Learning Languages through Video Games and Other Media

What's the best way to learn a language? Immersion, living and interacting with people.

I was playing a computer game I haven't played in awhile, and to make it interesting, I noticed you could play in French. I later thought, wow! This might literally be the best way to learn a new language!

As a video game, I am interacting with the characters, I have different dialogue options, and I hear how the language sounds is written, and very importantly, I pick up useful vocabulary and grammar, as the game uses speech that the french would be familiar to. It also makes the game feel like it's a different world! like living in another country since everything is written and spoken in french and not english.

What do you think of this idea and what are some of your own involving alternative learning styles to text books?

 

I learned basic English from computergames before I got taught English in school.

 

yeah? that's awesome, and how do you think it compared to your studies in school in terms of achieving fluency?

 

I can't imagine immersion being anything but frustrating if you have no foundation upon which to build.

I'm learning German.
The stages I went through thus far were something like

1) Vocabulary acquisition. I played a little flash card game online where the German word is shown and you type the English equivalent. When you get it right, a recording of a real native speaker saying the word would play. I also kept a notebook and would write down each new word I learned (physically writing things down with pen and paper helps me to learn better). I guess many people would consider this boring but I had a lot of fun discovering how to say familiar words in another language, and was fascinated by a lot of the translations (for instance, the German word for outer space is "Weltraum" which literally means world room, which I think is rather poetic).

After I had learned about 1000 words or so, the perceived efficacy of this seemed diminished and I felt ready to move on.

2) Grammar. After I had the building blocks of vocabulary, I started trying to understand how the language was structured and related it to my understanding of English. I did this for about a year trying to understand all the grammatical concepts that seemed important.

3) Application/Immersion. It is only now that I have the tools of vocabulary and grammatical comprehension that I feel ready to wield them effectively. I used to play video games but I started getting bored with them. Now I play them again, but only in German; otherwise I consider it a waste of time. I have a few novels that I've read in German. I write letters to some German-speaking family members, and I listen to things like DRadioWissen, German tv shows sometimes, and German Let's Plays on youtube.

If you like video games, watching Let's Plays in whatever language you are interested can be effective. It helps that the speaker is often talking about whatever is happening on-screen, so that way you have a visual cue of what is going on.


I think everyone learns differently, but that is what is working for me. Immersion was a relatively later stage.

One thing I'm interested in is learning as a systemic process. I am interested in two other languages as well, French and Russian, and I'm very curious to see if learning those languages will be a somewhat smoother ride due to the experience I've gained learning a 1st foreign language.

 

Personally, media doesn't work for me very well for learning a language. I like learning in a class and having peers to practice with. Once I have a solid base I like to go to where the language is spoken for full immersion.

 

A lot of people think they can learn German from Rammstein lyrics.
Good luck with that, seriously.

 

Can you learn German from Rammstein lyrics?

Nien! Nien! Nien!

 

i like kids programs , was watching this one for a while but lost the cable channel..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQZn67YZLkg"]El Perro Y El Gato: Vacation (HBO Latino) - YouTube

 

I think children will pick up a language far faster that way than an adult will. Children if exposed to languages tend to adapt very quickly to them especially when it is in a peer or fun situation such as a game.

 

It worked out pretty good. I always got the highest grades in my class for English. However, real fluency only comes from speaking with native speakers, because written school language is way different than spoken native language. Or computergame language for that matter.

Unlike most Dutch who get a lot of their English skills from American sitcoms, my English is much closer to the British English than the American English simply because I have been hanging around a lot more around Brits than Americans.

 

Really, Tally Ho, Pip, Pip, and all that sort of stuff


hotwater

 

No, more like using every possible form of 'fuck' before, after and in the middle of every word, innit?

 

You, Piaf and Asmodean speak English better than a lot of the native speakers on here.

 

My argument here, is you're interacting with real french peers online. Not peers who also DON'T know the language!

 

The Pimsleur Approach

Still mind numbingly boring, but it works.

 

having it taught to you as a toddler. it's kind of a proven fact that children that age are able to learn any language much faster than older people.

ideally, every preschooler should get chicken pox and learn at least one foreign language.

 

Reading children's books and watching children's programming is a great way to start out with a language. Get real conversational-style speech patterns down, basic vocabulary and start using it yourself. Music as well.

Then, I'd say get a good tutor or go into a program/class. You might do some basic grammar study before that. There a good number of games that help with that.

Then continue to up that. You need to go somewhere where you can use the language...go to a restaurant every week or more where you can speak the language, have skype chats in the language, someone get accustomed to being around the language and get comfortable speaking it yourself.

Then you might go on an immersion trip. There are many cultural areas in many countries where you can spend a decent amount of time only speaking a certain language. There may also be social clubs with people who speak the language or language exchange clubs.

 

I think TRAIN!!!!!

BTDubs, Train is Train in French too...this lesson brought to you by professor Ruby!

 

I took 3 years of French in high school AFTER I want to France so that didn't really help me while I was there.