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TAC 2013 - Team Viking -TEAM THREAD | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Kez Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4362 days ago 181 posts - 212 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English Studies: Swedish | Message 225 of 553 10 January 2013 at 6:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'll make the necessary changes tomorrow morning/afternoon. And I'll post it on the WordPress (or maybe in this thread, since not many people are on the WordPress website yet) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Gosiak Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5131 days ago 241 posts - 361 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, German Studies: Norwegian, Welsh | Message 226 of 553 10 January 2013 at 7:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Link to my log: Gosiak's TAC 2013
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 Mae Trilingual Octoglot Pro Member Germany Joined 4996 days ago 299 posts - 499 votes Speaks: German*, SpanishC2*, Swiss-German*, FrenchC2, EnglishC2, ItalianB2, Dutch, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Swedish Personal Language Map | Message 227 of 553 11 January 2013 at 12:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I still don't see my log in my profile, and I just can access trough the language log subforum or my posts list. Any mod out there? What happened?
Sounds good. Reward system? Hm... Here are some suggestions: - Give away the "Weekly Viking Award" to be posted in the member's log. - Nominate the "Viking Of The Month". - Award prizes/titles/levels/grades/ranks like in this forum "Newbie/Groupie/Senior" What do you think? EDIT: Gosiak, I added your log to our link list. Edited by Mae on 11 January 2013 at 12:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Gosiak Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5131 days ago 241 posts - 361 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, German Studies: Norwegian, Welsh | Message 228 of 553 11 January 2013 at 1:05am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thank you Mae!
Award system is a very good idea,everything that boosts motivation is welcome. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6908 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 229 of 553 11 January 2013 at 2:00am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I agree, an award system sounds good. I like the Weekly Viking Award, and the Viking of the Month title. Would we grant these titles/awards based on challenges only, or on other critieria as well, e.g. the most interesting post in the log, the highest number of study hours, or something else (I'm not in my creative mood ;))?
Ranks could be nice too (with some cool names): we could collect points for every challenge and advance in the rank system this way. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kez Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4362 days ago 181 posts - 212 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English Studies: Swedish | Message 230 of 553 11 January 2013 at 10:02am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Many, many, MANY thanks to LanguageSponge for making this list, hope he won't
kill us Vikings for using it ;) [Read his log, he is a very inspirational learner: http://how-to-learn-any- language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=34597&PN=1] Ranking system: 1. Thrall, a slave. 2. Freedman, a former slave who has been released from slavery. 3. Drang, a young warrior. 4. Theng, a mature warrior. 5. Skeppare, captain of a chiefly vessel. 6. Chieftain. 7. Viking King. Rank1 = [0-19 Challenges] Rank2 = [20-39 Challenges] Rank3 = [40-49 Challenges] Rank4 = [50-69 Challenges] Rank5 = [70-89 Challenges] Rank6 = [90-109 Challenges] Rank7 = [120 Challenges] Viking of the Week + Viking of the Month: Voting system, voting is based on challenges done, hours of input, log updates, activity etc. Achievements/Awards, for example: - Finish 10 challenges in 10 days. - Finish 20 challenges in 20 days. - Finish all beginner challenges. - Finish all advanced challenges. - Finish all challenges. I've tried to edit the list to fit for us Vikings, replace 'Scandinavian' with your target country/language. Beginner's list: 1. Write five sentences introducing yourself 2. Write three sentences about who you have in your family 3. Describe a friend in six sentences. What does she/he look like? What is she/he like as a person? 4. Give a five-sentence long description of the town or city you live in. 5. Which languages do you speak? How well do you speak them? Where did you learn them? 6. Where do you go on holiday? Write five sentences about your favourite destination. 7. Write four sentences about a holiday you enjoyed. Where did you go? What did you do? Who did you meet? What was the food like? 8. State five things you did yesterday. What did you do? Where were you? Who were you with? Record it for your teammates to listen to. 9. ------------------------- 10. Speak for a minute describing what you have done today. 11. Your Scandinavian pen friend has written to ask you what you want to do on your next visit to Scandinavian. Type a response with the main body of the note being no less than six sentences. Time yourself. How long did it take you to type your note? 12. You are having a bad day and have decided to vent your frustration on paper. Write five sentences mentioning the absence of something you need, or what you don't have. 13. Write out your shopping list in your Scandinavian Language and use it to go shopping. Only refer to your native or preferred language if absolutely necessary. 