How long did it take you to do "Free Flow Reading" without dictionary in your TL?

[Le Baron]

We have the super challenge here where the goal is to read 100 books and watch 100 films. I have done that a couple of times and I am not C2. I can read, but still look up a lot of words.

I have just read the guidelines of such a super challenge. Don't you think the book length should lie somewhere between 250-400 pages instead of 50 pages? This is puny. Also, movies are less dense because of silent visuals. Don't you think it should be 75-100 seasons of television series? Television series are more language dense. No wonder if you are not C2 as of yet.

I see I'm the third person to have quoted this! I just read the guidelines of the super challenge (first time). I'd be inclined to agree that defining 50 pages as a "book" is a bit of a stretch, although the word was put into inverted commas to acknowledge this. I would guess it's set that way because there has to be some flexibility, otherwise I imagine not everyone would be able to take on the challenge. Starting on shorter texts and the flexibility to expand this to longer books/full length novels is likely better than diving into some 400 page book at the start of a challenge. You have to enjoy what you're doing and be able to manage it or you stop learning.

Since this is an aside from the topic, you can tell me to get stuffed and mind my own business if you want (which may be justified), but for your particular goal, as I understood it from LingQ, mainly focusing on this specialised book reading approach is probably not the main thing to be doing right now to become an active speaker of German.

[jackb]

I just read the guidelines of the super challenge (first time). I'd be inclined to agree that defining 50 pages as a "book" is a bit of a stretch, although the word was put into inverted commas to acknowledge this.

I believe the person that came up with the original super challenge chose the size of the books. If I remember correctly, the goal was to encourage the use of native material at the lower intermediate level to get to the upper intermediate level. The creator intended to use children's books which tend to be short. Now it seems to be used as a way to go from upper intermediate to advanced.

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(To the OP)
There is a ton of gray area in your question. I'm a free flowing reader once I've stopped decoding each word/phrase and can recognize it with its meaning(not definition) automatically. In some cases I can do this now, but in others I can't. It depends on the level of the book. I'm good with a translation of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, not so much with La Bête humaine.

It could be the structure of the sentences, the vocabulary used or the sound of the words used in the sentence that can remove me from free flow reading.

I would suggest that you are already there in some cases, just not the ones you want.

[Le Baron]

Are you replying to me (since you quoted me) or the OP?

[jackb]

The first part of my post is related to why the super challenge is the way it is. The second part is to the OP. I've edited the post to make it more clear.

[rdearman]

No, that isn't correct, the originator of the Super Challenge, Cristina just said 100 books without any type of qualification. But she meant novels since she herself read 100 romance novels in Spanish. However, some people being pedantic started to count 5-page children's books with a total of 20 words as a book. This caused an uproar as you can imagine.

So there was a lot of arguments about how long a book was and the density of words per page and all kinds of stuff for ages. Arguments about if comic books count as books lead to the words per page idea. Eventually we all settled on 250-300 words per page, and 50 pages makes one book. This of course is the minimum to pass the challenge. I did work out that my current French reading plan works out to about 150 super challenge books, even though it would only count as 22 for Cristina's original challenge.

Films however are easier. They are 90 minutes long as standard, so if you want 3 TV shows of 30 minutes duration, then you have watched one film.

I looked back at my books and page counts for the 3 super challenges and the current reading and I have read approximately 10,000+ pages of 250-300 words per page, so about 2.5 million to 3.3 million words in French and about 1.5 million to 2.5 million words in Italian. I have never taken a test, but I don't think I am C2. Your mileage may vary.

[german2k01]

Films however are easier. They are 90 minutes long as standard, so if you want 3 TV shows of 30 minutes duration, then you have watched one film.

In the same time window, it is my hunch that you are exposed to more language per minute on a TV episode. On a TV episode, people are talking nonstop. One more thing I have noticed which is a big advantage that goes in favor of watching television shows is that "fixed collocations" are repeated in every episode. Therefore, you reinforce them through repetition which is not the case with watching films.

