While "never" is a long time, it does seem to me that there are a number of people such as myself who have played go for quite a while, invested a lot of time and energy trying to improve, yet seem to peak at a level below shodan. Why do you suppose that is? What separates the dans from the would-be dans?

Perhaps before asking why, we should clear up the what. What is shodan? I have seen it described as the level at which one is proficient or competent at go. Pretty subjective, to say the least. It also is a ranking assigned by various organizations and servers to indicate a certain playing strength. How is this level determined -and why isn't there a system that considers my level to be shodan?

Apparently, some of us do not possess the skills that the go world deems necessary to call one proficient or competent. What are these skills? Is it all reading? The better ability to judge of the outcome of a sequence? Sure it's that - but I wonder why, after all these years, some of us just haven't gotten good enough at it. Why is "competence" too hard for some of us to achieve?

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Patience, grasshopper.

I am guessing that your signature answers your own question.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

The "why" topic has been exhaustively discussed in chess. The new book "The Rookie" by Stephen Moss just mentioned in another thread about a Guardian article is a superb and very funny exposition of all the factors and advice, by someone who is asking the same sort of question. It seems that all the answers are known in general except one: why can't I change?

An illustration of this from the book: the author (a freelance journalist) commits himself to three years of hard work to write a book that will chart his progress from chess weakie to someone merely competent (meaning various things like being able to hold his head up in the company of other chess players or just appreciating professional games better, and maybe winning the odd "minor" tournament on the way). So the planned book is a whip to spur him on. As part of his plan he will get physically fit, engage a chess "doctor" or personal trainer, and will talk to a host of the most famous players. He has already read all the relevant and profuse chess literature.

But reality intrudes. Going to his first weekend tournament of his new regime, when he was still very focused:



After losing his first two games and getting a bye on Day 2 he quits in a fit of amour proper. Then a little while later, continuing his quest and armed with a teacher, he says, "After a fortnight in which I did not think about chess at all..."

In other words, it's not really about openings, tactics, evaluation, endgames, or even time invested or how many books read. It's first about turning your own self into somebody who is willing to do the necessary work in a relentless, concentrated way for all the time necessary. Only the self can do that. It's like dieting.

Secondly, though, it seems that whenever we reach plateaux we need to make a change (e.g. play in a new style, focus on a different aspect). Realisation of this can come from within but it seems a teacher can spot the timing and the chart the next goal more efficiently. However, as soon as your ship has turned, you need to go back to sailing on your own. Drop the teacher - he's just a prop for your weaknesses. In fact, maybe a good analogy is rowing a boat across the Atlantic. Take all the expert advice you can get on fitting out the best kind of boat, but once you set off, you have to keep rowing all by yourself in a relentless, concentrated way otherwise you'll never get to the other side.

As a good example of the sort of self control required, there is a good book by another chappie from the Guardian, editor Alan Rusbridger. I forget the title but his plan was to go from weakie pianist to giving a recital of a very difficult Chopin piece to a large group of friends in a proper hall that he would rent. How about that for putting pressure on yourself? All the other pressure he faced, such as wife and kids and a high-flying job that required every waking hour anyway with constant international travel (and not too many hotels have a spare grand piano), he just took for granted.

He achieved his goal (and as I recall it may also have been over three years) mainly by juggling his time so that he could fit in twenty or thirty minutes most days, with the occasional long burst with a teacher in lieu of a holiday (i.e for us, a week at a congress). In other words, he did the necessary work in a relentless, concentrated way for all the time necessary. Regrettably he doesn't explain how he was able to sustain that effort, but clearly it came from within. What he does explain quite well, though, is the second stage - reaching a plateau and getting a teacher's help to move off it (often rather difficult, apparently - moving off, that is - as this too requires another change in oneself).

As to the second question, what is shodan: it's meaningless really. In the lifetimes of some people here it meant, even for amateurs, something like three stones to a good professional. Originally it essentially marked a point at which the player could be considered satisfactory as a qualified go teacher (i.e. it was like a degree). Now for amateurs it means, at best, nine stones to a good professional, devalued in the same way that degrees have been devalued and for almost the same reasons: catering to a mass public in which no-one is allowed to fail.

