Anyone up for a challenge?

[jasoninchina]

I was thinking the other day that I have never seen a learning challenge on the forum. Would anybody be interested in such a thing? If so, what sort of challenge would you be interested in?

I was thinking a challenge might last for four weeks and "challenge" us to accomplish a specific goal. Here are a few that come to mind:

1. Learn x characters

2. Learn x words

3. Speak Chinese for x hours

I imagine the challenge would be something doable but probably not something we could keep up longer than a month. Also, it would be neat to organize a way to track everyone's progress, but I have not the skills for this.

So I'm looking for two things here. First, is anyone interested? Second, what sort of challenge interests you? I'm open to all sorts of ideas.

[feihong]

We do have 中文挑战, but I have a feeling it's not quite what you had in mind.

[jkhsu]

I think what the OP is saying is to have a challenge where we all start at some level and then try to end up at another level by the end of the challenge. So for example, let's say we decide to learn the vocab for HSK 5. At the end of the month, everyone would take a test to see how well we did and report our scores. I am assuming that you can have different levels for people to start at. So you can have groups of people at every HSK level competing within that group. Making this like a game / challenge will inspire people to study more, etc.

However, the problem with these challenges is that everyone is at a different level (even within the same group e.g. the HSK 5 level group) and doing one of these challenges usually means spending as much time as you can to remember vocab. That just means who has the most free time will have an advantage.

[roddy]

Watch at least X episodes from the Grand First Episode Project per week for Y weeks. For extra credit, chose one show you like and finish watching it within Z months. To demonstrate you have actually watched something you need to post in the episodes topic explaining what you though about it and asking some language questions. Anyone who doesn't have any language questions has to watch 武林外传.

[jasoninchina]

Sorry, I probably didn't clarify that point as well as I could have. Let me use a "character" challenge as an example.

The challenge could be "learn 150 characters in a month". Students of all levels could participate in the challenge and choose their own list of characters. We could have a chart detailing everyone's progress.

I don't really see it as a competition, but as a way to motivate everyone.

[edelweis]

There has been at least one challenge before....

Kongli's 1500 words in 30 days challenge

About 150 characters a month: currently I'm on a pace of 100 per month, but those I don't immediately encounter frequently while reading fall off from my brain very quickly.

[WestTexas]

ehh 150 characters a month isn't that much bro... I mean that's only 5 per day. 20 per day would be more of a challenge. Although for those who already know a decent number of characters it might be hard to find 600 new ones that would be actually be useful.

[roddy]

That would depend on your level and how much time you have to spend.

[heifeng]

How about a 'learn (and remember) all the chinese names (read, write, say) for all the bones in your body challenge? Good Chinese & native language practice and there are only 206 of 'em...Pretty manageable in 4 weeks.

[Olle Linge]

I think it would be more useful to have a challenge which does not specify a certain number of characters or words, but which allows each participant to set a goal at the start of the challenge. People can then share experiences and help each other stay motivated throughout the challenge. The problem with saying X characters/words is that it's too dependent on level. I know I struggled to learn 50 words/week when I started learning Chinese, but have successfully added more than 2000 words/week at times without dying. This is of course impossible if you don't know enough individual characters, radicals and character components already. What I'm trying to say is that a challenge is a good idea, but that it should be up to participants to state their own, individual goals.

Here are some tips regarding learning characters/words that works extremely well for myself, at least: http://www.hackingchinese.com/?p=198

[jbradfor]

How about a 'learn (and remember) all the chinese names (read, write, say) for all the bones in your body challenge?

I like that idea, but how about something a bit more useful? For example, how about body parts in general?

[imron]

5 words a day doesn't sound like much, but the number of people who can consistently learn 5 words a day every day for a year is quite small. The difficulty in learning words is not the number you learn in a day but in the number of days you can persist with learning.

As for a challenge where people set their own goals and track/discuss progress, do a search for the aims and objectives threads (would provide a link but am typing this on my phone). We've been doing one a year for a few years now

[heifeng]

i.e., don't break the chain, right Imron

[imron]

Exactly!

[jkhsu]

Learning 5 words a day is easy. Forgetting 5 words a day is easier.

