Challenge! Your! Chinese!

[feihong]

I noticed that the bunny suicide writing challenges did not garner high participation. This was expected, but I'm wondering if anybody has ideas for making writing challenges more accessible.

[jbradfor]

I can't speak for others, but I really like the create-a-caption ones. In part because there is no "right" answer, so everyone can continue to contribute, and in part because they give those of us with poor writing skills a chance to write small amounts.

As to the bunny suicides, well, personally I couldn't think of anything funny to say about them. To me, they are too visual and too self-explanatory.

[feihong]

@jbradfor

The bunny suicide challenges were description challenges rather than caption challenges. I thought the novelty of writing about rabbits offing themselves would make up for the fact that the challenges weren't very open-ended.

[roddy]

The trouble is, novelty means 'something you've never done before', and even familiar stuff in Chinese can be hard. I've got, to be honest, no idea what catapult or wasp's nest is in Chinese - they've just never come up. Sure, I can look them up, but you're putting another obstacle in the way of participation. You could try providing some of the vocab that will be needed, or some sentence structures (passive for 'stung to death by the wasps', for example).

[feihong]

Our very first video challenge!

[Gleaves]

Posted a new listening challenge. It calls on you to listen to brief soundbites from Toy Story (in Chinese) and name the characters in them. It's a bit of a new format, so if you have a listen, let me know your thoughts (is it easy or hard, fun or boring, educational or did it make you dumber?).

[feihong]

The Toy Story challenge was a bit hard. One reason was the speed at which the dialogue was spoken. The more important reason was the lack of context for some of us. It's been several years since I saw that movie, and even when I understood what was being said, I couldn't figure out who was saying it. If you had done the same challenge using The Incredibles, I would probably have had no trouble at all. (Gah, when will they finally make a sequel?)

[feihong]

I just posted our first game-related challenge.

[feihong]

I just posted our first interactive challenge.

[feihong]

Does anyone want to jump in on the 21 questions challenge? It's sort of stalled right now for lack of responses.

[feihong]

Hey, I stumbled on The Chinese Challenge from Singapore. It seems to be a series of online quizzes that are part of some competition to promote Mandarin learning in Singapore.

[feihong]

How can I improve the yes/no question challenges? Or is that not a type of challenge that people are interested in doing? I do admit they take longer than the other types of challenges.

[Gleaves]

I think the yes/no challenge might be tough cause it requires some sustained attention. I know I get easily distrac

I have been slacking in my 挑战ing. Will get something up soon.

[jkhsu]

How can I improve the yes/no question challenges?

Seems like you got a pretty good response to me. I "accidently" Googled the question and found the answer so I recused myself from the challenge. The question I have in general is how do we get more people to participate in these 挑战s?

[jbradfor]

I'm wondering if the fact that this includes a riddle is actually an impediment, as opposed to a "traditional" 21-questions in which one just thinks of a random object without providing a clue.

First, if you know the riddle (google, figure it out, already heard it), you can't participate

Second, and feel free to mock me for this, I feel a bit embarrassed to ask questions, as if I were just a bit smarter I could figure it out, and the more questions I ask the less clever I am. OTOH, if it were some random item, there is no expectation that I should know what it is.

Others?

[feihong]

@jbradfor: I didn't think this riddle was very obvious. I wouldn't have gotten it myself without asking hints (and when I saw it, there was no one to give me any hints, so I just went ahead and looked at the answer). There's no reason to be embarrassed.

I actually think it went OK for the most part. The reason I asked was because I want to keep doing these interactive challenges, but not if no one likes them. The next one won't be a simple-answer riddle, though I may revisit this type of challenge somewhere down the road.

[jkhsu]

Check out feihong's 挑战#23：Protest Signs (Character Cluster Matching)

One suggestion for those participating in these 挑战's is to post your answers in spoiler tags without looking at others' answers at all. That way when you make a mistake (as I did in this challenge) you might get a tip (thanks to feihong) to help you get the correct answer instead of seeing the correct answer. I've found it more rewarding this way.

[heifeng]

I know I get easily distrac

Here's a solution to that....Challenge your Chinese:

...hmmm (don't worry they show up multiple times)*

___

*Disclaimer: this challenge is only as serious as you want it to be

[jkhsu]

I've recently posted a Wonton Challenge. However, according to 挑战 master feihong, I didn't provide enough clues for someone who is not familiar with how wontons are called. I've now added a hint section in spoiler tags for non-wonton experts. I am curious though, does anyone think they can figure it out without looking at the hints? Did I leave out too many clues? Any native Chinese think this is too hard as well?

[feihong]

I don't think a person from China would have a problem with the Wonton Challenge. They're much more likely to know about regional wonton variations, and have likely tried more than one type of wonton. Even if they haven't tried them, they've probably read their names on a Chinese menu.