So what's the serpent word, excluding all the expletives? Creativity? Greenlight? (a bit cheating there, but we can follow Germans' example and combine several words into one ;)
Oh, right, you have an old laptop; yeah, an antivirus would kill the performance for sure, but it could be a perfect opportunity to try out Linux (after checking online that your model is supported). The world of Linux distributions is confusing, but one that comes to mind is Linux Mint, it's known to be fast and user-friendly. I use Ubuntu MATE on my 8(?)years old Dell netbook (I like Ubuntu because whenever developers port their Windows software to other platforms, Ubuntu is the first (and often the only one) distribution they support).
(The Linux version of Scrivener is free, but unsupported, and not as functional as the official versions.)
But maybe it's indeed not the computer problem but the Wi-Fi? Does it work fine without the Internet? Oh and how about not using the browser-based version of Twitter but installing a standalone app, there's a bunch of them (e.g. Tweetdeck)?
Yeah, Google's own apps insist to stay in memory, no way to get rid of them without rooting the phone. Btw I got it mixed up - there are multiple choice questions in both versions of Duolingo, but writing exercises on the phone are replaced with building a sentence with already provided words, you just have to reorganize them in correct order. Slightly more challenging than choosing 1 out of 4 questions, but still a poor alternative to writing.
I used to learn German with Duolingo (Haha, me and my learning German... on and off for years, and still as far from the goal as ever), and was quite excited about it, but got bored after completing my tree. Then it's just repeating the same lessons over and over to keep them "golden"; and even though I still made mistakes, I didn't feel it was helping anymore. The authorities (real teachers) also say that Duolingo is just the first step, and it doesn't replace real studying; after completing the tree, there's no sense to stick with it, you should move forward.
The problem is, there are no other sites that are as nicely gamified as Duolingo. It's either boring old exercises which may not even keep your score, or games for total beginners. I know I should grow up, and just read more... I can read articles on familiar subjects almost without help - like this one - https://www.klopfers-web.de/blog_1371 (not buying the game yet, until the price drops, but looking forward to it ;) but mostly it's too much work, and without any external rewards like points and streaks and little ding sounds it's all so non-motivating... :(
(So yes, Duolingo is helpful, but only to some extent)
I missed Duolingo gamification so much that I started another course - Swedish ;) It was all right in the beginning, though considerably harder than German (maybe these years of sorta-learning were not completely useless), and then I lost motivation again :/ Also, I feel so guilty by spending time on non-essential things (not that I spend it on essential things instead, but at least I have more time for whining ;) Anyway, I guess if I'd plan to visit Sweden again, it's better to learn Arabic :( (Actually I wouldn't mind, as it's so useful overall, but I don't believe I'd ever get the hang of the script. If Duolingo ever adds the Arabic course, I'm game.)
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branchandroot
Re: Games without Frontiers
Date: 2017-04-01 06:02 pm (UTC)Oh, right, you have an old laptop; yeah, an antivirus would kill the performance for sure, but it could be a perfect opportunity to try out Linux (after checking online that your model is supported). The world of Linux distributions is confusing, but one that comes to mind is Linux Mint, it's known to be fast and user-friendly. I use Ubuntu MATE on my 8(?)years old Dell netbook (I like Ubuntu because whenever developers port their Windows software to other platforms, Ubuntu is the first (and often the only one) distribution they support).
(The Linux version of Scrivener is free, but unsupported, and not as functional as the official versions.)
But maybe it's indeed not the computer problem but the Wi-Fi? Does it work fine without the Internet? Oh and how about not using the browser-based version of Twitter but installing a standalone app, there's a bunch of them (e.g. Tweetdeck)?
Yeah, Google's own apps insist to stay in memory, no way to get rid of them without rooting the phone. Btw I got it mixed up - there are multiple choice questions in both versions of Duolingo, but writing exercises on the phone are replaced with building a sentence with already provided words, you just have to reorganize them in correct order. Slightly more challenging than choosing 1 out of 4 questions, but still a poor alternative to writing.
I used to learn German with Duolingo (Haha, me and my learning German... on and off for years, and still as far from the goal as ever), and was quite excited about it, but got bored after completing my tree. Then it's just repeating the same lessons over and over to keep them "golden"; and even though I still made mistakes, I didn't feel it was helping anymore. The authorities (real teachers) also say that Duolingo is just the first step, and it doesn't replace real studying; after completing the tree, there's no sense to stick with it, you should move forward.
The problem is, there are no other sites that are as nicely gamified as Duolingo. It's either boring old exercises which may not even keep your score, or games for total beginners. I know I should grow up, and just read more... I can read articles on familiar subjects almost without help - like this one - https://www.klopfers-web.de/blog_1371 (not buying the game yet, until the price drops, but looking forward to it ;) but mostly it's too much work, and without any external rewards like points and streaks and little ding sounds it's all so non-motivating... :(
(So yes, Duolingo is helpful, but only to some extent)
I missed Duolingo gamification so much that I started another course - Swedish ;) It was all right in the beginning, though considerably harder than German (maybe these years of sorta-learning were not completely useless), and then I lost motivation again :/ Also, I feel so guilty by spending time on non-essential things (not that I spend it on essential things instead, but at least I have more time for whining ;) Anyway, I guess if I'd plan to visit Sweden again, it's better to learn Arabic :( (Actually I wouldn't mind, as it's so useful overall, but I don't believe I'd ever get the hang of the script. If Duolingo ever adds the Arabic course, I'm game.)