I have a special invitation for anyone interested: a LingQ/Known Word Competition. I am currently focused on learning Chinese and have had good success so far. At times, however, its tough to keep coming back to the content. Right now, I’m traveling through China and communicating–or rather failing too–is not exactly motivating. I need a little boost.
I know Steve isn’t a big fan of “competitive language learning”, and though a lifetime athlete who lived off competition for most of my life, neither am I. BUT I would love to take part in some “competitive language studying”. By that I mean, lets see who can make more LingQs and more known words in the next two weeks, month, three months, etc. I think it would be fun and effective. The weightloss site Dailyburn.com has found that within their own community, members who compete with one another have significantly better results than those who dont. Lets see how it works with Language Learning.
Maybe we could also help each other out with specific problems. English is my native language, and also I speak Spanish at a near native level–feel free to ask for a helping hand.
If you choose to participate (and I seriously hope you do!), please abide by these two guidelines: 1. emphasize only the positives of both your own study and that of others and 2. promise not to get discouraged if other members LingQ or learn more words in a given time period. Its just for fun and in the spirit of improving our language skills (thats why we are all on the site anyways, right?).
I will post a weekly or bi-weekly update about how my study is going. I hope others will do the same.
Let’s get ready to ruummmmmmmmmmbbbbbbbllllllleeeeeeeeeee!
And to start things off. Im currently at 385 known words in Chinese. I hope to get to 600 by July 16, 1000 by July 30, and 1400 August 15. I realize Im not working a full-time job (make that any job) right now so I have it a little easier, but Im also learning characters, so maybe it balances out. Well see how it goes.
Also I will give anyone who learns more words than I by any of those three dates a free hour of conversation with me in English or Spanish. I’d buy you a burger and a beer if I could. Promise. Best,
Hey Andres, thanks so much for expressing interest! Im excited to have a partner in this.
Sorry for the delay. I had some major distractions this week but have still been able to get some good work in. Im up to 479 words, which though quite far from my goal, makes me feel good about the work Ive done.
Thats 96 words since the 10th. I have a lot of work to do in the next 11 days before the 30th. Qué emoción! So many words to learn, so many lessons to listen to. I just recently found some great intermediate content that made reading and listening more enjoyable. It should make the next week or so easier. Keep me updated!
Ya it will make it easier to have someone that motivates and pushes you to learn. It gets hard some times with out that little extra push. So ya I am happy that you responded and I added you as a friend. We should start counting the words we learned as a total starting in august and just do bi weekly summarizes of what you accomplished and the total words you learned. If you have any other suggests just keep me posted. Talk to you soon and good luck .