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Small challenges thread

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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
22 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3  Next >>
Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6356 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
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Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 1 of 22
01 April 2012 at 3:30pm | IP Logged 
This thread is for any little challenges you want to suggest :) It's roughly based on the dare threads at forums for writers, but here it doesn't have to be something really challenging - ideally something new or unusual for you though :)

The aim is to share ideas, promote various resources, make your learning more interesting... If you don't feel like doing what you're supposed to be doing, that's an excuse to do something random!

Edit: passages for translating into various languages are very welcome! (like in this thread) I just couldn't be bothered to come up with an example challenge:))


Please warn for potentially offensive stuff. There are no rules otherwise - if you're like Tom Sawyer and can convince people to do your (home)work for you, go ahead :P Just don't complain if you don't get the desired results!

Let's use this format:

LANGUAGE:
LEVEL: (optional)
CHALLENGE:

I'll post a couple of ideas now to make it clear what I mean. Everyone is welcome to contribute more!!!
You don't need to prove anyhow that you've done the challenge but you can.

LANGUAGE: any
CHALLENGE: watch a video in a difficult/unfamiliar dialect

LANGUAGE: any
CHALLENGE: do a fun test in your target language (a personality test, "what ... are you?" test etc)

LANGUAGE: Finnish
LEVEL: it would be interesting to see what a complete beginner can come up with, but this makes more sense if you're at least high beginner/low intermediate
CHALLENGE: the 4th post here

LANGUAGE: Spanish
LEVEL: probably intermediate
CHALLENGE: play this famous song on lyricstraining

LANGUAGE: any
CHALLENGE: write 50 or more words of erotic fiction
(no need to post it here but go ahead if you want)

Challenges for dabbling are also fine. Like this:

LANGUAGE: similar to one you understand well
CHALLENGE: read a poem

Edited by Serpent on 01 April 2012 at 3:47pm

9 persons have voted this message useful





Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6462 days ago

9078 posts - 16473 votes 
Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan
Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 2 of 22
02 April 2012 at 12:28am | IP Logged 
Problem is that I have done maybe half of those, though I can't prove always it - and once you have done something it can't be reused.   


CHALLENGE: watch a video in a difficult/unfamiliar dialect
I have watched Galician TV twice since my Mother got that digital box. And I learned to understand Scots mostly by watching Billy Connally crack dirty jokes on Youtube.


CHALLENGE: do a fun test in your target language (a personality test, "what ... are you?" test etc)
'Target language' includes English? I have done the geek test here trice ... and finally passed the 50% benchmark


LANGUAGE: Finnish
LEVEL: it would be interesting to see what a complete beginner can come up with, but this makes more sense if you're at least high beginner/low intermediate
CHALLENGE: the 4th post here
I have read a Finish grammar, but didn't come up with anything in particular at the time. However Finnish is a tempting project.


LANGUAGE: Spanish
LEVEL: probably intermediate
CHALLENGE: play this famous song on lyricstraining
Nope, and that won't happen


LANGUAGE: any
CHALLENGE: write 50 or more words of erotic fiction
(no need to post it here but go ahead if you want)
During my study time I wrote a travesty of Racine's Thésée in correct French alexandrins, where the Notre Dame Cathedral was playing the horny mother and Valéry Thésée d'Estaing played the poor innocent Theseus. I vaguely remember that somebody in the play was devoured by "les bêtes fauves" Mitterand and Marchais, but the manuscript has unfortunately disappeared. I'm pretto sure somebody also is killed by wild animals in Racine's version.


Challenges for dabbling are also fine. Like this:

LANGUAGE: similar to one you understand well
CHALLENGE: read a poem

Would Beowulf in Old English qualify? Or a poem in Caribbean English on a wall in a museum on Trinidad? If not, then I bought a collection of poems in Sardinian last year and read some of them (until I had to stop because of nausea)



Edited by Iversen on 19 April 2012 at 2:13pm

4 persons have voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6356 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 3 of 22
02 April 2012 at 1:13am | IP Logged 
lol!
You can suggest challenges though :) They can be as "boring" as a German-Danish wordlist... :) Many haven't tried your method I guess.
I never said the ideas can't be reused either. Anything that makes you study/practise more is a good thing!

