6 Week Challenge

Gonna get the highscore, get the highscore...

Ever since 2011, I have been running a free quarterly 6 Week Challenge as part of my contribution to the polyglot community and broader language-learning world. You probably haven’t heard of it because it’s a completely non-commercial, hobbyist effort, meaning that there is no money for marketing and the only value is for the people who manage to greatly improve their level in their target language through this challenge. The next start date is tomorrow (February 1^st), so read on if this might be for you:

How does it work?

It’s a challenge for languages in which you are currently a beginner or intermediate. That stage can be tough and frustrating because engaging with the language takes mental energy, there aren’t yet many fun things to do, and you probably have to actively memorise grammar, vocabulary... In order to encourage each other to keep going and quickly climb out of that stage, the 6 Week Challenge provides a global leaderboard where you can compete with your friends (and strangers you may have seen on forums) over who can study the most hours over the course of 6 weeks.

The principle is the same as in any videogame: when you see that your friend is just 5 points above you in the leaderboard, you are energised to invest more time and try to beat them. Each point is a minute, so in this case, you’d just have to study 6 minutes in order to rank above your friend. 6 minutes is totally doable even if you were about to call it a night, right? That’s the motivation. And once you beat your friend, they will try to out-study you. It becomes a virtuous cycle.

By the end of the 6 weeks, you will see marked improvement in your target language and you can access various statistics about your studies.

If you want to study a second (or tenth) language at the same time, that is totally possible. You can log those hours as well. However, only one language can be your declared target for the 6 Week Challenge, and that language must be one in which you still have to do grinding study (textbook, grammar, flashcards and so on, rather than reading your favourite novel or chatting with friends all day), in order to ensure an equal footing for all 6 Week Challenge participants.

Where do I go?

Between 2011 and 2023, the challenge ran on Twitter. However, since the 6 Week Challenge bot was suspended without warning or notice, the challenge is now resuming on its own website.

From now on, go to
🡆 6wc.learnlangs.com
to log your progress and to access the leaderboard and statistics.

Go there now and join us for the February challenge!