahead of time I'll fail!

Off the top of my head, a few possible ways to balance these two points could be to:
- Allow everyone a very limited number of "free passes" before the penalties kick in; or
- Make the penalties progressive (e.g., 3 days for the first offense, 6 days for the next offense, 9 days for the third, etc).

I'm still debating what language to attempt the challenge with.
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Re: The 2019 365 Day Language Challenge

Postby lavengro » Sat Dec 29, 2018 12:58 am

I’m in, for Italian, starting in a likely hangover haze on January 1st. Thanks for organizing, I hope this is helpful for me.

I do not care to wade in on the penalty debate, as I am prepared to raise the penalty stakes for myself for increased motivation: if I miss a day of 30 minutes of Italian, I will indirectly give myself a beating. By this, I mean that in the unpleasant circumstance of missing one day, I will head to one of the local bars, go up to the ugliest biker I can find (I appreciate this is a bit subjective, especially as there are usually several candidates in this regard) and say something really really disparaging about his momma.
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Re: The 2019 365 Day Language Challenge

Postby coldrainwater » Sat Dec 29, 2018 1:18 am

I am in for Spanish starting 1.1.2019.

Edit: I am okay with the rules as currently stated. The mandatory elimination is the only one that gives me pause. For some, I think it might still be quite motivating to aim for a positive score at year end. I view it more as a personal challenge than a competitive challenge. Having said that however, I think there is a rather large advantage for people who come into the challenge with the necessary habit(s) already well-formed. The first few weeks/months of creating a habit like this can be pretty rough going, in any field of improvement, with a trend toward solidification as time advances. A really cool group outcome I think would be to see some folks who have never had such consistency develop it over the course of the year, which I think might need to permit some early failures without stark elimination.
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Re: The 2019 365 Day Language Challenge

Postby atiekay » Sat Dec 29, 2018 1:59 am

I'd like to sign up for Japanese! :D
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Re: The 2019 365 Day Language Challenge

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sat Dec 29, 2018 2:00 am

Okay, I'm probably a little quick to react, but I've already come to a couple of decisions.

1. You can't be eliminated. I think it defeats the purpose of being inclusive and even having some consistency. Some of us want to try hard to be consistent, but as Ani pointed out, it is inevitable (especially for some) that days will be missed. If you fall behind majorly, that's punishment enough in itself. What would be kind cool to see is if someone fell behind by a country mile and then stormed home later on to redeem themselves. Even cooler, though really, would be someone (and believe me, i'll be trying very hard to be that person), completing 365 days in a row!

2. However, since this is really essentially about being consistent, harsh penalities will remain, but not as harsh. 7 days seems to be agreeable between a few members. And after giving it some thought, it's still pretty harsh. 3 days means a loss of 21 days (or points if you prefer), 1 day being a loss of 20 days just seems like it really could deflate motivation. I think 7 days is a good balance.


rdearman wrote:PM, gIven that this is the first time anyone has done this challenge, and it is your idea if you want a 20 day penalty then so be it. It might be that for the 2020 365 challenge you'll make some modifications. For example in the Output Challenge I lowered the audio portion quite a bit because it was basically not an achievable goal.

So I'd be inclined to run it the way you originally thought it up, and modify the rules next year for some of them are unworkable.


Well I hear you, however the idea was not set in stone, meaning the rules were (and still are) open to judgement at least for a short time. i'm happy to adjust based on the input of others, as I don't necessarily see this challenge as my own. Many people have thought of this, I just happened to be the one to post it, so, happy to be flexible. Best to get it closer to what might be agreeable with others as opposed to just satisfying one person. I also need to be careful not to change too much as a number of people have already signed up.

kanewai wrote:I'm torn on the penalties. In general, I agree with PeterMollenburg that it should be high. I think letting folks retroactively make up the time would defeat the point of the challenge.


Absolutely.

kanewai wrote:I can easily spend many hours on a rainy day studying - but that is not at all the same thing as studying for thirty minutes a day.