14. Write a short diary entry of your day in your Scandinavian Language. No less than three sentences per day if you decide to take up this particular Little Challenge! 15. Record yourself for as long as you need saying three to five sentences about a film you saw recently. 16. Describe an inspirational person in your life 17. What is your favourite time of year? Why? 18. Talk about what you intend to do tomorrow. 19. As a spoken activity, state your family's birthdays and what you got them for their birthdays last year. 20. Write a few sentences saying what you wanted to be when you grew up. 21. If you write a “to do” list every day, write it in your Scandinavian Language. 22. What was your favourite present you got for Christmas? Why? Talk about it as long as you can. 23. Listen to something unfamiliar but appropriate for your level in your Scandinavian language, but listen to it with something in the background e g the TV, people talking or a song playing. 24. What are your strengths and weaknesses? (Answer this like a normal person, not like you're on a job interview.) 25. Introduce yourself orally in your Scandinavian language. Try to speak for twenty seconds or longer. For every five seconds over the original thirty that you manage to keep on talking, reward yourself somehow. For example ten extra minutes studying a Wanderlust language. 26. Talk about your family for thirty seconds. Use the same reward system as above. 27. Describe the qualities of a good friend. 28. Stand in front of a mirror and practise pronouncing a sound that you typically have difficulty with. Pay attention to the shape of your mouth or the position of your tongue as you pronounce said sound, as appropriate. Find five common words which contain this letter and practise saying them. Until you become comfortable with the sound, use a few minutes of dead time every day to iron the error out. 29. Find something you've written before in another of your target languages and translate it into your Scandinavian language. The idea is that you should feel out of your depth and it should force you to up your game. 30. Next time you're late for something, explain what has made you late in your Scandinavian language. 31. Make a vocabulary list for a special cultural time of year in your or in another country. Examples would be Christmas, the Eisteddfod, Chinese New Year, the Oktoberfest, the Carnival of Venice or even just Pillow Fight Day! Now either talk about it for a few minutes using your new words or write something down. 32. Talk about your travel plans for 2013. 33. Find a song sung in your Scandinavian language that you like and learn the lyrics. Look up the key words, or the ones that interest you, and learn them. Try to drop them into your written and spoken Russian. 34. Record yourself speaking Ryour Scandinavian language for as long as you can and play it back. Make a note of any criticisms you have and record yourself again speaking about the same topic. Were you better the second time around? 35. Think up a list of nouns with irregular plural forms. Write a short story using only these irregular plurals. 36. Make a request of someone in your Scandinavian language– ask them for something, tell them to do something. Try these even with someone who don't speak the language – this will encourage them to pay attention to you and will give you lots of practice repeating the same thing! 37. As a speaking exercise, give the ages of everyone in your immediate family. 38. As you are going about your day, say a sentence in your Scandinavian language explaining either what you are doing now, just have done or are going to do soon. 39. The next time you pick up a phone to dial a number, say the number aloud in your Scandinavian language as you dial. Or if you cheat and use your phone memory, read the number out to yourself before pressing the call button. 40. Write five sentences about what your friend or a relative does on their day off or on the weekend. 41. You've just returned home after a weekend away. You left your eldest child/sibling in charge and they had a party. The house is a mess and there's lots missing. Write about what isn't there anymore. 42. State the languages you are thinking of studying next year and give the reasons why. 43. Describe a pet, an animal you like or a wild animal. Write at least 40 words. 44. Write the titles of five topics you find difficult to talk about in your Scandinavian language on little scraps of paper. Turn them over. Now close your eyes and scramble them up. Pick one and talk about it for thirty seconds. Every time you pick up a new card, increase the time you talk about the topic by ten seconds. 45. Describe an ambition you had when you were younger. Have you achieved it yet, or did it fizzle out as time wore on? 46. Listen to an excerpt of one of your Scandinavian audio courses. Use your imagination to continue the dialogue. 47. Write out all of the 'Scandinavian' prepositions of place that you can think of. Now direct your Russian friend through an imaginary town , telling them where buildings are. 48. Find a text that you've written and had corrected. Write it out by hand. Now type it out again while timing yourself. Record your time and retry it. Are you getting faster? 49. Find something written in your Scandinavian language and read it as slowly and clearly as you can. 50. What did you want to be when you grew up? 51. Talk about your day, trying to use as many of the different case forms that you've learn thus far as you can. 52. Imagine you found Aladdin's cave, and are now face-to-face with the magic genie. What would you wish for? Why? 53. For five minutes of your day today, try to express everything you think in your Scandinavian language. If you can't, make a note of the words you don't know, look them up and learn them as best you can. 54. Look out of the window and describe the weather. Is it raining? Snowing? Is it overcast or is the Sun shining? Does it look slippery outside? 