[abcdefg]

As to learning the bones in the body, I think there are way too many low frequency items (in any language.)

I must have looked up the bones of the wrist five hundred times when viewing x-rays of injured people. "Is that little one over there with the fracture the pisiform or the triquetal?" Then I try to recall the mnemonic (Scared Lovers Try Positions That They Can't Handle = Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetrum, Pisiform, Trapezium, Trapezoid, Capitate, and Hamate.) Wonder if I've got the "T" bones mixed up and finally just get out a reference book or search it quickly online.

As to challenges in general, I have no desire to compete with others. I challenge myself every day and move ahead, or not, at a pace which I find stimulating but not overwhelming. My environment supplies motivation. The pace varies a lot from month to month depending on outside factors which I cannot always predict. So, in answer to the original poster’s question, "Anyone up for a challenge?" -- My answer is no. Not me.

[jasoninchina]

Thank you for all the responses everyone. I'd really like to get the show on the road so I'm going to try and take the lead if their aren't any objections. This is what I see us as needing:

1. A list of people who want to participate. I'm setting the minimum at 15 people. once we reach that amount, we can then think about a starting date. I am number 1, so please list yourself as number 2 and so on.

2. We then need to decide on the type of challenge. Learn characters, learn words, etc. First one to get 10 votes? 15? Perhaps we can even set up a poll once we gain enough ideas.

3. Decide on the specifics of the challenge. For example, if we choose characters, what kinds of characters or how many characters? If everyone is suggesting between 400 to 600 characters, we will probably nail it down to 500.

4. I need suggestions on how to track it. Does any know of a online tool to do such a thing. A utility which will allow an individual to input their own data and post the progress for everyone to see. Any suggestions are welcome

I like the ideas so far. Learning body parts and watching episodes of chinese tv are great ideas.

Another way to go with this just entered my mind. We could make the challenges very doable but change the challenge every 4 to 6 weeks. For example, one month we learn 100 characters, next month we learn 100 words, then 20 grammatical principles, then watch 25 hours of chinese tv, etc. This is just an idea, I hope it doesn't muddle the water too much.

[creamyhorror]

I normally learn words instead of characters. But I wouldn't mind learning a big bunch of characters at a shallow level so I have a wider base of known characters to work from. I just need (1) the reading, (2) one or two meanings, and optionally (3) a sample word.

I was thinking of getting my characters from Jun Da's character frequency list. There used to be a page offering Jun Da's character frequency lists with example words for each character arranged in word frequency categories, but it looks like it's been taken down and now you can only buy the printed book of the lists. (Luckily I saved them first!) (edit: Wait - they're actually available here)

Sample: "1302. 悉 ① 据悉 ② 熟悉, 获悉, 悉尼 ⑤ 悉数, 知悉, 得悉, 惊悉"

Group ① = most common, ⑤ = least common

Anyway, maybe we can have 2 sections for the contest - Words and Characters. For Characters, participants could select 100-400 characters of their choice (depending on their free time and appetite for learning) and learn them. It's good to give people the freedom to set their objectives. I guess we could convert individual completion scores into percentage terms and share them, just to create a bit of friendly competition for those who prefer it.

[daofeishi]

Another way to go with this just entered my mind. We could make the challenges very doable but change the challenge every 4 to 6 weeks. For example, one month we learn 100 characters, next month we learn 100 words, then 20 grammatical principles, then watch 25 hours of chinese tv, etc.

As everyone knows*, the collective attention span of a forum is inversely proportional to the activity in it. I give the prospect of having people hang on for months an epsilon of probability. Find a small, doable, time-limited and, most important of all, concrete project. Don't focus on the ultimate goal like learning x characters or y words, but rather work on finding good proximate means to improve: I.e. "Follow blog x or read book y over the next two weeks". That way it will be be easier to complete the project and to commit to it for others on here.

I personally would love to see reading 余华s 活着 in a few weeks as a challenge. That book has been standing on my shelf for far too long.

(*completely made up on the spot)

[jasoninchina]

daofeishi, I can't pretend to have understood everything you said, but I do think I get your point. Let's just scratch that idea and stick to the original one. Besides, there could always be more challenges in the future.

List of participants:

1. Jasoninchina

*I'm so lonely