Chinese language challenge engine

[Olle Linge]

Hi guys,

 

Together with a few friends, I've worked on a language challenge engine for encouraging people to study more, share resources for doing so and arrange monthly challenges with some friendly competition. If you don't want to read my preamble and intro, you can just check out the challenge site here: http://challenges.hackingchinese.com/

 

I like challenges a lot because they help me get stuff done. It's pretty simple: You sign up, join the current challenge, set a goal for that month and then report progress. There is a graph that projects how you're doing and how that relates to the goal you set. You can also see how you compare to other people in the challenge. This screen is from a test challenge:

The first challenge starts today and it's about extensive listening. We already have 65 participants signed up, and it's okay to join the challenge at any time. It ends on October 31st and then there will be another challenge for November (extensive reading) and another for December (translation).

• Sign up and join the challenge directly on Hacking Chinese Challenges
• Read more about this months extensive listening challenge
• Read more about Hacking Chinese Challenges in general

Please note that this is still a work in progress. We have tested the challenge engine a few rounds before this, but this is the first time we have more than a dozen partiicpants or so. If you have feedback of any kind, just let me know.

 

Welcome to the challenge and good luck!

 

學習與快！

[Angelina]

I don't enjoy competing against other people. If I had to choose between joining this challenge and not learning Chinese, I will choose the second option.

I do speak some Chinese, but I don't feel any pressure to imrove it. 慢慢来.

[querido]

It could be like a game if I want that. I don't mind games, myself.

It looks like fun Olle Linge. Good idea. Thanks.

[Olle Linge]

Angelina, the idea isn't to compete with others. As a participant, I don't really care about what goals other people in the challenge set, but I do cane about my own goals and competing with myself has been very good for my learning in general. This iswhat "challenge" is meant to convey, rather than competition. Of course, if someone wants to compete, they're free to do that. Naturally, this challenge is obviously for people who want to improve their Chinese.

[Angelina]

I think it was the ranking that put me off. Good luck anyway! 

[Geiko]

My experience with this challenge is being great so far, but my point of view is very different from Angelina's Listening has always been one of my weakest skills along with speaking, and since I don't like it as much as reading, lately I spent less than one hour a week practising it. Joining this challenge, for me, isn't about being in the top three or something, but about publicly commiting myself to listen to one hour a day of Chinese. If I keep up with my goal, it will make a huge difference from my previous routine, and I hope to continue practising after the challenge is over. I don't compete against other participants, in fact I wouldn't want to spend more time on it in order to "win", because that would reduce the time I dedicate to other skills. So thanks to Olle for organizing it! I'm really waiting for November's challenge, I will love being "forced" to read more!

[Elizabeth_rb]

Well, I'm in and well ahead of my goal so far.  I'm not 100% sure all the material I'm using really counts as 'extensive listening', but it's listening I may or may not otherwise do, so I don't care.

 

I don't think the 'Leaderboard' function is helpful either.  It would be better done as percentage of way towards personal goal, not how many hours.  However, I don't let that bother me and am already trying to think of things to include in the reading challenge.

 

Oh, and there are actually 22 days from 10-31 October. ;)

[imron]

If I keep up with my goal, it will make a huge difference from my previous routine

This is the important thing.  Regular practice.