Rather than talk about shodan it may be better to go back to the old Japanese and Chinese usages and talk about being X stones to a pro. That way, starkly saying you are 15 stones to a pro instead of saying you are 6-kyu may generate a little more motivation to do "the necessary work in a relentless, concentrated way for all the time necessary."

The amateur dan system is actually fairly new - before that a "dan" would mean you should in theory take at most 3 stones from the Meijin (not exactly synonymous with the top player, but for this purpose probably not too different). Assuming the typical Meijin to be around the level of a strong pro today, this would suggest KGS 7-8d (maybe 6d if we are really skeptical of ancient Japanese players). If we were using that standard, only a small percentage of players would ever achieve dan. There is a similar "pin" grade in ancient China that apparently also uses the top players "Guo Shou" as the standard to which other players are graded (though not sure how widely used that system really is). To reach a rank under that system might have been slightly easier (I'm not entirely sure, but I think each of the 9 ranks is half a stone rather than a third of a stone per rank under the Japanese dan system).

Anyways, that was a lot of words just to say that "dan" is very much an artificial standard without much meaning. In fact, apparently the standard for young players is pretty lenient in China. I heard stories of sub-10k YiCheng (aka Tygem) players who made shodan - 10k YiCheng I'd consider a bit stronger than KGS 10k, but certainly below KGS 4k. The standard in Japan might be even lower. You likely have made shodan in at least two systems already!

Since it's such an artificial standard, I really don't think there are particular set of skills that a "shodan" needs to possess. Speaking as someone who has gotten "stuck" at a weak dan level under most contemporary systems, I feel like the reason I got stuck is really in reading strength (obviously I have a myriad other weaknesses, but I feel like I can easily get 3-4 stones stronger from better reading). From what I can see of friends who seem to have a bit of trouble reaching 1d, I want to say that reading ability is always a sufficient, though not necessary, way to reach 1d (I mean, you can conceivably envision a kyu with perfect reading but non-existent judgement, but I really don't think it's realistic). The other way I'd recommend is to improve pattern recognition (which can be considered a part of reading) though tesuji/shape exercises and blitz games - this to me was an easier/less painful path than developing sheer reading power, though in the long term probably not as good for development.

Two other things I want to make note of are sente and avoiding aji-keshi. There are obviously other important concepts, but a better understanding of sente (not to mention a fighting spirit which do not accept opponent moves as requiring a response by default) should also be helpful, and I mention aji-keshi because I feel like developing the patience to retain sequences in unsettled areas to have been the key for getting to 1d KGS from 4k KGS myself.

Some other concepts/techniques that I'd consider looking into are tewari, shunt (not for you obviously, but important for reaching SDK http://senseis.xmp.net/?Shunt), and sabaki.

I want to say that the Tolstoy comment "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" might apply here, though pretty loosely. I'm not sure 1d requires a rigid set of skills, but suspect for many who appear to be "stuck" below 1d there may be a number of different gaps in knowledge. It is likely that there are multiple "paths" to reach 1d in that case - perhaps sabaki + retaining aji would be enough, or reading needs to be improved, or a combination of minor improvements in several areas, etc.

One thing that could help you identify areas that may be the easiest to tackle would be to post a few games for review and explicit ask what reviewers think to be the largest gaps in your play are and how you might go about improving in that aspect.

I'm also someone who has spent quite a bit of time on go over the years but who remains SDK. I think in my case, John's point is valid. I will pursue things pretty obsessively for a given amount of time but at some point I lose interest, or get frustrated with not progressing quickly enough, or just get distracted by life and other things. So I have never been able to put in that "relentless effort over the time required". My effort is pretty relentless for a time but not long enough. So I think John is right, it's something about the self and how we navigate difficult challenges. I haven't given up and am currently in a phase of being quite committed to go again, but whether I will actually break through or not I obviously can't say.

I will say that there was one period where I did a lot of tsume-go as well as playing regularly at a "club" (I say that cause it was really just two old guys that played eachother every week). In that period I made a significant amount of progress with respect to those two old dudes which was nice. I just got distracted and started studying chess instead of go.

Partly I think as Kageyama says the quest to become stronger is natural. On the other hand, there is part of me that feels obsessing about rank instead of playing and enjoying the game kills the goose that lays the golden eggs. The solution to all these questions is likely a completely personal issue for most folks.

