Brain training games

[Chuckanut]

Studio l'italiano usando Duo Lingo.

Voglio parlare italiano abbastanza bene da impressionare i miei amici americani. Ma gli italiani pensano che io sono un imbicille quando parlo.

Non mi piacciono i giochi mentali.

 

[steelyman]

Totally forgot. I do the NYT mini crossword every day. It’s fairly easy. But I don’t always get it all. I will check out brainbashers. Thx

I was reading a book every few weeks for awhile but my current book I’ve had for a month. I’ve been very immersed in the baseball playoffs so haven’t been reading at night before bed like I like to do.

I also do the mini daily, takes 2 minutes max (it IS fairly easy). The full crossword is another matter - I haven’t finished one yet!

 

[Amethyst]

I consider crosswords, Duolingo, memorization etc. to be brain exercise - I can actually watch myself improve. You definitely could view a good crossword as "training," in that you often learn something new by researching the clues. Still, much as going to the gym won't keep you from getting Lou Gehrig's disease, doing puzzles does nothing to stave off dementia. I refuse to kid myself on that.

For a year, I did the NYT Spelling Bee and Crossword every day. Being pretty busy generally, I set myself a time limit of 20 minutes to get to "genius level" on the SB, a 10-minute time limit for the easy Monday/Tuesday crosswords, an hour for the Sunday crossword etc. Allowed myself 3 "cheats" (online sites that give you the answers). My mini-puzzle limit was less than 60 seconds. If I couldn't finish the game within my time limit, which occurred less and less often, I dropped it.

 

[Amethyst]

Besides manual dexterity, complex calculations, and understanding the physical properties of various materials, this would also give you that boost that comes from creating something new. For me, that's very important.

I build and fly radio control model airplanes. This involves building complex structures out of wood and they must be precisely aligned, or if the airplane flies at all it won't fly well. It involves artistry in designing the colors and graphics to cover it with (which I'll admit I'm not very good at). It requires understanding radio wave transmission and propagation or else you occasionally crash an airplane and have no idea why, and now computer radios, receivers, and even the speed controllers are programmable and updatable so you have to know how to do that, and I'm also one of the club's flight instructors.

Many is the full-scale pilot who has come to the model site and had a rude awakening when discovering that very little of the flying skills from full size aviation translate over to R/C models. Yours truly included.

 

[Which Roger]

Crosswords are another, but I'm currently on a break because I get annoyed at too many of the clues.

Annoyed at the clues? Can you elaborate? Enquiring minds want to know!

 

[Which Roger]

Crosswords and Scrabble. The latter vs the computer. When I win, I move up a level to make the computer a bit smarter. When I lose, I move down. That way my opponent is always equally skilled.

 

[Amethyst]

Me too. Do you despise purposely-scrambled letters in the answers as much as I do? It's annoying to look at the answers to yesterday's puzzle, which I couldn't even get a bite on, and see that the answers are deliberately mixed up (e.g. all are short the same two letters).

Annoyed at the clues? Can you elaborate? Enquiring minds want to know!

 

[TrvlBug]

KenKens are my favorite. Also Sudoku.

 

[Calico]

I do crossword puzzles, books of anagrams, and jigsaw puzzles.

I also always have a book or two going.

I tried Sudoku a couple of times but it never "clicked" with me.

 

[stepford]

The NYT crossword puzzles increase in difficulty every week from Monday though Saturday (Sunday isn't necessarily harder - it's just larger and usually has some overarching theme or gimmick). If you're trying to get into NYT puzzles try a few Monday/Tuesday's first and get a feel for how the puzzle editor thinks. Afterwards it should be easier to work your way up the week.

Sunday NYT also has "variety" puzzles (my favorites are Acrostics and "Puns and Anagrams"). I can't for the life of me do their "cryptic crosswords", though, which I gather are something like the old Times of London puzzles.

 

[RunningBum]

Annoyed at the clues? Can you elaborate? Enquiring minds want to know!

Maybe the answers more than the clues. The following aren't the best examples, but they all showed up in today's Washington Post puzzle.

- Abbreviations that can basically be any letters they choose to use, not just standard well-known abbreviations. Today: "Mag. Edition", answer is "Iss". I've seen a lot worse.

- Foreign words and Greek letters

- Plurals that are forced, basically never used that way. Today, for example: "Words in many law firm names", answer is "Ands".

- Answers used over and over. Today once again I see "ETAS" and "ETTA".

Those are my annoyances off the top of my head. So I've stopped doing the crosswords, at least for awhile. A glimpse at today's puzzle does nothing to bring me back.

I'll accept that I may be too sensitive about these, but only from those that do the crossword every day. Doing one puzzle like this wasn't a problem for me, but to see this kind of stuff day after day was just too much. Not fun, anyway.

 

[Which Roger]

Me too. Do you despise purposely-scrambled letters in the answers as much as I do? It's annoying to look at the answers to yesterday's puzzle, which I couldn't even get a bite on, and see that the answers are deliberately mixed up (e.g. all are short the same two letters).

Do you recall the title of the puzzle? That always provides a hint as to what the trick is. But I agree it makes things a lot more challenging.