55. What did you get for Christmas? What was your favourite Christmas present as a child? Was there something you looked forward to even more than opening presents on Christmas Day? Describe your Christmas Day. 56. Where do you think you'll be in five years' time? 57. Describe your favourite character from a TV series, film or book. Why are they your favourite character? 58. Describe your least favourite character from a TV series, film or book. What is it about them that makes you not like them? 59. Talk about something out of character that you did when you were younger. 60. Why were you given your first name? 61. Describe a difficult situation you have got into abroad 62. Write a short list of verbs which take the genitive, dative or instrumental cases. Now write a paragraph using some of those verbs. 63. Find a song you like in your Scandinavian language and transcribe the lyrics 64. Come up with a list of verbs and nouns, all of which have no more than three syllables in their base form. Now describe any situation using a minimum of ten words from each list. 65. Talk about an unusual hobby for no less than a minute. 66. ... Advanced List: 1. Write a full-length introduction of no less than half a page. Try to include elements of grammar that you presently find difficult or are unsure about. 2. Give a description of your family, writing no less than five sentences for each person mentioned. 3. Describe a childhood friend or someone you've known for a long time 4. Give a written description of your town in half a page. Do you prefer living in the country or in the city? Why? 5. Write about the languages you speak, what drew you to them and your affinity to those languages' cultures. 6. Look up Scandinavian tongue twisters for sounds that you find difficult to pronounce. Try to say them as quickly as you can without getting tongue-tied. 7. Write about your favourite holiday destinations and tell us why you enjoy said country so much. No less than half a page. 8. Write about previous holiday abroad or in your home country. Enchant us with it for half a page saying for example where you went, what you did, who you went with, why you chose to go there and what you enjoyed about the culture. 9. You are a fly on the wall throughout your parents' entire wedding day. What is going through your mind? 10. Your Scandinavian pen friend of five years has written to ask you what you what you want to do during your visit to Scandinavia this upcoming summer. Type a response of no less than half a page saying what you would like to do, what you think you will do and referencing what you did on your last visit. Time yourself. How long did it take you to write your letter? 11. Describe an occasion, recorded, where you helped someone who really needed it. 12. You're going through an old desk drawer and find a diary from when you were a child. You open it to a random page and find an entry about a special day in your life and start to reminisce. 13. You're having a bad day and decide to write a diary entry about it. No-one else should see it though, so it has to be written in your Scandinavian language! Write a short diary entry about what didn't happen, what went wrong, about the absence of something you needed or something you still don't have that you want. 14. Write out your shopping list in your Scandinavian language and use it to go shopping for real. Afterwards, cook something following a recipe written in your Scandinavian language. 15. Describe an occasion where something, or someone, surprised you. 16. Write a short essay of no less than 200 words on a hobby or interest. 17. Write no less than 100 words explaining what you wanted to be when you grew up. Include reasons and perhaps a distinct memory from the time. 18. Pick an interest other than languages and write no less than 200 words about it. 19. Brainstorm the grammatical features of your Scandinavian language that you find difficult to use but of which you have some knowledge. Now write three sentences using said grammar point and read them aloud afterwards. Repeat every day until that point of grammar becomes somewhat more natural. 20. Describe a pet or an imaginary one as if you had one. Describe what it looks like, what it likes doing, its funny habits, where it tends to hang around the house and anything descriptive you can think of. 21. Cook something following a Scandinavian recipe. Did it go well? Share it? 22. Describe the weather on a strange day. What happened? Were you expecting it? What problems did you come across? 23. The next time you don't know a word for something while speaking your Scandinavian language, describe it instead of just asking for the word outright. 24. Describe a trip to the hospital. 25. Read about an aspect of Scandinavian culture that you don't know very well. Now write a short piece about it, ideally with a view to letting us fellow nerds read it afterwards! 26. Describe your favourite wild animal. Where does it live? What does it eat? Is it dangerous? Is it unusual? Does it have an interesting defence mechanism like the chameleon or the dormouse? Does it hibernate? What are its migrations patterns if it migrates? Describe anything else you can think of that I've missed. Try for a minimum of 300 words. 27. Spend a minute day-dreaming about your ideal house. Now describe it in detail. 