Today's puzzles
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I was doing Wordle and the variants during the lockdown when they got so popular. A couple of years ago, I switched to Duolingo and am (slowly) learning Spanish.
It's interesting that getting it the habit of doing some fun brain work with my morning coffee made it effortless to shift into learning a language. Am I any good at it? Not really. I'm beginning to be able to read things written in Spanish, but I haven't had much practice talking and listening. After we move, I'm hoping to find a conversation group.
I wish there was a gamified and painless way to learn a lot of things. I would use the heck out of a Modern Physics app. I didn't take it in college and I've always been curious about it. Imagine an app where Schroedinger's Cat led you through the basics and gave you points for learning.
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@Mary-Anna said in Today's puzzles:
a gamified and painless way to learn a lot of thing
I think where most gamified tools fall short is in production. Like you said with DuoLingo, you're not going to improve much with speaking or writing, which are productive activities, whereas listening and reading and receptive activities.
It's much easier to use apps for receptive activities. For production, we generally need another person.
Altho, my kanji app is pretty good because you have to actually write (with a stylus or your finger) to play the game. That's one of the main reasons why I like it because I rarely actually write with a pen in daily life, and if I wasn't doing the game, my writing (kanji or character writing) would get rusty. Not a good thing for a Japanese teacher.
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@Mary-Anna said in Today's puzzles:
I'm beginning to be able to read things written in Spanish, but I haven't had much practice talking and listening. After we move, I'm hoping to find a conversation group.
How about me and my Peruvian girlfriend? We should get together now that warm weather is here.
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Ooh, an expert!
I may be a little out of sync with the way language learning generally happens, if I understand your post correctly. I think I'm progressing well in reading, which is receptive. However, I also think I'm probably a bit better at writing in Spanish (productive) than I am in conversation (both receptive and productive.)
The biggest learning curve I'm feeling on the app is building up my speed in doing various tasks. Otherwise, I can rock along pretty well.
I can write a sentence when I'm asked to do it. I'm a little slow, but this affects nobody but me.It is an issue, though when I'm trying to construct and say the same sentence in a conversation. In real life, there is the problem that people talk fast and use vocabulary and idioms I don't know. It's a train wreck unless the person speaks English well enough to help me through every freakin' sentence...phrase...word, actually.
My proudest Spanish moment came in an airport recently. The woman next to me asked if I spoke Spanish. I said, "Un poco." I was able to grasp that she wanted to know if the plane was delayed. I floundered around and came up with something like, "Si...avion...tarde...veinte minutos." It was ugly, but I think it got the job done.
The plane proceeded to be hours late, but I lost track of her. I hope she got where she was going.
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@jon-nyc said in Today's puzzles:
@Mary-Anna said in Today's puzzles:
I'm beginning to be able to read things written in Spanish, but I haven't had much practice talking and listening. After we move, I'm hoping to find a conversation group.
How about me and my Peruvian girlfriend? We should get together now that warm weather is here.
Absolutely!
We arrive in just over a week. The moving van will come...sometime after that. In less than two weeks, we hope. The remodel will be finished...sometime after that. It looks like the floors will be finished for sure and the countertops in the kitchen and bathrooms may be installed. The contractor is vague about what might need to be finished up after we get here. But it's happening!
We'll get in touch when we're in town and see when you two are available.
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My daughter recently introduced me to Spotle (spotle.io) and Bandle (bandle.app)....both music-related guessing games. I thought I had pretty good knowledge of modern pop music but apparently not, LOL -- and I have realized that my knoweldge of hip-hop is particularly bad! But I learn something new every day and have been exposed to a lot of music/artists I wasn't aware of.
I used to Wordle every day but the NYT stopped showing me my streaks/stats until I make an account and I don't want to make an account so I gave up.
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@Lisa I should try those apps!
@Mary-Anna talking with Jon and his girlfriend would be ideal!
@jon-nyc random comment: my (American) friend's husband is from Peru, but his family is Japanese (they immigrated to Peru and that's where he was born), and they met in S. Korea. He speaks English, Spanish (of course) and Korean, but not Japanese. She speaks English, Spanish, Korean and Japanese.
I love hanging out with them!
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@Mary-Anna said in Today's puzzles:
We arrive in just over a week. The moving van will come...sometime after that. In less than two weeks, we hope. The remodel will be finished...sometime after that. It looks like the floors will be finished for sure and the countertops in the kitchen and bathrooms may be installed. The contractor is vague about what might need to be finished up after we get here. But it's happening!
Safe travels! Can't wait to see a pic of the Evans crew in front of the new place after you've landed.
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@Mary-Anna said in Today's puzzles:
A couple of years ago, I switched to Duolingo and am (slowly) learning Spanish.
I started using Babbel to brush up on my Spanish (four years in high school), but got off track. Thanks for the reminder; I need to get back to it.
