Manual
This document is a work in progress and will be updated over time.
Signing up for a contest
A contest is open for registration before it starts. A contest also has a registration deadline, generally one week before the contest ends for official contests. During this time you can sign up for the contest with a maximum of three languages. Submitting updates won't be possible until the contests starts.
Submitting updates
You can submit pages once the contest has started. The contest runs based on UTC time. You can submit pages that you've read within the contest timeframe, after the contest has ended you won't be able to add, delete, or change pages anymore.
Frequency of submitting updates
You should be posting updates in regular intervals, preferably daily. Submitting everything you've read at the end of the contest isn't in line with the spirit of the contest. Tadoku is supposed to motivate people to read more, and in order to keep things fair updates should be somewhat regular. Participants who keep posting irregular (large) updates in batch will be removed from the contest. Repeat offenders may be banned from future rounds.
Submitting re-reads (repeats)
If you have previously read something, but would still like to read it again for the contest you can do so (as long as it's not within the same contest). Cut the total amount of pages you've read in half and submit them as-is. As much as possible I would like to discourage re-reading the same material, but I also understand that sometimes it makes sense to do so.
Tracking different kinds of activities and media
There are a couple different activities that can be tracked in Tadoku: reading, listening, writing, speaking, and generic study sessions. For official contests only reading and listening updates will be accepted. The score of an update is calculated by the entered amount and chosen unit. An estimated score is also visible at the bottom of the form when submitting an update.
Some languages with different writing systems also have different modifiers for certain units. You can find an overview of all the activity and unit configurations per language in the table below.
Reading
| Language | Page | 2 Column page 1 | Comic page | Sentence | Character 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Japanese | 1 | 1.6 | 0.2 | 0.05 | 0.0025 |
| Chinese | 1 | N/A | 0.2 | 0.05 | 0.0025 |
| Korean | 1 | N/A | 0.2 | 0.05 | 0.0025 |
| All other languages | 1 | N/A | 0.2 | 0.05 | 0.0008333 |
- Only available for Japanese
- 400 characters per page for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.
1800 characters per page for all other languages.
Writing
| Language | Page | Sentence | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| Japanese | 1 | 0.05 | 0.0025 |
| Chinese | 1 | 0.05 | 0.0025 |
| Korean | 1 | 0.05 | 0.0025 |
| All other languages | 1 | 0.05 | 0.0008333 |
Listening
While listening make sure that it's comprehensible. Passive listening is allowed in official contests as long as you're paying attention to it and can understand what's going on. You could track listening while doing the dishes, but tracking audio you're "listening" to while sleeping would not count.
| Language | Minute | Minute (high density) 1 |
|---|---|---|
| All languages | 0.4 | 0.6 |
- Media such as audiobooks which have few breaks
Speaking
| Language | Minute | Minute (high density) 1 |
|---|---|---|
| All languages | 0.5 | 0.7 |
- When you're the only one speaking; such as in speeches or presentations
Study
| Language | Minute 1 |
|---|---|
| All languages | 0.5 |
- Can be used for any kind of generic studying such as flashcards, textbooks, tutoring sessions, etc...
Speeding up listening material
It's fairly common for advanced learners to change the playback speed of audio while listening. In such cases you are allowed to track the original audio track length, with a limit of 2x playback speed. Anything over 2x playback speed is not eligible for official contests and should not be submitted to contests. Make sure that the audio is still comprehensible. If it's not comprehensible it would not be eligible for tracking in official contests.
For example: you're listening at 1.5x speed to a 60 minute audiobook chapter. This will take you 40 minutes to finish but can be tracked as 60 minutes of input.
Ebooks
Tracking pages read of ebooks can be quite tricky. Most of the times they are counted in lines, and every book will be different depending on the device/software you're using. Here is one way to calculate your page count using the book こころ (Kokoro) by Natsume Soseki:
- Get the total page count from the paper copy, a total of 384 pages according to Amazon Japan
- The kindle shows me there are a total of 4513 lines in this book. This means that 1 page from the paper copy is equal to 11.75 lines in the ebook.
- Let's say I've read from line 400 to 640, +240 lines since tracking last time. 240 / 11.75 = 20.425531915
- I usually round down/up the number when tracking, and correct the discrepancy when I finish the book. In this case I'd track this as 20.4 book pages read.
