6WC - 6 Week Challenge - November 2016

Ongoing language-learning challenges, and team challenge logs (but not individual logs)
User avatar
smallwhite
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2386
Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2015 6:55 am
Location: Hong Kong
Languages: Native: Cantonese;
Good: English, French, Spanish, Italian;
Mediocre: Mandarin, German, Swedish, Dutch.
.
x 4876

Re: 6WC - 6 Week Challenge - November 2016

Postby smallwhite » Mon Oct 31, 2016 5:57 am

There are pros and cons to every study method. Those who like native materials have set up the Super Challenge, those who like courses have set up the Course Completion Challenge, and those who like flashcards have set up the SRS Challenge. If you believe in a certain study method or approach, if you want to see others use your favourite study method or approach, if you want to promote your favourite study method or approach, start a Challenge!
1 x
Dialang or it didn't happen.

User avatar
Brun Ugle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2273
Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2015 12:48 pm
Location: Steinkjer, Norway
Languages: English (N), Norwegian (~C1/C2), Spanish (B1/B2), German (A2/B1?), Japanese (very rusty)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=11484
x 5821
Contact:

Re: 6WC - 6 Week Challenge - November 2016

Postby Brun Ugle » Mon Oct 31, 2016 6:15 am

I'm not trying to start a new challenge, I'm just saying that if non-intensive activities are eliminated, as Serpent suggested they might be, then there wouldn't really be any reason to limit the challenge to lower level languages as upper level learners wouldn't have the advantage of being able to rack up time with passive TV watching.
0 x

User avatar
smallwhite
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2386
Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2015 6:55 am
Location: Hong Kong
Languages: Native: Cantonese;
Good: English, French, Spanish, Italian;
Mediocre: Mandarin, German, Swedish, Dutch.
.
x 4876

Re: 6WC - 6 Week Challenge - November 2016

Postby smallwhite » Mon Oct 31, 2016 7:45 am

Brun Ugle wrote:I'm not trying to start a new challenge, I'm just saying that if non-intensive activities are eliminated, as Serpent suggested they might be, then there wouldn't really be any reason to limit the challenge to lower level languages as upper level learners wouldn't have the advantage of being able to rack up time with passive TV watching.


That's why I always quote the purpose of the 6WC when I start a thread for it. The 6WC is a challenge for beginners:

6WC wrote:The 6 Week Challenge is a challenge to upgrade your language skills in one language from beginner to something more worthwhile, and to see if you can find more time to study languages when competing with other participants in a global highscore.


If you want to remove the beginner element to a beginner's challenge, you might as well remove the SRS element from the SRS Challenge, the course-completion element from the CCC, etc.?

Allowing B1s was already a concession - note the wording:

6WC wrote:Note that you can only do the 6 Week Challenge with a language that you're a beginner at or lower-intermediate at most.


Not to mention the existence of Total Score and not just Target Score.

Not necessarily talking about you, but I really don't get this:

Brun Ugle wrote:I'm not trying to start a new challenge


Why not? Why change this part and that part of a long-standing, existing challenge and not just start one from scratch?

When you want a Finnish group, you start a Finnish group; you don't get Tomgosse and the other French voyageurs to learn Finnish instead and change the French group into a Finnish group :roll: so why change a beginner's challenge to a global challenge?
0 x
Dialang or it didn't happen.

User avatar
zenmonkey
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2528
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 7:21 pm
Location: California, Germany and France
Languages: Spanish, English, French trilingual - German (B2/C1) on/off study: Persian, Hebrew, Tibetan, Setswana.
Some knowledge of Italian, Portuguese, Ladino, Yiddish ...
Want to tackle Tzotzil, Nahuatl
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=859
x 7030
Contact:

Re: 6WC - 6 Week Challenge - November 2016

Postby zenmonkey » Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:09 am

Because you might want to make it more open to more participants especially when it has little adhesion and these rules aren't enforceable and appear artificial.

Personally I've always considered it as a "how much time do you spend" challenge. I've stuck to the beginner rule (mostly) each time I've participated (as this time) but I'd likely do it more often if it wasn't like that.
0 x
I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar

User avatar
smallwhite
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2386
Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2015 6:55 am
Location: Hong Kong
Languages: Native: Cantonese;
Good: English, French, Spanish, Italian;
Mediocre: Mandarin, German, Swedish, Dutch.
.
x 4876

Re: 6WC - 6 Week Challenge - November 2016

Postby smallwhite » Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:33 am

zenmonkey wrote:Because you might want to make it more open to more participants especially when it has little adhesion and these rules aren't enforceable and appear artificial.

