How to Learn languages with video games

[@Pakanahymni]

I think that if the game doesn't have full audio in the target language, it's useless for this purpose.

[@FingtamLanguages]

But reading in your target language can be just as useful as listening!

[@Pakanahymni]

No, not really. On-line comprehension of recorded speech is completely different from seeing words on a page, they are served by different neural mechanisms. You are doing your viewers a disservice by conflating these two.

[@FingtamLanguages]

No. You’re wrong. Of course, I respect your right to learn languages in whatever way you see fit, but it is just wrong to say that this method will not be useful to anyone. However, I do value different opinions, and I want to sincerely thank you for bringing this up so that others can see both sides of the argument. (I am pinning this thread to the top so that others can see it and decide for themselves whether they think this method is useful or not.)

[@NongNyu]

I think it depends on the language. For me, if I'm learning Japanese through games I need the Japanese voice lines as well. Otherwise I'd never understand every Kanji they use. Also if you're upper intermediate or advanced (in other languages) you can practice your reading abilities through games without spoken lines. I imagine that you tend to just listen and stop reading, if everything is voiced.

[@marcosjimenez2793]

I think it depends on your language. With a language like German it would be easy because the words sound just like they're spelled. But in French it would be a little more difficult. I wouldn't say it's useless. Playing Pokemon in German has helped me retain some words.

[@MystaHector]

The Sims for vocab: Parts of body Clothes Furniture Jobs Basic everyday actions Needs Traits AND SO MUCH MORE. Sims are just great.

[@nanuk1334]

How much did you pay for this??

[@cristian-bull]

I learned english thanks to videogames. Now I decided to learn German, and went all in from day 1 with Breath Of The Wild. It was horrible at the beginning. 370+ hours later I have not beaten the game, but now I understand most of what they say.

[@iknowcharley5]

haha

[@black_horse_lover2655]

That’s epic!

[@engamered2440]

I was always worried and scared to talk in English to English native speakers. I love playing League of Legends and one day I met a nice teammate from Canada. We played so good together and he offered to talk in voice chat, so we can play even better. I know some words from the game but I wasn't sure that I could talk about other things. After 2 or 3 games I was so happy that I can talk in English and he would understand everything I say. Soon we became a full team with people from Europe and North America. We started playing together with others and they would always understand me too. I love League of Legends and I felt really confident talking in English about something I love. If you love games, you can communicate with new people every time you play the game. They are not always nice and sometimes toxic, but at least you can learn the bad words too xD

[@Dbambini]

I learned english by playing roblox I regret playing that game

[@schleybailey]

Dude that probably fucked your English more than it helped. I've seen those servers first hand.

[@mattyarce7424]

I played the Last of Us Remastered in Portuguese. It helped me maintain my vocabulary

[@FingtamLanguages]

Yeah, I passed a long road trip in the back seat playing Heroes of Might and Magic in French today. I forgot how useful this technique is.

[@david_contente]

Que bom que está estudando português. Aprendeu muitas palavras?

[@robsonmachado2703]

If you wanna learn portuguese we can exchange. I need learn english to travel.

[@psary644]

I'm speak portuguese and try to learn english with video games

[@BadWolfSilence]

I enjoy watching playthroughs of games in Spanish too. Not only do you get the commentary of the player in Spanish ( which is sometimes easier to understand than other types of videos because you have the context of what’s happening in the game itself to go with it ) but the games usually have the subtitles on so you can read that Spanish as well! If you know how to search for videos in your target language, Let’s Plays are a great way to learn Spanish with video games.

[@toiletking8442]

I am native speaker Spanish and I search people native speaker's english I want learn english. Can you help me with english and I'll help you with your spanish a language change?

[@duamilli]

that is so smart

[@SeaboltSpeaks]

100% agree on the flashcard thing. Just because it translates as something, doesn't mean it cant be used in multiple different contex's. Grand video!

[@FingtamLanguages]

Thanks brother!

[@Mvjesty23]

When I was 4 I learned to read using video games… I should try this for my new languages

[@solidbanjobanjo9367]

Just to help out those confused about how to change the language of a game on steam do this. Right click the game you want to play, choose properties, then you will find a tab for languages, choose the language you want, steam may then have to download a language pack and you’re good 😋

[@FingtamLanguages]

Thanks for the help!

[@solidbanjobanjo9367]

Fingtam Languages de Nada !

[@michaelshort2388]

It sucks that so few games are in Swedish. I guess because most swedes speak perfect English so game deveopers dont really need to put their games in Swedish lol

[@FingtamLanguages]

Yeah, it's uncanny how well Scandinavians speak English. I'm totally jealous.

