211 Teaching New Languages Through Regular Games

A series a games designed to subtly teach you additional languages.

After playing the Italia-centeric trilogy of Assassin’s Creed (Brotherhood was my favorite), I was for a few months following unnaturally interested in Italian culture and language. While playing, I had picked up many words and phrases from the suave but respectable hero, Ezio Auditore. This basic entry point into the language made me interested enough to download Duolingo and spend a few months learning the basics of Italian.

I think there could be other ways to encourage this type of learning inside of non-educational focused games. In the RPG genre, branching out from familiar locales could help. Persona 4 (or, any JRPG that made its way to the West, I suppose) does a great job of this. Although the game is set in Japan, all the characters still speak in English to make it accessible. However, all the locations are in Japanese, as well as the culture, mannerisms, and colloquial conversations. This helps to make the game accessible while also, in a way, forcing the player to learn certain things about the Japanese culture and language.

Although I don’t have an obvious solution, I think there could be methods of incorporating more globalism into games.

[ Today I Was Playing: Persona 4: Golden ]

#educational-game, #experimental-game