That's exactly why one should start a new challenge! Create a study-like-mad challenge that's open for everyone, and you'll get more participants --- because more people will be eligible; because with more choices of challenges, more people will find one that's relevant for them; because some people will be eligble for both challenges and will participate in both, thus doubling participation ---, and with a new challenge that's open for everyone, you can set your own rules and enforce them and the rules will be real.

You've laid out arguments for a new challenge.

Wanting to distort a challenge just to make it "more open to more participants" itself can't be an argument. You don't make the Course Completion Challenge "more open to more participants" by removing the Course Completion requirement, do you?

zenmonkey wrote:Personally I've always considered it as a "how much time do you spend" challenge. I've stuck to the beginner rule (mostly) each time I've participated (as this time) but I'd likely do it more often if it wasn't like that.

If you or someone starts a real "how much time do you spend" challenge, then you'll no longer have to distort the real purpose of the 6WC; the fact that it's a beginner's challenge.
1 x
Dialang or it didn't happen.

User avatar
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: 6WC - 6 Week Challenge - November 2016

Postby zhuzilu » Mon Oct 31, 2016 12:27 pm

I'll be doing Japanese this time. I want to finally step up my Japanese skills which are mostly forgotten at the moment...

Good luck! :D
0 x
Super Challenge 2022/2023
English
Books: 0 / 50
Films: 0 / 50

Chinese
Books: 0 / 50
Films: 0 / 50

Italian
Books: 0 / 50
Films: 0 / 50

User avatar
reineke
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3570
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
Languages: Fox (C4)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
x 6554

Re: 6WC - 6 Week Challenge - November 2016

Postby reineke » Mon Oct 31, 2016 12:32 pm

That's all fair and nice but I assume that the 6WC bot is not a "set it and forget it" kind of thing. A TAC bot would be nice.
3 x

User avatar
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: 6WC - 6 Week Challenge - November 2016

Postby Serpent » Mon Oct 31, 2016 12:53 pm

@Brun Ugle, that's exactly what we discussed last time. Removing the level requirement but counting only formal/intensive learning. Sorry if I was unclear.

It's a beginner challenge mostly because it started out as an attempt to compare various methods, testing how much you can learn *from scratch* (often in an easy language like Esperanto). The original challenge even had the limit of 30mins a day. But people started to use it for learning as much as possible and Sprachprofi adapted it. She later even reconsidered her original view that watching a movie inherently means spending some time thinking about the plot and not the language.
2 x
LyricsTraining now has Finnish and Polish :)
Corrections welcome

Mista
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Wed May 11, 2016 11:03 pm
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N), English (QN). Studied Ancient Greek (MA), Linguistics (MA), Latin (BA), German (BA). Italian at A2/B1 level. Learning: French, Japanese, Russian (focus) and various others, like Polish, Spanish, Vietnamese, and anything that comes my way. Also know some Sanskrit (but not the script) and Coptic. Really want to learn Arabic and Amharic.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7497
x 1459

Re: 6WC - 6 Week Challenge - November 2016

Postby Mista » Mon Oct 31, 2016 4:25 pm

I've registered for Turkish this time, after some long and hard thinking (since the end of the last 6wc). I did about half of the duolingo tree a while back (about a year ago), and I have a textbook+workbook+cd that I have barely begun.

I'll also be doing a lot of French, since I have some exams in the second week of December - around the end of the challenge, in other words. I hope to find a little bit of time to do some Russian as well, but we'll see how that goes.
1 x

User avatar
smallwhite
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2386
Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2015 6:55 am
Location: Hong Kong
Languages: Native: Cantonese;
Good: English, French, Spanish, Italian;
Mediocre: Mandarin, German, Swedish, Dutch.
.
x 4876

Re: 6WC - 6 Week Challenge - November 2016

Postby smallwhite » Tue Nov 01, 2016 4:49 am

I've joined with Swedish. It's my weakest non-wanderlust language at the moment. I'll also be revising German and studying Dutch.

Good luck, everyone!


Ends Dec 12th Monday
XXII Aug 2016
Hall of Fame
Last edited by smallwhite on Thu Nov 03, 2016 1:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
2 x
Dialang or it didn't happen.


Return to “Language Challenges”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests