Learning [written] Languages through AGs
 

I've heard several times, now, that Adventure Gaming has helped many people learn English. I imagine you'd need to be at least an intermediate to learn in this way and learn to associate the subtitles with spoken words.

I imagine games where you need to choose the write things to say in conversation, such as Monkey Island, would also be a big help because there'd be a fair amount of words you'd only see written. You'd need to work out their meanings before choosing the write one before having the opportunity to hear them and seeing the reactions of the other characters.

As somebody who’s interested in learning a language I can't help but think this might be a worthy option to consider at some point down the line.

Is there anybody here who has learned, or been aided in leaning, English (or any other language) through AGS or even any other genre of game? Or anybody who even knows of people who have done this? I'd really love to hear your experiences / anecdotes.

If a German- or French-language demo of a new game comes out before the English version, I'll sometimes download and play it (with subtitles on, of course) just to brush up on those languages. It's a good thing I have dictionaries to consult when I come across vocabulary I've either forgotten or am unfamiliar with. :D

My first English was "talk to king" and "move rock". Can you guess which game?

I used a hintbook, which allowed me to learn the phrases and understand the context but still enjoy the game...

I already had a little knowledge of the English language from movies. They are subtitled in our country instead of dubbed, which helps a lot. Of course I only knew how words sounded, not how they were written, so I remember spelling them phonetically as a kid. Adventure games taught me spelling and broadened my vocabulary. I started with the original Monkey Island. I think about a year later we got English in school. I scored 99% on my first exam.

I can say that videogames improved my english but not only that but also reinforced a bigger interest in the language. However it was a combination of both british tv channels and videogames.

One fond memory was when i was around 3 - 4 playing Mega Man 3, and after a boss you got the options either "level select" or "continue" (meaning you will repeat the freaking same level). Despite not being taughed to write i recognised the patterns in the option "continue" and got its meaning and ended up avoid it :p.

:D haha

I feel like such an idiot, reading you guys casually write about how English is your second language. I took 2 years of high school Spanish, and I can't do more than speak and spell maybe 50 sentences at most. :(

YOU feel like an idiot? I can't even speak my country's first language!

I remember playing Monkey Island when I was younger and wondering, after talking to the Men of Low Moral Fibre, how you could carry 'minutes' then found out they meant 'notes'. Also Gobliins taught me what a 'rung' was. There are quite a few but they're the memorable ones. Okay so they didn't teach me a language but they taught me new words and their uses.

I learned German for about five years. Sure, it was grades 5-9, but still you'd think I could theoretically at least, like, make my way around a tourist trip to Germany. However, I'm sure I could barely buy food there (yes, I know, you just pick it up, go to the cashier and say "danke schön!").

What the learning from books and movies and games is really about is getting accustomed to it. If you study a language and have the classes and all, but never have any use for it, unless you really devote time to it (which usually means at least using it somehow outside the studies) you just will not be that fluent in it. And if you are an English speaker, you will barely have any need for another language.

However, in a country like Finland, English is everywhere. There was a wise decision (yes, it really was a decision) made in the past that all foreign-language shows (aside from young childrens' shows) will be in their original language, with subtitles. And as Finnish is a very insignificant language (and Finland too small to have a great market share in like the gaming industry), there's none of the kinds of translation that happens in like Germany or France (that foreign language games are translated to the language in question), so there's really nothing aside from our own production in our own language.

And when you just keep hearing English (by far, far, far the most common foreign language, and probably at least just as common on TV as Finnish), you don't have to know much of it to get a "gut-feeling" of how the grammar works, and especially to get more vocabulary.

And here's a personal story: now, I've always been at the top of the English class, I'm rather fluent in it (indeed, greatly thanks to playing adventure games (and others), watching English TV shows and so forth). In the past few summers (and then reruns in the winter (odd, I know)) there's been a great Spanish show on TV here that I started watching back in the day. I've never had any lessons in Spanish, but since it has a grammar (as far as I know) very similar to English (more so than for example French or German, and they speak it rather clearly (unlike the French)) I've been able to pick up a lot of Spanish by simply watching that one show, and now am able to for example "get the jist" of many Spanish songs, by recognizing common terms and words here and there. I don't even always need the subtitles to get everything they're saying in the show (though it actually ended now, I'm sure they'll start the reruns soon :P)

As I said, you develop a gut-feeling of how things are supposed to go. If someone came to me and started talking about English grammar, asking me to give an example sentence of a certain grammar issue, I'd probably have no idea what that issue was, or explain how and why some thing goes the way it does. I couldn't say much that would make sense. The grammar rules of English are really difficult, insane even, absurd sometimes, bu when you just "internalize" it, it's so easy. I guess it's sort of the same thing as learning your native language in the first place. Hearing it all the time just ends up giving you a primal understanding of the language that just surpasses all usual grammatic teachings.

And that's part of why it's the absolutely, completely and unconditionally best choice not to keep dubbing the movies etc. that you get (of course with other reasons too).

Now, I'm sure there was something I was going to say before I went on rambling about this... Oh well. Enjoy the numerous parenthesis!

(Edit): Oh, well, I guess I could tie up one loose end and say that that's also part of why I'm not so good (actually, am quite bad) in German. There was no contact to it (aside from Der Alte, which I just couldn't really watch too much) outside of school, plus I've always been the kind of language-learner who doesn't really learn things by learning the grammatic rules of it by heart. It's also visible by the fact that even though I can barely make any intelligent sentences, there are things and terms, even quite difficult, I just automatically know what they mean, even if I then start to doubt myself. I can read or listen to German and understand some totally separate sentences and terms that are actually very far from basic. Especially if they however are commonly used.

(Edit2): And as I said, the one thing that these things really expand is the vocabulary. There are many things I've learned from AGs, but there's also some more uncommonly (in the kind of school English at least) used stuff I've learned from, say, Magic: the Gathering. Like 'trample' or 'haste' or 'capsize' etc (I'm sure I would've learned the first two some other way too, but when I was like in the sixth grade, these things weren't really taught).

Exactly! It's the same here in Belgium. However, there's been a decline in recent years. It started with kiddie cartoons on tv; they took over the dubbed versions they made in Holland. Now, no disrespect to the Dutch, but if the idea is to make it more understandable, than their dubbing is completely missing the point. Whoever can understand those squeaky, screaming, high, distorted voices deserves a medal (I admit I'm overgeneralising here; this is certainly not the case with everything).

Then suddenly they started doing it with animations running in cinemas. Then even regular movies but aimed at younger audiences. Luckily they still run the original version parallel to the dubbed ones.

At least in recent years we Flemish started to do our own dubbed versions, because sometimes there's a difference between Holland Dutch and Flemish Dutch. But sometimes I still don't understand what our own actors are saying.

So a while back I was bidding on "The Longest Journey" on eBay. Turned out it was a Holland dubbed version! Bought "Experience 112" and guess what: Holland dubbed as well! What's going on here?