Indeed, and this is why I believe the option to catch up even if you do have to make up extra time, goes against the purpose of the challenge - to be consistent day in day out.

kanewai wrote:But I also agree with Ani's point that we'll all have days where studying just isn't possible. I'd hate to commit myself to a challenge where I know ahead of time I'll fail!


Well, hopefully adjusting the penalty for a missed day to minus 7 days, will keep the challenge tighter and keep those who have missed days in the game and not necessarily ready to just give up.

kanewai wrote:Off the top of my head, a few possible ways to balance these two points could be to:
- Allow everyone a very limited number of "free passes" before the penalties kick in; or
- Make the penalties progressive (e.g., 3 days for the first offense, 6 days for the next offense, 9 days for the third, etc).

I'm still debating what language to attempt the challenge with.


Essentially great ideas, but I guess although I keep saying this isn't all about me owning this challenge, someone has to make an executive decision. I feel 20 is too harsh, 7 is still harsh, but a good balance between zero and 20. The ideas you put forward are certainly worth considering.

However, free passes, I just don't like. The idea is to remain consistent. To borrow my wife's analogy (I chatted to her about this too, over packing things into boxes for our upcoming move). If you're training for a marathon and you're invited to a wedding or someone dies or something else, well, it's still your choice to opt not to train. You don't train, you lose the benefits. You don't study, that's on you. Everyone will have their challenges. Even those who perhaps are unemployed and don't have work for example or other commitments, might suffer with anxiety, depression, feelings of failure (this is just an example, i'm not suggesting that if you're unemployed, something is wrong with you), so what I'm trying to say is that we all have our things we have to work around, some known, some in the future, unforseen.

Although there will be winners, the idea is to push yourself as an individual to be more consistent in your chosen language(s) of study, so that you become more successful, despite outside factors. It will hopefully build habits and resilience in the face of whatever is going on around you.

As for increasingly harsher penalties, well it's just a little messy I think, so that's why I've skipped that idea.

If I had an overwhelming reply saying that no no PM you're being to harsh, you must change the rules and have free pass days, or less harsh penalties, I'd then look at it, but for now, I think 7 days is a good balance that leans on the harsher side to keep us on the straight and narrow but not render us out of the game completely.



3. The third change to the rules is that January 31st 2019 will be the cut off date. It allows for those who are late to the game for whateve reason to still participate. Their end date would be a year from their start date. Any later than Jan 31st would make the competition potentially fizz out as people wait for a seemingly endless period of time to see the final results. I assume the next time around, whether I'm running this again or not, if it runs at all, that it will be announced much earlier and joining up in January will no longer be an option.
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Re: The 2019 365 Day Language Challenge

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sat Dec 29, 2018 3:00 am

I've advertised this group in a few other places now (Team Middle East, Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs, Language related New Year's resolutions for 2019) and coldrainwater did so in Spanish Group, thank you coldrainwater.

If anyone else would like to post a link to this challenge in any other teams or threads, please go ahead. I don't want to 'spam' the whole forum with 'advertising' everywhere, so I don't feel it's my place to do any further promotion. It'd be nice if people don't miss out, however, that might want to join in. So, as I said, be my guest to post a link if you feel so inclined in other threads where people might be interested in joining this challenge.

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Re: The 2019 365 Day Language Challenge

Postby languist » Sat Dec 29, 2018 3:02 am

I was planning on doing this anyway, privately, so I’m very happy to join publicly. Hmm, I guess for this year I’ll have to commit to “generic” daily language learning, because I’ll be studying Spanish consistently until the summer, and then I’ll be in Russia, and will probably have to switch to consistent Russian study for the second half of the year. With French alongside both.
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Re: The 2019 365 Day Language Challenge

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sat Dec 29, 2018 3:09 am

languist wrote:I was planning on doing this anyway, privately, so I’m very happy to join publicly. Hmm, I guess for this year I’ll have to commit to “generic” daily language learning, because I’ll be studying Spanish consistently until the summer, and then I’ll be in Russia, and will probably have to switch to consistent Russian study for the second half of the year. With French alongside both.


Do you want to do just 'generic' or do you want to join for two - one 'generic' (allowing for Spanish and Russian together) and the other 'French' alone? (which would mean 1 hour a day of study)
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