 

[Amethyst]

As you've discovered, crossword creators tend to go back to the same short words with multiple vowels, over and over. OLEO and ALEE come to mind. It can't be easy, filling in a large geometric pattern with words day after day.

- Answers used over and over. Today once again I see "ETAS" and "ETTA".

.

 

[Ginny]

I play MahJongg two times a week for a few hours with friends. We are now playing Siamese or double MJ. There is memorization, strategy and socialization. Plus laughter!!

 

[Amethyst]

I don't - it was months ago. But I always parse the titles for such clues.

Do you recall the title of the puzzle? That always provides a hint as to what the trick is. But I agree it makes things a lot more challenging.

 

[Trailwalker]

I do Duolingo Spanish. My wife says I'm overly obsessed with it. I was over 600 in my daily streak and would climb mountains or drive to town for cell service on our vacations. I finally decided that was silly and stopped for a week for a break. Found out that skipping a week doesn't affect my status in the Diamond League so long as I go Sunday to Sunday. Still Diamond League for over two years.

Duolingo does make learning Spanish fun.

 

[FREE866]

I do Duolingo Spanish. My wife says I'm overly obsessed with it. I was over 600 in my daily streak and would climb mountains or drive to town for cell service on our vacations. I finally decided that was silly and stopped for a week for a break. Found out that skipping a week doesn't affect my status in the Diamond League so long as I go Sunday to Sunday. Still Diamond League for over two years.

Duolingo does make learning Spanish fun.

so 600 straight days? thats almost 2 years! are you now almost fluent in Spanish?


I'm 2 days in....really like it so far!

 

[Trailwalker]

so 600 straight days? thats almost 2 years! are you now almost fluent in Spanish?


I'm 2 days in....really like it so far!

.

I wish, but no. I took a couple of years in Spanish in high school and a couple of more years in college. And I've taken a bunch of trips to Mexico and Central America. Duolingo has brought everything back that I've forgotten and added some more on top of that, but I don't believe that I could be fluent without some immersion in a Spanish speaking country. I know enough to get by. Speaking the language is easier than comprehending rapidly-spoken Spanish by natives.

 

[audreyh1]

Try learning a foreign language. I've heard that that gives your brain a good workout.

I'm studying German at the moment.

omni

Yeah, foreign language learning is definitely a brain challenge.

Learning to play new music pieces on an instrument is too.

One presentation I watched said the brain had to learn new things/info to build new synapses, and indicated that puzzles or repetitive stuff used existing pathways but didn’t build new neurons.

I’ve worked on three languages since retiring - an ongoing process. I’ve also been building a new piano repertoire since since relearning piano a couple of years ago. I hadn’t played piano for 37 years, but it came back very quickly. Prior to that I had played classical guitar off and on.

 

[audreyh1]

My reading says, exercise is more important than brain training, for your brain functioning.

Physical exercise is very important for brain health as is maintaining good metabolic health.

Metabolic health is very important for avoiding dementia. Many experts now think dementia is due to the brain being starved of energy due to damage in the blood brain barrier which causes brain shrinkage/loss, and the energy crisis is often associated with insulin resistance and the associated chronic metabolic diseases such as T2 diabetes.

 

[audreyh1]

.

I wish, but no. I took a couple of years in Spanish in high school and a couple of more years in college. And I've taken a bunch of trips to Mexico and Central America. Duolingo has brought everything back that I've forgotten and added some more on top of that, but I don't believe that I could be fluent without some immersion in a Spanish speaking country. I know enough to get by. Speaking the language is easier than comprehending rapidly-spoken Spanish by natives.

Watching Spanish language TV helped my comprehension tremendously. Netflix has quite a few Spanish language series. Putting the captions on in Spanish very much helps too.

 

[audreyh1]

Studio l'italiano usando Duo Lingo.

Voglio parlare italiano abbastanza bene da impressionare i miei amici americani. Ma gli italiani pensano che io sono un imbicille quando parlo.

I actually understood that without using a translator!

25 years ago (ugh) I leveraged off my Spanish to do a 1 month crash course in what I called “Tourist Italian” as it’s so similar. It served me quite well - at least using and understanding the most basic stuff. And I guess I’ve retained some!

 

[FREE866]

Yeah, foreign language learning is definitely a brain challenge.

Learning to play new music pieces on an instrument is too.

One presentation I watched said the brain had to learn new things/info to build new synapses, and indicated that puzzles or repetitive stuff used existing pathways but didn’t build new neurons.

That's interesting about "building new synapses". I'm doing Duolingo for Spanish and 5 days in I'm really enjoying it. Also started deep stretching yoga about 5 months ago and like that too. It's hard!

 

[FREE866]

I like Duolingo, and I even like the way it nags me to do a lesson every day.
I'm up over 600 consecutive days now and I still enjoy the process.

Question braumeister ----do you have the Duolingo Plus subscription?
looks like its ~$7 a month after a 14 day trial period

 

[usafmd]

My reading says, exercise is more important than brain training, for your brain functioning.

He's correct. In fact Lumosity has been fined for implying that playing it's games staves off dementia.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2016/01/lumosity-pay-2-million-settle-ftc-deceptive-advertising-charges