Adrien, by his nickname "Adri Geek", 29 years old, is a youtubeur who has more than a million subscribers on his channel.
Accustomed to challenges of all kinds, he is now tackling a colossal task: the meticulous reading of the 2048 pages of the dictionary.
Interviewed, he presented the reasons and objectives behind this original way of rediscovering the French language.
Enrich your vocabulary in a fun way
What is this amazing project all about?
The youtubeur intends to read in a series of live the 63,800 definitions offered by the
Petit Larousse illustré 2023
.
According to his estimates, “
it should take between 100 and 300 hours, which corresponds to several weeks of live videos
”.
A colossal project that finds no equivalent, even in foreign languages.
Adrien is aimed at an audience mainly made up of 18-25 year olds, but according to him this subject is likely to “
interest everyone because language is a unifying element
”.
He explains the motivations for his challenge as follows: “
My project is based on two pillars, the fun aspect of the challenge and the educational nature of the
project
.
The idea is to enrich the vocabulary of the public and mine by discovering the “nuggets” that slip into each page
”.
Since the goal is to learn new words while having fun, the attention given to the rarest words will naturally be more important.
The youtuber has thus planned to insert into his videos “
quizzes, bingos, the intervention of guests
” to encourage his audience to seize the vocabulary.
Thirty autographed dictionaries are even put into play. “
The interest of doing it live is also to discuss with the community: to see which words they like the most, which are the most unknown... In each video we will choose a catch word of heart who will have the right to special treatment
".
There are therefore many strategies to maintain momentum in this somewhat repetitive exercise, but which aims to "
allow people to find equivalents to Anglicisms and too common expressions
”.
Much more than just an absurd challenge
How did this idea come to him?
“
It came to me quite naturally.
During the confinement I did a lot of crossword puzzles and I discovered lots of new words.
I knew a lot of youtubers did absurd live challenges like counting to 100,000 so I figured why not read the dictionary.
This project therefore stems from a simple pleasure: that of discovering new words and sharing them with as many people as possible.
This is what immediately seduced the editions of the Larousse dictionary: "
The contact went very well, they were immediately seduced
".
Asked about the expected success of the project, Adrien Geek seems confident: “
The French language interests people, including young people
”.
It remains to be seen whether the stamina of the youtubeur will allow him to overcome the imposing volume.