Edited by Serpent on 02 April 2012 at 1:14am

1 person has voted this message useful



Billy Bob
Diglot
Groupie
Colombia
Joined 5042 days ago

48 posts - 57 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Turkish

 
 Message 4 of 22
02 April 2012 at 2:29am | IP Logged 
LANGUAGE: Turkish
CHALLENGE: Conduct an interview with a turkey that has been pardoned by the president.

Ok, seriously now:
LANGUAGE: any
CHALLENGE: Prepare dinner by following a recipe that you have never used in any language before.

LANGUAGE: any
CHALLENGE: Write at least 1,000 words of fanfic for a tv show/comic/whatever that you like.

LANGUAGE: any
CHALLENGE: Ask an old person about what things were like when they were young.

LANGUAGE: any
CHALLENGE: Explain the rules of a board game to someone who's never played it.
4 persons have voted this message useful



DaraghM
Diglot
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 5910 days ago

1947 posts - 2923 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian

 
 Message 5 of 22
02 April 2012 at 11:12am | IP Logged 
LANGUAGE: Multiple
CHALLENGE: Find the longest word which is an anagram of a word in a different language.

E.g.
English: Morose
Spanish: Oremos
1 person has voted this message useful





Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6462 days ago

9078 posts - 16473 votes 
Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan
Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 6 of 22
02 April 2012 at 12:39pm | IP Logged 
Challenge: listen to a recording in a language you know fairly well and get the general meaning. Listen again slowly and in small doses and hear what the speaker really said.

Example: I have just listened to a podcast from a Spanish newspaper about yesterday's switch-off-the-light-for-an-hour event. The lady mentioned some public places that had turned off their night floodlights for an hour for the sake of climate change. Nice and wellmeant and for a good cause and all that. Actually she said that the most 'emblematic' monuments (landmarks) had switched off the lights to remind people that there is a lot to do "por luchar por el cambio climático"... so the newspaper actually supports climate change?

Edited by Iversen on 02 April 2012 at 12:49pm

3 persons have voted this message useful



jellyfish
Triglot
Groupie
Japan
Joined 4544 days ago

50 posts - 70 votes 
Speaks: English, German*, Japanese
Studies: Thai, Persian, Russian

 
 Message 7 of 22
08 April 2012 at 10:34am | IP Logged 
Challenge: For one day, whenever you want to look something up on wikipedia, look it up in your TL (if available).

Edited by jellyfish on 08 April 2012 at 2:42pm

5 persons have voted this message useful





Mae
Trilingual Octoglot
Pro Member
Germany
Joined 4750 days ago

299 posts - 499 votes 
Speaks: German*, SpanishC2*, Swiss-German*, FrenchC2, EnglishC2, ItalianB2, Dutch, Portuguese
Studies: Russian, Swedish
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 8 of 22
08 April 2012 at 12:18pm | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
This thread is for any little challenges you want to suggest :) [...] LANGUAGE: similar to one you understand well

So here is my challenge:

LANGUAGE: Dutch (similar to German and Swiss German)
LEVEL: level you will reach after 3 months
CHALLENGE: Start learning Dutch from scratch and try to become fluent in 3 months

Serpent wrote:
The aim is to share ideas, promote various resources, make your learning more interesting... [...]
You don't need to prove anyhow that you've done the challenge but you can.


I write about my progress in my blog, but I'll come back here to post the result if some people want to know about it. I also started collecting useful links of resources, and I am trying out a new book type I never
used before. This challenge is unique to me, since I've never started learning a language alone (without tutors).

Why am I posting this?
I would like to encourage other language learners, to just start learning another language. I haven't done so before, because I feld I didn't have enough time to do so. This is also the reason why I didn't
participate to the latest 6 week challenge. Besides, I also had a bad feeling about starting something new, because I knew that I still had a lot of work to do for my Russian. It doesn't matter. As soon as it is fun,
and you're using your time to do something you love, it is ok. I really missed it, so I just took up. It is that simple.
So, what are you waiting for? Go for it!

EDIT: Instead of 3 months, you can also choose 3 weeks, or even 3 days!


Edited by Mae on 08 April 2012 at 12:21pm



1 person has voted this message useful



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