A language learners’ forum

reineke wrote:

Ser wrote:

lavengro wrote:Quick question: to reproduce the squiggly characters...even more gibberishy...without a cat.

...

Back in the day we used pen and paper.

Yeah, about that... For this Christmas that just passed, I found myself writing some Christmas cards by hand, and I was surprised by how awkward that felt. I don't think I had written anything by hand in about 6 or 7 months. And I'm not saying this with a "look at how hip and modern I am!" kind of tone, I'm saying this with an "it's awful how dependent I've become on computers" kind of tone. There is beauty in the physical dependency of storing information on paper, plus security-wise you never really know whether anything you type on a keyboard is being stored elsewhere against your consent.

Wanna hear a horror story? There have been thieves out there going after bank clients' accounts since the 1990s who possess electrical sensors so fine that they can detect what keys are being pressed in an ATM from far away, simply from the electromagnetic energy sent onto the air by the ATM keypad, as long as there is not much electromagnetic noise coming from other nearby keypads or keyboards. I shouldn't need to say this but technology is not always progress or more secure than good old simple tools like pen and paper...


Anyway, I just finished units 1 and 2 from the Old English textbook. Gotta get ready for that new life when I get tired with today's tech horrors and go back in time to early medieval Wessex and its sweet iron age tech. I admit I'll miss my dentist though.

iguanamon wrote:Being one who almost never participates in challenges, nor dabbles, this one looks interesting to me. I have the book, and now an account at TY for the audio. It's a shame there's no DLI course for Old English. OK, maybe they're learning it at area 51 where the time machine is. Hope they don't accidentally kill one of my ancestors or a butterfly- oops, did I just write that? Please disregard this erroneous statement. There is no such thing as time travel... except in books, archaeology, historic tourism. That's my story.

No such thing as time travel? Not necessarily so, although we don't have and are not going to have access to the kind of energy and sturdy materials that may be needed for time travel any time soon (even in the form of tiny observer nanobots).

Well I made it through lesson 3, then got sidetracked reading “Christ A” because Advent, then found I need a dictionary...but got interrupted with actual work yesterday so I neither read the whole poem nor bought a dictionary, but it’s still on the table. Picking back up with the 4th unit today or tomorrow.

I got sick and missed a couple of days. I'm refocusing on just blasting through the book quickly. What a cool language, which gives a look into a strange world.
I'm still back at lesson 4, but I'm going to move on quickly, now that my cold has been beaten back.

I'm also behind, but thankfully not due to sickness, but because I have all of my kids (4) plus one girlfriend (my son's, not mine; wife wouldn't approve) in the house. So nice and loud. I love it! What a great Christmas/New Years.

I did unit 4 today and will do unit 5 tomorrow. And will catch up after the 3rd as they all leave then, besides the 16-year old of course.

My Old English fell completely off the back of the cart over the last little while - unexpected obligations - but I should be back at it within a few days.

I seriously over-estimated my ability to do this with all my kids in the house! I have managed just barely 30 minutes each day of these holidays doing something with language, but not always Old English. I'm still on chapter 5.

But, all the add-on/extra kids (read: adults) depart tomorrow and while that makes me sad, it will allow me to get back to serious study, reading, swimming, etc. My aim now is to get through Ch. 10 by next Sunday.

Chapter 6!!!

Tomorrow.

I'm moving way too slowly... I'm on five still.
I keep getting distracted by books about the period and articles about the language, which of course take away from actually studying the language.

Well, I failed epically on this challenge. Don't know about you guys. I seriously overestimated the time I'd have during the holidays with 4-5 kids in the house. I got through five chapters, that's it! I did do each diligently though. Did all the exercises and such. Loved it. Just most days I only got my 30 minutes of Esperanto listening in and that's it. Maybe some Russian at work. But when I'd come home, party-time with the kids!

I will return to this book. I really like how it is set up and the audio is a bonus. By the end of lesson 5, I really felt like I could understand a lot of the readings. Someday Beowulf?!

How about you guys? How far did you get? Did you like it?

You know, Iron Mike, life gets in the way of challenges. I was in Puerto Rico with the earthquakes. Lost electricity and took up your fitness challenge by climbing 16 flights of stairs with bags (at least three trips for both of us!) to get to our condo- the elevator was out of course. Waited in a gas (petrol) line for an hour and a half. Got hosed over by an airline. There's more. I could complain but it wouldn't do any good.

I've made it to Chapter 5. I like the gentle introduction to the language. The audio really helps tie things together. Over the next few months, I'll be going through the chapters. Challenges are almost always this way. We think we can do them but they almost always make us bite off way more than we can chew. I mostly avoid them for this reason. Still, it looked reasonable at the time. .