This link is relevant:

https://www.chess.com/article/view/can- ... n-im-or-gm

Relentless work is what is needed to become competent?? Let me throw out another hypothesis: What is needed to become shodan is talent. Becoming competent at go should not be as hard as rowing across the Atlantic, and for most shodans I expect that it isn't. You might argue that some of us are just not working hard enough, but I don't buy it. I've become competent at several disciplines with a significantly lower amount and level of work than I've put into go. I was just better at those things from the start. I'm not saying work isn't important, I just think that for some of us, the skill window shuts before shodan, no matter what they do. I'm sure you are right if you say we need to understand getting sente or using aji better, but we can't. These lessons are too hard for us. We still fail to apply the basics.

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Patience, grasshopper.

this sounds really sad...but im really convinced that talent is not a big factor at all,im pretty sure anyone could reach shodan for sure.But what do you need to become strong?Persistence and the right way to study.Furthermore,go is really,really difficult,I also do sports where I improved faster,but you just need one way to study,and just follow that way,dont doubt during the way of progress you wont feel stronger after you solved one problem,or two.For instance solve 10 problems a day without any doubt even if you think you are not gaining anything,just do it,you will feel a difference much later,but after around 6 months you will notice that you have become stronger,if not,its really likely that you study in a wrong way.

Daal:

I certainly don't disagree that getting to dan (say KGS 1d) is easier for some players than others. However, I feel like that at least for KGS 1d that there is so much room in terms of improvement that I would honestly be surprised if the average person cannot reach it (KGS 1d is at least 9 stones away from top pros - the strength gap is mindblowingly enormous).

As mentioned before, I suspect there are a lot of paths to KGS 1d from sdk - if your goal is getting to dan finding a path of least resistance might make it a lot easier. Post a recent game or two (preferably losses or close wins) where you think you played to your normal level and let's see if there's anything we can recommend. I also advise getting a Tygem account (register at, say, 4k) and playing a few games there - the opponents there often can reveal some different weaknesses in fundamentals compared to KGS players.

"Relentless effort" is not needed for some people to get to 1d, since, as you suggest, talent is a factor. But after you stop improving from talent, effort is the only way to move up.

I am already 1d on KGS, but maybe I can consider the same thought about being 5d. I often lament that I cannot beat a KGS 2d in an even game no matter what. But in reality, this is just an expression of my frustration. Is my effort 100% on go? Not really. I have a sick child to tend to, a family, a full time job, an interest in foreign languages, I post here too much, I play on Facebook from time to time, and sometimes I just think about life.

So is it truly the case that beating KGS 2d is impossible? Probably not. I have tried hard, but I haven't tried *that* hard. I still believe KGS 5d would be possible for me at the expense of all other things in my life.

But do I want to pay that price? I don't really think I do right now, since other activities are important to me.

You've already achieved an admirable rank in go. Do I think you could go further? Yes. Is it worth your time? I'm not sure.

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be immersed

Daal, it seems like you're implicitly assuming you can compare competence in go to competence in other activities. I think that's very hard to do. Elsewhere, I made a rough comparison that a KGS 6 dan to a 2hr 45 min marathon runner. But marathons are a sport--one person beats another. There is a literal ranking of results. And even that comparison was very very fuzzy. There is a huge difference between 2:45, 2:30 and 3:00, and I didn't know which one was the best comparison.

So I'm curious, what activities would you compare to go, and what would you compare to shodan?

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Occupy Babel!

For this topic, I think that losing weight could be a good analogy. Let's say that "1d" in weight loss is to be 80kg for a person that's 180cm tall - just an arbitrary line I drew.

Genetically, some individuals may have no problem maintaining this weight. They can eat what they want with minimal exercise, and still meet this bar.

For others, it may be more difficult. Maybe your father was 140kg and you were born overweight. Maybe you're already 40 years old and a lot of effort is required to lose a small amount.

I maintain the belief that weight loss will continue to be possible with diet and exercise - diet and exercise must have some effect.

But it sure is more difficult for some people than others!

In go, studying and reviewing games must have some positive effect. But progress is difficult for everyone after a certain point. That point is different for every person.

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be immersed

I want to leave another post about this, because this topic interests me. Actually, it's a couple of stories. But I think they are relevant.

