Complementary Challenges

General discussion about learning languages
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coldrainwater
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Complementary Challenges

Postby coldrainwater » Sun May 21, 2017 4:51 am

We face a multitude of challenges while learning languages. I personally enjoy challenges, but alas, many challenges simply do not complement language learning. However, some do and I would like to get a feel for what sorts of challenges you have taken on personally which complement your language learning efforts?

I'll give one example of my own. I'd like to improve my handwriting by developing ambidexterity. For grammar studies in my TL, I am working though written output exercises. On a whim, I decided to try writing with my right hand and I found that doing so appears to complement rather than detract from my studies. With deliberate practice, I suspect that my ambidextrous handwriting skills will likely show improvement.

How about you? What complementary challenges have you taken on in conjunction with your language learning efforts and how did they go for you?
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Re: Complementary Challenges

Postby blaurebell » Sun May 21, 2017 11:12 am

I guess right now my main complementary activity are my PhD and studying tango music to turn my tango dancing into a priority again. For my PhD I need to read a lot of sources in different languages (German, English, Spanish, French, Russian) and I pick my sources so as to maximise the L2 training I get. For the tango I transcribe lyrics and then look up all the words I don't know. There is lots of 100yr old Argentinian slang in some of them, so I also have to ask my husband to explain certain expressions and he doesn't understand all of them himself. I also signed up for a very technical photography workshop in Spanish next month which should be lots of fun!
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Re: Complementary Challenges

Postby tarvos » Sun May 21, 2017 11:24 am

trying to survive being trans and having several diseases is enough for me lol
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Re: Complementary Challenges

Postby outcast » Sun May 21, 2017 12:45 pm

Besides wanting to be pretty good at very quick language switching with minimal warm-up period, I would like to learn how to use ubiquitous software like the major operating systems for PC, MAC, as well as Microsoft Office and just the general computing terms to run a computer in each of the languages I consider my core (FR, DE, ZH, PO). Computers are everywhere these days and I don't like when I am staring at a screen where the terms are over my head.
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Re: Complementary Challenges

Postby aokoye » Sun May 21, 2017 2:11 pm

tarvos wrote:trying to survive being trans and having several diseases is enough for me lol

As is becoming a new somewhat common phrase in my idiolect - yep, that right there.
Except in my case it isn't so much several diseases so much as severe depression and two really unfortunate knees that require a lot of PT.
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Re: Complementary Challenges

Postby aokoye » Sun May 21, 2017 2:20 pm

coldrainwater wrote:We face a multitude of challenges while learning languages. I personally enjoy challenges, but alas, many challenges simply do not complement language learning. However, some do and I would like to get a feel for what sorts of challenges you have taken on personally which complement your language learning efforts?
I do a fair amount of things other than learning languages but I wouldn't say any of them "complement" language learning - they're just other things I that I do.
In addition to dealing with the stuff in my previous post, there's also school, learning classical guitar, doing a lot of choral singing (this past week into Monday is especially busy), rehabbing my right knee and quilting, knitting, and spinning when my anhedonia isn't a total joke.
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coldrainwater
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Re: Complementary Challenges

Postby coldrainwater » Mon May 22, 2017 6:17 am

outcast wrote:Besides wanting to be pretty good at very quick language switching with minimal warm-up period, I would like to learn how to use ubiquitous software like the major operating systems for PC, MAC, as well as Microsoft Office and just the general computing terms to run a computer in each of the languages I consider my core (FR, DE, ZH, PO). Computers are everywhere these days and I don't like when I am staring at a screen where the terms are over my head.

This is near and dear to me as well since I am by trade a data analyst and work closely in IT. I have a tremendous amount of fun at the office with my L2 and it is worth the effort to make the switch (my written office environment normally only features English). I keep a table that specifically holds formula translations from my L1 to my L2 and I invoke it when I want to apply an Excel function that I haven't used. I find exploring Windows to be a lot more fun in foreign languages and I also like having my development environments with L2 skins. I dropped the topic to focus on ES right now, but in the future, I also plan to engage in computer science studies in a more formal capacity in Spanish. My career may be in IT but my education background is not. I have bookmarked one or three developer forums in ES for future perusal when the time is right.
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