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What Would You Do Without the Gadgets? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| NickJS Senior Member United Kingdom flickr.com/photos/sg Joined 4759 days ago 264 posts - 334 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 1 of 27 25 November 2011 at 3:11am | IP Logged |
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I've been thinking to myself, what would people do if technology such as smart phones
and laptops all disappeared in an instant - along with all your favourite language learning applications, websites and the such. Since I started learning languages I've become to love a couple of things technology brings, namely my Chinese radio on my phone, Anki and the vast amount of resources online. But I cant help thinking it could all just disappear (to be pessimistic) which leaves me thinking about how I would occupy my time. But that the same time I actually think it would be a good thing if it all disappeared as I know for a fact that I would 'get out' more as I did when I was younger and communicate in person a lot more that I currently do - not to mention I study more, as most of us here know, the internet consumes so much of our time on such silly things such as Facebook and gaming. So what would you do if you did not have technology any more? Would you miss it or see it as an actual opportunity, rather than a burden upon your language learning? Edited by Fasulye on 25 November 2011 at 8:36am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5031 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 2 of 27 25 November 2011 at 4:03am | IP Logged |
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Although I find technology to be quite helpful when learning languages, I think it does more harm than good sometimes. If I didn't have any technology, I would be forced to read more and go out more.
An interesting experiment would be to not use technology for a week, and see what happens. You could use your phone to make calls of course, but no computer, no ipad, no kindle, etc. Assuming your job or schooling didn't require it, I think it would be quite an eye opener for many of us. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5759 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 3 of 27 25 November 2011 at 4:29am | IP Logged |
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I studied Mandarin in college back when the common texts were the Yale Mirror and DeFrancis series.
VHS and Betamax were brand new back then. If todays' technology situation were the same then I would not be studying Mandarin now. Edited by Snowflake on 25 November 2011 at 5:46am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6397 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 4 of 27 25 November 2011 at 6:35am | IP Logged |
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:'((( would I get money to make up for this awfulness?
and would this involve even TV? not getting to see matches anywhere but at the stadium is such a horrible thought:'( if i had the money i'd travel A LOT. as of now i'd move to london, and then it would depend on my fave footballers' careers. eventually i'd probably move to lisbon because of Benfica. in general, for me the internet is also the main place to use languages. so if i had only my current opportunities to travel i'd stop learning languages. not to mention i'd be too depressed for that anyway, especially if i lost the contact with my online friends. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6382 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 5 of 27 25 November 2011 at 6:50am | IP Logged |
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I'd grab a sword I've got left my historical fencing days, strap some metal plates to my body and then go out and start gathering supplies. The apocalypse has come and those who are not ready will perish.
4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5134 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 6 of 27 25 November 2011 at 9:30am | IP Logged |
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Except for missing this forum, I think I would have done just fine, as long as I could use a tape recorder for audio. If all technology was banned, that would of course be a bit more tricky, but I still would have managed to find some language partners I suppose.
Otherwise I do not see any real problems, but of course I am a dinosaur, and remember the times where you would not even use the telephone to call your friends, you simply went to their house and knocked on their door to see if they were home. No technology needed :-) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Kisfroccs Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5209 days ago 388 posts - 549 votes Speaks: French*, German*, EnglishC1, Swiss-German, Hungarian Studies: Italian, Serbo-Croatian | Message 7 of 27 25 November 2011 at 11:09am | IP Logged |
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Ah ah ! I'm 20 years old, and I still can remember the days without Internet, and mobil phone, TV, let alone a smartphone. When I was little, I lived in a village, so television was out of option (or two channels...) because the village hadn't installed the cable. And our house couldn't have the satellit-thing because of trees blocking the access. But I don't regret a thing ! I was always out and had a really nice childhood :)
So, with 11, one classroom in our school had 2 computers (in 2002) and a teacher who had made an exchange in Canada made us an e-mail adresses. I still remember the moment - that we didn't knew why we should have an e-mail adress, if most of us didn't had a computer at home (in the family), let alone Internet ! At this time, nobody had an mobil phone under the kids. Most of use got one when we were between 14 and 16 years old, because the parents didn't see why we should have one. Now, I have a laptop, an iPod and a mobil phone. I could easily live without mobil phone, I practically don't use it, and drive my mother crazy with it, because I never have it with me. I do still have a phone card ! In case... A laptop... I guess I could live personally without it, it doesn't bother me not to use it for a few days. Although I've come to a stadium where it itches to check my mails, because I hate to let them unrespondered for my work... My iPod is trickier... I'm really addicted to music. If I don't listen regurlarly to music, I'm physically in need :) But for language learning I really prefer to work with books ! And people... so there would be no harm done without technology :) Kisfröccs Edited by Kisfroccs on 25 November 2011 at 11:10am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5203 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 8 of 27 25 November 2011 at 1:19pm | IP Logged |
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Well, I grew up in a war-torn country, in a village, with electricity restrictions,
home-made soap and bread, and almost no gasoline. So, would I miss technology? Not that much. In fact, even with my computer I learn the old fashioned way. I download a copy of TY or some other course and then use it just like a regular book. The only thing different I guess would be to make my own flashcards instead of using Anki. You get the picture. I many times thought of deleting all my on-line accounts and use the computer only to listen to music or watch movies, but I can go without that too, since my mom left me a ton of old vinyl records. And I don't even own a TV. :3 Plus I don't even know what "smart phones" are, nor any of the technology with the prefix "i". All I got is an archaic MP3 player and a cell phone that can go through a cement mixer and come out undamaged, but you can't listen to music on it, and the only game on it is Sudoku. I'm 23 btw. Edited by Delodephius on 25 November 2011 at 1:24pm 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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