Computer games are an excellent way to see how long someone can keep their mind on one thing. Why don’t we use this to our advantage to learn a language?
In this article, I will tell you what kinds of games I think are good for learning a language and give you a list of the ones I’ve found helpful. I hope that in the future, there will be more games that can be used in this way. Even better would be if developers made language learning a big part of game play. I’m sure that would make more people want to play games since today, many people see them as a way to waste time.
There are good games and bad games for learning a language
There are two kinds of games that are good for learning a language:
- Any online games where you have to talk to other players to win.
- Single-player games that are only fun to play if you know the language.
The first type is suitable for online games with shared passing because it gives players more reasons to talk to each other. In contrast to practicing with language partners, online tutoring, and language exchange, games always provide you with something to talk about, and you often need to pass important information quickly to win. Because of this, some online games are a great way to learn a language.
Here are a couple of real-life examples:
- Carl, a Danish boy, became the best English student in his class by playing World of Warcraft.
- A study by Paul Sevuki Rama shows that you can learn Spanish to the L2 level by playing computer games, especially World of Warcraft.
The second type of suitable online games is single-player games that you can’t play well if you don’t know the language. That is, shooters, role-playing games, racing games, strategy games, and sports simulators don’t belong in this category because you can usually play them without any sound. If you look at Skyrim as an example, the player can’t hear anything for a few hours while wandering through caves and killing goblins. A text quest is the best type of game in this category. Here is a list of games that I think are also good.
List of single-player games to learn a language
The list isn’t complete yet, so I hope you’ll add to it in the comments.
The following pattern will be used to list the games:
- The name of the game.
- The game’s minimum language level.
- Platforms that can be used.
- Briefly explain what the game is about.
- From the point of view of learning a language, there are pros and cons, so please list them.
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments
Minimum level: pre-intermediate.
Available platforms: Mac/Windows PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita.
One of the best ways to learn a language is through a game. Since the game’s story doesn’t go in a straight line, and you decide who killed the person and how to punish them, it’s important to understand what’s going on. And to do this, you have to carefully listen to and reread the dialogues, read all the letters, notes, articles in books, etc., and use the information you find to build an accurate picture of what happened (or else an innocent person will go to jail!).
It takes a little bit of time to look for clues. The developers did a good job in this way; you don’t have to spend hours looking for things all over the place.
Season one of The Walking Dead
Minimum level: intermediate.
Available platforms: Mac/Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, IOS, and Android are all platforms for this game.
The game is like a movie in that the plot changes based on what the player does. Most of the time, you have to listen to the conversations and decide which answer is best. You only have a short amount of time to choose dialogue. You have to read quickly and make a decision, or the character will just stop talking.
Season two of The Walking Dead
Minimum level: intermediate.
Available platforms: Windows, Mac, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, IOS, and Android are all platforms for this game.
The second part of the story. I mostly listened to what people said to each other.
The Wolf Among Us
Minimum level: intermediate
Available platforms: Windows, Mac, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, IOS, and Android are all platforms for this game.
Most of the time, you have to listen to the dialogue, make hard decisions, and watch how things progress, just like in Walking Dead. Good story, but the ending is a surprise.
Game of Thrones: a Telltale Games series
Minimum level: intermediate
Available platforms: Mac/Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, IOS, and Android are all platforms for this game.
A great way for fans of the series to improve their language skills. The game starts near the end of season 3, and you can interact with characters from the show who look and act a lot like they do in the show.
The Stanley Parable
Minimum level: pre-intermediate
Available platforms: Mac/Windows PC and Linux are platforms.
In the game, all you need to do is walk around and listen to the story. The story changes based on which door you walk through. There are 16 different ways for the game to end, so you can play it more than once.
Life is Strange
Minimum level: intermediate
Available platforms: Mac/Windows PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4,
The game is similar to the interactive movies made by Telltale Games (all of the games on this list except for Sherlock and Stanley), but it has a few advantages. The game lets you go back in time, which lets you change your choices and lead conversations more effectively. This feature lets people who are learning a language go back and listen to dialogues more than once to help them learn. The main character also keeps a diary where you can read about everything that happens to you, which is helpful in case you miss something.
Conclusion
Games are good for learning a language because they keep your mind on one thing for a long time. Basically, it doesn’t matter if you read “The Capital of Great Britain” or the dialogue subtitles in the game, or if you are talking to a tutor or another player who is a native speaker.
There are two kinds of games that can be used to learn:
- Online games that can only be played if you talk to other players. You can learn a foreign language in a fun way by playing games with people who speak that language. They give more topics and things to talk about so that information can be quickly passed on (in the target language).
- Single-player games that aren’t fun if you don’t know the language and make you work with the text most of the time.
The truth about learning foreign languages with the help of video-games
It is important to remember that success in learning foreign languages does not always depend on how much time you spend playing games or how much you spend studying textbooks. It is much more important to structure your knowledge instead of memorizing the dialogues from video games, you will never learn to speak fluently that way. Especially with a real person.
It’s for just such a case we’ve compiled all the information into a general guide and reflected it in the free mini-book below.
The guide will be clear and useful for beginners as well as for those who have been learning the language for a long time – everything is written in simple words. Best of all, our guide is completely free and you can read the book on your smartphone or computer while you’re away on business or at home.
Click the “get it now” button below to get access.
