Learn-a-Language Special (Ft. Factorio) [GER]

[JimmyDubDub]

TLDR- I want to learn German but find Duolinguo-grinding lonely and half-complete. I'd like to make some friends and play a low-stakes game of Factorio where we may speak casually about anything in any language, but I force myself to communicate all game information in German.

Hi Forum,

I'm an Australian who usually plays this wonderful game singleplayer.
In Aus, we don't really have a strong culture for Bilingualism and learning new languages can be expensive and difficult; finding someone who is fluent in a language you want to learn and then coordinating the time required to learn it with them is a bit of a nightmare.

I was thinking about making a strong commitment to learning another language (I spent a good chunk of school learning Japanese) and German seems like a pretty cool European language to have a go at. One thing I lament is that as useful as rote-learned apps like Duolinguo are, they're not an actual person to practice with. I want to learn languages to speak to people, and apps just miss that social aspect.

So, if anyone is comfortable in German, and ideally English too, I'd like to invite you to a chill game of Factorio where the biggest challenge of the run is a language barrier! The rules are straightforward: All game-related communications must be spoken in German, any chatting on the side can be in either language.

I think that Factorio would be a great environment to trial-by-fire a new language in, and I'd love to meet like-minded factory nerds while doing it. Reply to this topic or DM me, and I'll get back to you and see if we can work something out.

Have a great day!
-Jim

[Natha]

This is a great idea and I would offer myself, but you have to consider timezones. Australia is 8-10 hours later than germany, so when I'm home from work you'll be asleep already, if you don't want to play your whole night
Weekend are the only possible days when playing in your afternoon and my forenoon.

[Kyralessa]

I'd be interested as well, though I'm not a fluent German speaker; I'm somewhere between B1 and B2. But same problem, what hours of the day would cover everybody?

[JimmyDubDub]

Hi folks! Thanks for posting replies. Here's some potential solutions for your consideration:
-I'm a distance runner who has to get up before dawn to practice; I could just add another super early start to my weekdays to work with your after work schedules, I'd just need to know how early we're talking.
-If we play a weekend game then I can practice some vocab over the weekdays, and then try it out in game.

Does that help at all?

[Kyralessa]

Germany's all in one time zone. What time zone are you in, in Australia?

[JimmyDubDub]

My Timezone is: Brisbane AEST (UTC+10). Brisbane doesn't do daylight savings, so I'll be 9 hours behind you guys Year-Round.

It's also probably a good idea to set a concrete goal/expectation so we know what we're looking at going in. Something like 'We'd play for four hours a week, for 8 weeks', but that's probably easier to organize over a call.

Any thoughts? And you you guys/girls have any hard work constraints?

[Kyralessa]

9 hours ahead, actually. Currently I'm writing this at 7:39am, and in Brisbane it's 16:39 (4:39pm). It's 9 hours later in Brisbane. We do Daylight Saving Time in Germany. Since we "spring forward" by setting our clocks an hour later, in that period your time would be 8 hours later.

So during the evening in Brisbane, here in Germany we'd be at work. But if you get up in the early morning as you say, it'll still be evening here; 5am in Brisbane is 8pm in Germany. And Saturdays and Sundays allow more flexibility.

What specific times are you available?

[Natha]

It's also probably a good idea to set a concrete goal/expectation so we know what we're looking at going in. Something like 'We'd play for four hours a week, for 8 weeks', but that's probably easier to organize over a call.

I wouldn't go for such a time-related goal, maybe even not for a game-related goal (starting a rocket). I'm a flexible guy and play if I have time and desire and don't want to enforce regularity as it is still a game and reallife is sometimes more important. Just do it as long it is funny...

[JimmyDubDub]

I wouldn't go for such a time-related goal, maybe even not for a game-related goal (starting a rocket). I'm a flexible guy and play if I have time and desire and don't want to enforce regularity as it is still a game and reallife is sometimes more important. Just do it as long it is funny...

Very fair. It's probably best to set a loose start time on a given day of the week that suits both schedules, and then just go from there.

I'm happy to add an extra very early start to my schedule. In that case, the only morning I can't do is Tuesday Morning BNE (Monday Evening GER).

I think we've hit the point where switching over to DM's is much more useful for getting a game underway. I'm going to start turning attention away from this forum because I've already got a lead or two. If you want to get involved or find an update, please shoot a direct message to my inbox and I'll get back to you!

Thanks everyone!
-Jim