I looked back at my books and page counts for the 3 super challenges and the current reading and I have read approximately 10,000+ pages of 250-300 words per page, so about 2.5 million to 3.3 million words in French and about 1.5 million to 2.5 million words in Italian. I have never taken a test, but I don't think I am C2. Your mileage may vary.

You are right with your assessment. In order to be at C2 level, you have to read somewhere between 8-10 million words and also touch upon a variety of content such as books, novels, newspapers, academic journals, magazines, etc Not just novels.

[german2k01]

Since this is an aside from the topic, you can tell me to get stuffed and mind my own business if you want (which may be justified), but for your particular goal, as I understood it from LingQ, mainly focusing on this specialised book reading approach is probably not the main thing to be doing right now to become an active speaker of German.

Agreed. Speaking comes with speaking people. I am thinking about utilizing my evening hours for socializing with people. Therefore, I am thinking about erasing any passive study of the language in the evening. Instead, just go outside and start practicing whatever I can come up with. Since communication is two-way traffic even if I am not able to partake actively in a conversation at least I can listen to the language passively and observe how natives speak each other. I need to get over my shyness or maybe it is a good idea to print out a set of questions on a piece of paper so that I can keep my conversations going for a while.

[lusan]

Since this is an aside from the topic, you can tell me to get stuffed and mind my own business if you want (which may be justified), but for your particular goal, as I understood it from LingQ, mainly focusing on this specialised book reading approach is probably not the main thing to be doing right now to become an active speaker of German.

Agreed. Speaking comes with speaking people. I am thinking about utilizing my evening hours for socializing with people. Therefore, I am thinking about erasing any passive study of the language in the evening. Instead, just go outside and start practicing whatever I can come up with. Since communication is two-way traffic even if I am not able to partake actively in a conversation at least I can listen to the language passively and observe how natives speak each other. I need to get over my shyness or maybe it is a good idea to print out a set of questions on a piece of paper so that I can keep my conversations going for a while.

What about writing in German and get someone to check it out?

[german2k01]

What about writing in German and get someone to check it out?

Actually, I am not outputting voraciously both in speaking and writing. I am currently trying to test the hypothesis of Matt vs Japan. He recommends a silent period of 2 years for mass immersion. Every day I am immersing myself in the German language. March 2022 is when my two-year period will be ended as far as the mass immersion approach goes and then I will start writing carefully and get it checked by someone else. Meanwhile, I am also thinking about dedicating some of my time from listening to reading as well. I listen like 6 hours a day.

[einzelne]

He recommends a silent period of 2 years for mass immersion. Every day I am immersing myself in the German language. March 2022 is when my two-year period will be ended as far as the mass immersion approach goes and then I will start writing carefully and get it checked by someone else. Meanwhile, I am also thinking about dedicating some of my time from listening to reading as well. I listen like 6 hours a day.

'

Usually I don't recommend people who learn languages as a hobby to waste their energy on developing advanced active skills unless it's English (and you're a non-native speaker) or unless you're moving to your L2 country (Yes, this is my personal philosophy and I don't expect everybody to agree with me).

But you are in the L2 country! And if you correctly described your level of understanding of German texts, you already have a huge passive vocabulary. At least huge enough for everyday conversations. So every single day is a lost opportunity for you. Why would you want to turn yourself into a guinea pig? 2 years? Why not 2 years, 2 months, and 2 days (ideally right next to Walden Pond)? Why not 3, or 4, or 5? Because some random guy on the Internet said it? Really, I have nothing against him personally. From what I heard from other users here, in comparison to YouTube clowns, he actually approaches language learning quite realistically. But he is what he is — a random guy. And he talks about Japanese for a Westerner. Do you really think that a Russian native speaker needs 2 years before venturing a smalltalk in Ukrainian? Or an Italian speaker who learns Spanish? So what are you waiting? If you think that ideal passive skills will be automatically transformed into ideal passive skills, it won't happen. So, you're really loosing your precious time now.