I did alright in high school. My school was small, so I didn't have to study much to be valedictorian. A lot of people say said stuff like, "Oh, you're so smart". That felt pretty good, and I had a lot of confidence in myself. I entered college, and remember going to the college orientation. There were various cliques of people that I hadn't met before. I remember listening in to some of the conversations. Everyone there seemed pretty confident, too. Everyone was "smart", and they all bragged about the various things they had accomplished to date. My identity was challenged. My "smartness" didn't seem so cool, anymore.

What was particularly "cool" was the idea of accomplishing something grand with as little effort as possible. For example, the guy who told the story of staying up all night playing video games - and then acing his SATs the next morning... That was cool. It was cool because, with minimal effort, this guy could accomplish something great. He must have been a genius - or at least, he must have had great potential. After all, if he can ace his SATs after staying up all night playing video games, imagine the potential he had if he were to actually spend the night sleeping!

As it turns out, some of these "cool geniuses" never finished their degree. Maybe in some cases, it was even true that they had stayed up all night without studying for their SATs. But old habits die hard, and some of these kids apparently continued the habit, staying up all night to play video games without studying for their classes. Eventually, they hit a barrier they couldn't overcome, and sometimes transferred schools, got a poor GPA, or just quit.

You may have heard before that I've said that the time I studied the most in my life was around 2004~2005 when I was studying Japanese in Sendai. The reason I remember this is because that experience had such an impact on me. Namely, I learned to appreciate the value of studying. Coming into a culture where I had no talent - no prior knowledge of Japanese, and zero natural talent.... Obviously, I couldn't just speak Japanese without some sort of study. I could aim to be the "cool genius" type that I met during my undergrad orientation. But without study, I'd hardly be a genius. I'd simply be someone that didn't study and didn't learn the language.

As time went on, I came to realize that studying - in itself - was a virtue. Sure, if you were the "cool genius", maybe you had some natural talent at some ability. But what joy is there in that? You have X amount of ability. Cool. But it's not anything you really did - and after you reach your limit, you might quit. Real joy came from having close to 0 ability, realizing that, learning new things, and increasing to a non-zero ability. Progress might be slow. But progress was achieved specifically because of the controlled action you opted to take. You choose to study 20 new words. You know 20 new words now, which you didn't know before. Your level is increased, because of this conscious action. It's very rewarding.

If you're the "smart genius" type, maybe you've got a lot of potential. But what good is potential, if you never nourish and improve it? Having "little potential", but the ability to grow that little potential is much more promising, I feel.

----

I thought these stories were highly relevant when I first started posting. But I realize that I've rambled a bit. But I think my viewpoint remains from these experiences: Talent is "cool", but limited. Real joy can be found from consciously giving effort to increase your ability. In any area. It can be challenging and have slow progress. But the longer it takes, the more rewarding it is.'

Imagine the years you've taken to reach 1d. I'm sure you'll appreciate it much more than someone that has natural talent to reach 1d in a year.

I'm looking forward to that time for you.

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be immersed

I agree there's a glitch there. Even limiting things just to go, you may be improving in the opening and middle game but still losing all your games because your endgame is awful. So you are no nearer shodan - yet you are improving.

And that highlights two bigger glitches. One is the assumption that shodan measures competence. Even if there is a vague, indirect correlation, it really measures nothing other than your results against players who use the same rating system.

The other glitch follows from that. If your goal is to become shodan (or pro, or whatever) you have a wrong, meaningless goal. The goal should to become competent, or more competent.

How do you know whether you are competent? Ask obvious questions:

Do I know how to live with the tripod group, the J group, the L groups, etc? Do I know how far to extend? Do I check whether I am connected? Can I count that boundary play? Do I sense there is aji there? (And so on and so forth for all the items that come up in virtually every game.) If not, I am not competent and know what I have to work on. If yes, I have achieved a level of competence in that I can cope with most of the things that occur in most of my games. Great. Now I can work on becoming more competent.

For example, I know the L group is dead, but how many liberties does it have in a semeai? I am good at staying connected but can I be more efficient with my connections (bigger leaps or doing it in sente)? I understand common kos, but do I know about yose-kos? I can count territories slowly, but can I estimate them reliably at a glance? Etc, etc.

Are you studying the right things? If you are studying tesujis or life and death and learn something that comes up only once every few hundred games (e.g. ishinoshita) you are becoming more learned, but you are not really becoming more competent. Competence means being able to handle the bulk of what is thrown at you.

