30:30 Vocabulary Challenge - July 2023

[coldrainwater]

In response to postponing the challenge, I am flexible and can potentially defer a prepared list to September instead of August as needed (or do it both months with two separate lists). I haven't the foggiest idea what a bi-monthly grammar challenge would look like to complement this challenge, but having one has been on my mind since multiple people now have mentioned how this challenge cuts into grammar time (in German that would be Hammer time officially I suppose). Having such a challenge would also bolster participation since different members may be more interested in grammar than are interested in vocab and vice-versa.

Every two months would work also. Via the knuckle rule, July and August are the only months with 31 days that fall consecutively (edit: Nogon mentioned January and December as well). Doing it every other month would make for a precise six challenges per year, whereas the current rule makes for seven every year. Having some extra flexibility on the exact test date is also probably worthwhile since, for some people, month-end can be super busy on the last day or the first day but not necessarily both (think accounting for example). Lots of ideas are possible and most seem like they would work fine.

[untrucdeouf]

In response to postponing the challenge, I am flexible and can potentially defer a prepared list to September instead of August as needed (or do it both months with two separate lists). I haven't the foggiest idea what a bi-monthly grammar challenge would look like to complement this challenge, but having one has been on my mind since multiple people now have mentioned how this challenge cuts into grammar time (in German that would be Hammer time officially I suppose). Having such a challenge would also bolster participation since different members may be more interested in grammar than are interested in vocab and vice-versa.

I really like the idea of doing alternating vocabulary and grammar challenges, since I also feel like my grammar study fell off a bit this month. It's difficult to think of how it might be set up -- languages have such different grammatical structures that it seems like it would be hard to create a grammar challenge as fun or as simple as this vocabulary challenge that would work for everyone's target language. Something time-based would possibly work (30 minutes of dedicated grammar study per day for 30 days, for instance) but I'm personally less drawn to a challenge like that, and it's missing the end-of-month testing component that this vocab challenge includes. Something to think about further...

[Teango]

You can count me in with Japanese for August, but let's be clear from the get-go...I ain't gettin' on no plane, Hannibal!

[Mista]

Actually, this kind of challenge would work very well with the kind of thing I'm planning to do next month. One of the things we are supposed to learn for my exam is the participle system in Russian, which has four different participles and a gerund, and the formation of them often varies a bit depending on the class of verb. I have a decent overview of the system, but the tricky part is actually being able to form the correct form of a particular verb. So this is what I'm going to work on now.

I have started to go through my "501 Russian verbs" book, picking the verbs I know or should know. I enter the infinitive into my spread sheet, together with the participal forms of the verb, so that each row has all the forms of one verb. What I'm going to do next is to work on these column by column in Quizlet, in the same way that I'm currently doing with the vocabulary: I'll have the program give me the infinitive, and then I have to produce the present active participle of that verb, for example. This can of course be done with any part of the morphological system of any languages (to the extent that a given language has any of it): present tense paradigm, past tense forms, cases, etc.

For languages with a lot of morphology, like Russian definitely is, I see this type of thing as a very natural companion to a vocabulary challenge like the one we are doing now, because you need the morphology to start using those words.

[Nogon]

Via the knuckle rule, July and August are the only months with 31 days that fall consecutively.

December and January are another pair of 31-days-months.

[coldrainwater]

Thanks for the correction Nogon! I knew I probably wouldn't get any dates out of this nor do I handle them particularly well when I do have them.

To the group as a whole, here is a link to my French list that I plan to use for the next challenge: 30:30 Vocabulary Challenge - FR. I have more work to do on it but need to pause and focus on the current month. Feel free to use or borrow from it as desired. Entries are from Wiktionary.

Edit: restored broken link.

[untrucdeouf]

My favourite words from the challenge aren't nearly as fun as @coldrainwater's -- as a beginner, most of my list is comprised of words that are prosaic, useful, and dull -- but here are a few I especially enjoyed learning:

paboreal - peacock (from pabo [turkey] + real, lit. 'royal turkey')
tumba-tumba - rocking chair (from the root word ‘tumba’, to fall down)
tiktilaok - cock-a-doodle-doo
ngiyaw - meow
isip talangka - crab mentality

It's always endlessly fascinating to me to learn what onomatopoetic animal sounds are in other languages.

Would be curious to see other's favourites from this month as well!

[rdearman]

Tomorrow, the 31st is scoring day! Don't forget to take your test and post the results here! Also, because August is another 31 day month, and to keep this thread from getting too cluttered, I opened a new thread for people to sign up for next month.

https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 21&t=19316

[rdearman]

Scoring day.

A very disappointing 18 out of 900 for me. It should have been closer to 50, but my spelling let me down, for example I could remember how to spell 월 (month) and so that let me down for 12 words, Jan, Feb, etc. But given that I gave up about 1/2 way through, I'm surprised I remembered (and spelled correctly) as many as I did.

[Anya]

146 out of 383 (TL-»NL)