28. It's 2:30 am and you've had three missed phone calls from a friend. Worried, you call them back. Describe the phone conversation (orally) when your friend picks up. 29. Think of a colour that bears a symbolic meaning in your culture – for example red in China represents good fortune. Describe what the colour means and give examples of where we might see this in a real context. 30. Look into your Scandinavian language customs and superstitions and write about one that interest you. Do you have something similar in your own culture? 31. Describe a first time doing something – your first day of a new job, the first time you got on an aeroplane or your first day living on your own, for example. 32. Look through an old photo album and find a picture you like. Talk about what was happening at the time the picture was taken. 33. Talk about an occasion where you were proud of yourself. 34. We here must all be interested in Vikings, or else why would we be in Team Vikings? Read about an aspect of Scandinavian Vikings. 35. Think of a book you've read recently, preferably not in your Scandinavian language so you don't have the vocabulary crutch from the novel to lean on. Now write a book review, attempting to write in a more formal style. 36. Look at the Scandinavian news for the day and summarise an article. 37. Open a page in your vocabulary book or SRS deck. Close your eyes and pick out three random words. Write them down and tell a story using those three words. 38. Arrange a Skype chat with a fellow member of Team Viking or with a native Scandinavian speaker. Speak in your Scandinavian language for the entire duration of the call. 39. Find a Scandinavian article and read it as fast as you can. Time yourself. If you make a mistake, start again from the beginning of the sentence. 40. When did you first become interested in languages? 41. Talk about something ugly – war, hate, fear or cruelty for example – and find the silver lining in it. 42. Imagine waking up in hospital after an accident. You have lost all of your long-term memories. You don't remember how you came to be there or any of the people around you. What is going through your mind? How did you get here? 43. Write a synopsis of an episode of one of your favourite TV programmes. 44. Imagine you're a TV critic. Write a review of the episode described above. 45. You've been digging in your garden and you find a chest. Describe what you find inside. 46. You are a viking on a mission to explore new treasures. What can you see? Smell? Taste? Hear? Are you scared? Excited? What kind of life can you see? 47. Write a short poem in your Scandinavian language. 48. Sometimes you can hear a piece of music and be transported back to an earlier time in your mind. Think of such a song and describe where it takes you. Where are you? Who are you with? What are you doing? What can you see, smell, hear? Why does the song mean so much to you? 49. Record yourself retelling an occasion where you did something in a foreign language that you had not done in your native one. 50. Read about an aspect of Scandinavian history you like. Write a diary entry pretending to be someone from that time. 51. Look into a Scandinavian social issue and comment on it. 52. Write an academic-style essay on a topic of your choice, whether related to Scandinavian culture or not. 53. Describe where you think you will be in five, ten years' time. What will have changed in your life? 54. Describe a memorable coincidence. 55. If you could cook any meal for your family, what would you cook? Does it have a special meaning to you? 56. Think back to a time where you had to be brave and recount it. 57. Imagine you've been given access to one of the many fictitious time machines. What time would you go back to, what would you do and why? 58. Make a short recording in which you talk about a time when you were afraid. 59. Write a story of 29 sentences long. Each sentence must begin with a different letter of the alphabet. 60. Tell a story about a boring day where the weather keeps you indoors. What did you occupy yourself with? 61. Describe a memorable event and how it made you feel, but don't name the feeling. Let the feeling become apparent through your description. 62. Describe a memorable experience in a foreign language. How old were you? How did it make you feel? Where were you? What were you doing? 63. What were you like at languages at school? Did you enjoy them? Were they taught well? Did your teacher have an unusual teaching method? Did you like the teacher? Were they any good? Did languages at school discourage you from studying languages later on in life? Did you get anything out of your language education at school, whether language-related or otherwise? 64. Record yourself talking about a memorable childhood experience. 65. Watch a film. It doesn't have to be in your Scandinavian language or have subtitles. Watch and listen to everything carefully. When you see or hear something interesting that you don't know how to express in your Scandinavian language, write it down to look up later. 66. Watch the Scandinavian news. After watching a report that interested you, tell its story in your Scandinavian language and give a short commentary on it. 67. Look at something written in another Scandinavian language. Write down words you like the sound of and look them up. Do you know them in your Scandinavian language? Are there any words in the text that you can infer from your knowledge of your Scandinavian language? Look for roots in the text that you find interesting and look in a dictionary to see whether these roots still exist in some capacity in your Scandinavian language. 68. Find an interesting text in one of your other target languages and translate it into your Scandinavian language. Alternately when studying for said other target language, you could find a tekst in your Scandinavian language and translate it into that language. 