So the first step is to identify what really constitutes the bulk. Playing or looking at a lot of games is one way to do this.

The second step is to apply competence to becoming competent. You handle the bulk of a new concept by first being able to identify it reliably. You then become more competent by handling it in the commonest ways. Only then do you learn how to handle the rarer uses. Eventually you may go on to learn the very rare uses and exceptions. Take aji. Step 1 is to learn to sense when it exists. When you are happy with that, go to step 2 and use your knowledge to handle it in the commonest cases. This may just mean avoiding it yourself - adding an extra stone for safety or, better, learn to make hontes. In Step 3 you may start using aji actively, probably by adding stones nearby as forcing moves. In Step 4 you may learn to use aji internally without help from forcing stones.

If you keep taking baby steps like this, shodan or pro status may suddenly creep up on you unawares. Boo!

For those who like analogies, if you go to the doctor with a sniffle, he is much more likely to treat you as if you have a cold and need an aspirin than to assume you have Zika virus. So what was in his syllabus when he was learning medicine that inclined him to think that way? He learned the commonest things first and best.

And even if a family GP wouldn't recognise or know how to treat Zika without looking it up, we wouldn't call him incompetent. He's competent mainly because he can deal with the bulk of things straight off.

Of course bulk means a lot. In other words it means a lot of work. All the more reason to make it stepwise, efficient, focused.

Note that this is not the same as saying 'learn the basics'. That's for beginners. For competence I am saying learn the commonest things. Some of these things may be quite tricky and hard work, but are so common they need to be addressed very early on, e.g. kos or deiri counting.

I once did an estimate of how often a carpenter's square either came up or was implicit in games. I can't remember the right figure now, but it was very significant and certainly justified classing the shape as very common and one that had to be learned for any kind of competence. Traditionally if you knew all about the carpenter's square you had achieved competence as a 1-dan pro. That's how tricky and hard that can be. But using the bulk approach it can be tamed. Most people here would know that a play the 2-2 point is important - sufficient competence to start with. And the right place to start.

"Chess is not for the faint-hearted; it absorbs a person entirely. To get to the bottom of this game, he has to give himself up into slavery. Chess is difficult, it demands work, serious reflection and zealous research."
Wilhelm Steinitz

And chess is a simple game compared to go.

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Help make L19 more organized. Make an index: https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5207

Also on the topic of talent, while talent will get you part of the way easier, the top people in any profession put a tremendous amount of work towards their given discipline. That work should never be discredited.

Let me use an example:

It's hard to run the marathon. Most people can do it, regardless of age (assuming no medical illness), but it requires a lot of training and discipline.

First, you have to make sure you're not significantly overweight. If you are, that's your first goal, get down to an acceptable weight.

Second, you have to start running. Can't run? Then you have to start walking. You start by walking 5 days a week, increasing the time little by little.

Then, you start jogging, about 3 days a week, for about a year.

The next year, you start jogging 4-5 days a week. On average, about 20-25 miles a week. If you're in shape, and you grew up running cross country, maybe this is where you start.

Then, the following year, you starting your marathon training. You should have been running at least 1 year with 20-25 miles per week before starting this training. You train hard. You do spend 4-5 days a week running for 30m to 1 1/2 hours a day. It's also helpful to engage in cross training, particularly strength training.

Oh crap, you got injured on one of your 12 mile runs. Now you're benched for the season, so you have to start it up again next year.

The next year, you do better at strength training. You get up to the 18m training mark. Now you're ready to run the marathon. You did it! You ran the marathon in 4 hrs 10 min. Congrats! You got the magnet for your car. You're also bloody sore as hell.

But next time, you want to run it in 3 hrs 30 min. That's your goal. That requires more hours training, both running 5 days a week and doing regular strength training. And it also requires changing your regime to include speed training. Intervals, repeats, hills, and threshold runs.

(End of example)

Does talent make things easier? Sure, you can skip ahead a couple of steps. But unless you're willing to spend 30m to 1 hr every day, then you're not ready to take the leap to the next step. It takes work. Lots of hard work. And if you're not prepared to do the work, or you sideline your training regime for other activities, you won't achieve your goals.

Talent really only comes into play in the speed at which you progress or when you're competing at the top. For everything below that threshold, it comes down to work.

I'm not at 1 dan yet. Hell, I have my sights set higher than that. But I know if I want to achieve it, I have to spend 30m - 1 hr every day studying tsumego/tesuji, playing serious games every week and reviewing said games (preferably with stronger players, which I haven't been), studying professional games (at some point, Relentless is helping with that), and perhaps picking up a teacher or two along the way.

The question you have to ask is, is it worth an indeterminate amount of time and effort? I ask myself that question often, but I enjoy studying, I enjoy reading, and I enjoy playing games. Is it worth beating my head against a wall? Maybe, maybe not. But when I'm not spending time with family and friends, its certainly a good pursuit. And to me, it's a good hobby to do while I'm relaxing and mentally recouping.

When I'm on KGS, send me a message, and I'll be happy to play a game and review it with you. I hope you much success, maybe you can outline your training regimen, and like others said, post a few games for stronger players to review to find weaknesses.

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Go Books

Hrm half of the attendees to the US Go Congress 2017 were of dan level. I generally think of talent, if such a thing even exists, as something available to maybe 10% of a population, not 50%.

To me learning Go seems much more like learning piano, learning to draw, or learning a foreign language. For a person of average capability (if such a thing even exists) I just don't see how you can expect to achieve shodan without continuous structured learning (regular lessons, teachers) for at least the duration of 3 or 4 years. Perhaps the talented ones can get there faster via self-study, but us mere mortals just have to put in a lot of time with a lot of outside help.

There's probably a related issue here which is that often autodidacts pick up many bad habits along the way. This itself becomes a obstacle (or a plateau) because often this involves unlearning to make further progress. I recall working with a classical guitarist at a university arts library. When entering the music program his instructor told him while he was good enough to get in, but all of his fundamentals were in fact broken. He had to spend the entire first year only doing fundamentals and removing all his bad habits. This would be enough for many people to give up, but he stuck with it and came out the other side with a much higher ceiling of capability.

If both games are beyond human ability to play perfectly, this comparison is meaningless.

That's like boasting that you make more money than someone who is already so rich that they will never be able to spend it.

My comparison would be using a foreign language. As with go, there are established levels of competence, for example there is the european framework (Wikipedia link)which describes what one can do in a language. I would say that achieving B2 level would indicate a degree of competence at or above shodan level. In Chinese there are the HSK tests, (Wikipedia link) also with 6 levels. Here also I would say that passing the HSK 4 would indicate a high level of competence.

The methods of learning also have some similarities. Here daily tsumego, there daily vocabulary flashcards. Here thematically and level appropriate books to study, there textbooks. Here fundamental principles to learn, there grammar. Here games, there conversations and written communications.

I had a talent for German. After studying on my own for 6 months I moved to Germany, and within two years, I was able to communicate at a C1 level. Chinese is a different story. I started learning Chinese about 4 years ago. I study between 5 and 10 hours a week, and I am not yet ready to take the HSK3 test. Yes, German was easier because I lived in the environment, but I have put in a lot more time and hard work into Chinese, and I am nowhere near as good. I think I don't have as much talent for Chinese. Another way of saying this is that Chinese poses a greater challenge for me as a native English speaker than German does, and I also started 25 years later. I did however recently start learning Dutch, and within 6 months I was able to communicate at an A2 level. Again, with a knack for something, one learns quicker and with less effort.

How does this compare with Go? As far as time and effort is concerned, I'd say my effort is on par with my Chinese studies - though I have been working on Go for about twice as many years. I do tsumego every day, I play almost every day, and up until about 2 years ago, I worked through books a few hours a week. I have played at KGS 5k level for about 4 years. I could work harder at Go, but I don't feel confident that doing so would enable me to reach shodan.

You might point out that I have not had a teacher or that I have not done this or that, but as illuck pointed out, all unlucky families are unlucky in their own way, and there are many many others who have had excellent teachers, who have done mountains of tsumego, who have done this that and the other thing and are still kyus and are probably going to stay that way. I know that many of you think that this could be overcome with hard work, but I'm not so sure. I still see folks who have lived here in Germany for years, taken classes, had to work, make friends, deal with bureaucracy all in German and still are at an A2 or B1 level. They work at it, but they don't seem to know how to learn effectively. I thought it was easy, but not everyone can do it.

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Patience, grasshopper.

What percentage of the population were the attendees of the Go congress?

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Patience, grasshopper.