69. Have you ever been to Scandinavia? What was it like? If you haven't, what do you imagine it to be like? Record your response so we can compare stories! 70. If you could only live with one of the five senses, which would you choose and why? Record your answer. Member Rankings: Yuhakko [Rank 1: Thrall, Challenges done: 0] Gosiak [Rank 1: Thrall, Challenges done: 0] Julie [Rank 1: Thrall, Challenges done: 0] Serpent [Rank 1: Thrall, Challenges done: 0] Mick33 [Rank 1: Thrall, Challenges done: 0] A3 [Rank 1: Thrall, Challenges done: 0] Jeff_lindqvist [Rank 1: Thrall, Challenges done: 0] Expugnator [Rank 1: Thrall, Challenges done: 0] Daegga [Rank 1: Thrall, Challenges done: 0] Ignis fatuus [Rank 1: Thrall, Challenges done: 0] Mae [Rank 1: Thrall, Challenges done: 0] Veel [Rank 1: Thrall, Challenges done: 0] Marya [Rank 1: Thrall, Challenges done: 0] Kez [Rank 1: Thrall, Challenges done: 0] Fasulye [Rank 1: Thrall, Challenges done: 0] Liddytime [Rank 1: Thrall, Challenges done: 0] Emme [Rank 1: Thrall, Challenges done: 0] Viking of the week: Viking of the month: I hope this is any good, it would be great if you all could read it and correct things, make up more challenges, (better) names for rankings, achievements etc. **********EDIT LATER *********** Beginner: - for the next 10 Wikipedia articles you'll read in any language, switch to your Scandinavian language and try reading the beginning of the article. (If there is no TL version of a given article, you simply wait for the next one.) - read 1000 words in total of original 'simple' Scandinavian articles, with no use of dictionary (e.g. Swedish 1, Swedish 2, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish 3) - find 10 items in your room whose names you don't know in your Scandinavian language, and learn them (including the article and the plural form) - find TV news in your Scandinavian language and watch 10 minutes a day, five days in a row - choose a city in the TL country and do research on the Internet, using your Scandinavian language only (how many inhabitants? what history? what tourist attractions? etc.). You may consider switching to TL Google to reduce the number of results in other languages. - switch the language to Scandinavian (on your mobile, operating system, browser, other software and/or social network services, depending on what is possible). - choose a letter and try to write as many words beginning with it as you can in two minutes. Do this for five letters in total. - choose randomly a word from a (paper) dictionary. Pronounce the word, read the translation/definition. Find a few examples of use on the Internet. Think of a possible situation/context where you could hear/see the word, or use it yourself. Decide whether you like the word and find it useful. Do it for three words. Beginner/Advanced: - satisfy your Scandinavian wanderlust! Read about a grammar issue of your choice in a Scandinavian language you don't learn. - satisfy your Scandinavian wanderlust again! Try reading an article in a Scandinavian language you don't learn. ********************************************* Må kraften var med dig! Edited by Kez on 11 January 2013 at 9:40pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Mae Trilingual Octoglot Pro Member Germany Joined 4996 days ago 299 posts - 499 votes Speaks: German*, SpanishC2*, Swiss-German*, FrenchC2, EnglishC2, ItalianB2, Dutch, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Swedish Personal Language Map | Message 231 of 553 11 January 2013 at 12:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Good job, Kez!
I was doing some brainstorming this morning, and wanted to propose The Runes Quest: There are 24 runes and we have 12 months until Total Annihilation. There are 150 challenges proposed so far. I'd suggest we pick 144 out of these, or add 18 more to have 168, and give away one "Rune" for every 6 resp. 7 Viking Challenges completed. Collect all runes ASAP. Awards for special achievements could be shields, helmets, axes or hammers in bronze, silver and gold. Great ranking suggestions, Kez! I'd just say the final rank/level should be "Viking King", and one step below "Chieftain" ;-) EDIT: What about separating ranks and awards? Edited by Mae on 11 January 2013 at 12:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kez Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4362 days ago 181 posts - 212 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English Studies: Swedish | Message 232 of 553 11 January 2013 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I like the Rune Quest idea. If we have a total of 144 challenges and give 1 rune per 6 challenges. Then we can also make achievements that incluse receiving a total of: 10, 15 & 20 runes or something.
Great idea aswell! Maybe something in the line of: Bronze Axe - Finish all beginner challenges. Silver Axe - Finish all advanced challenges. Gold Axe - Finish all challenges. Bronze Shield - Finish 30 challenges in XX days. Silver Shield - Finish 45 challenges in XX days. Gold Shield - Finish 60 challenges in XX days.
I changed the ranking system now, added Chieftain & Viking King. Maybe an idea for the ranking system could be this then: 1. Thrall, a slave. 2. Freedman, a former slave who has been released from slavery. 3. Drang, a young warrior. 4. Theng, a mature warrior. 5. Skeppare, captain of a chiefly vessel. 6. Chieftain. 7. Viking King. Rank1 = [0-4 Runes] Rank2 = [5-8 Runes] Rank3 = [9-12 Runes] Rank4 = [13-16 Runes] Rank5 = [17-20 Runes] Rank6 = [20-23 Runes] Rank7 = [24 Runes] 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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