[@nadurokorte9917]

Fingtam Languages please don't be lol

[@jamalcharles9533]

Of you're into older games, romhacking.net does have patches to translate games into Swedish. Admittedly it's not a large list but it's growing. Here's the full list of Swedish patches. www.romhacking.net/?page=translations&genre=&platform=&status=&languageid=13&perpage=200&order=&dir=&title=&author=&transsearch=Go

[@WonderousSmiles]

Sorry for replying to an old comment, but that's my current mood. Lmao Thank goodness they have a Swedish version of The Sims though. I've already picked up three different words today xP

[@wok.7726]

I guess one of the best options for dialogue based games are Japanese novels. There are a lot of visual novels that have been translated into different languages, making them suitable for learners at the pre-intermediate level.

[@Garfield_Minecraft]

I learned Enchantment table En+Chant=enchant(verb) Enchant+ment=enchantment(noun) Enchantment table I think using video game in learning language is for A2-B1 is good proficiency level to use game for learning langauge

[@dylanstuckey1835]

I did this with Detroit become human for German and it moved me up from a A2 to B1 in proficiency

[@maxwell6898]

Thank you for your honest perspective. Your video, along with other sites I have found, is helping me to compile a "video game curriculum" for spanish learning. Gracias

[@FingtamLanguages]

Glad to hear it! Thanks for the comment! How long have you been learning Spanish?

[@thelegendofsean5782]

Most console games today actually already come with localizations in different languages in audio, text, and subtitles!

[@YoutubeIsAwesome]

I am playing "The Urbz" with the visualboy emulator and man, so many spanish words I was not aware of at all that I would never find in literary books (because The Urbz for GBA is a game set in a late 1990\2000's city, so the language spoken by the character is actual). A good tip is to jot down ALL the words you don't know in a contextual way by placing the "mother" word above with the "daugher\son" words below, with the most common used word first: For instance: Water = Agua River^ = Rio (and synonims\other types of rivers) Lake ^ = lago (and synonims\other types of lakes) Sea = Mar (and synonims\other types of seas) It helps massively

[@thornprick2645]

I love that word tree idea!

[@ajrollo1437]

With Nintendo systems, if you set the system language to x, games will automatically switch. Almost every single North American game has English, Spanish, and French support at the least.

[@FingtamLanguages]

Whoa, that’s cool! Thanks, I didn’t know that!

[@ConlinRei]

I've been playing Overwatch in Japanese and it's really been helping a lot, but that's probably because I'm so familiar with the English, so I know how the Japanese translates better in my head!

[@user-Korpan]

but you probably only play hanzo or ganji who speaks japanese anyway!! Joking, chill

[@RuNZiT1]

I’m dropping OW lol.

[@viniciusoliveira7236]

I think Minecraft is the best way to improve a language using this gaming method. I began to play the game in esperanto and suddenly I noticed that I have improved a lot! Minecraft has an excellent amount of languages (even conlangs) to choose.

[@MintWeaver]

Just change my Ps4 console language into german today, this should bring a new difficult to the game I'm playing now (RDR 2)

[@AKIRTV9]

how was ur experience i may do this with french?

[@andresescobar4832]

@@AKIRTV9 I'm on the same way. I don't know if switch my PS4 language to french will help me. I need help, I really wanna learn french

[@Calisthenics_Warrior]

@@andresescobar4832 but you need to play a videogame that the characters speaks in Franch because red dead redemption 2 is just in english

[@Zenhitbro]

From mi point of view this form to learn languages are the best, i speak native spanish, but i am learning English playing videogames. Buen video!

[@lazaromsousa]

Would you recommend some specific video games for beginners, intermediate and advanced students? I'm an ESL teacher and I'd like to use some of these games in my classrooms. Thanks in advance.

[@cnppreactorno.4965]

If you have a playstation 4, you can just change your settings, and alot of the time the game will have you re assign what language you want the game to be put in

[@comicsans7437]

Just started playing Papers, please in russian. I already got a nice list of words that I didn't learn anything about in russian class :D

[@jamalcharles9533]

Hello there! Let me give my two cents as one who has studied Spanish for 22 years, taught English in Columbia for 1 year, taught Spanish for one year and who is a recently certified language teacher and who also has a lot of experience playing video games in Spanish. As you said, video games are a great, fun way to learn live vocabulary in context, however, it should not be your primary way of learning a language and here's why: 1. Video games only help you with reading skills for the most part. 2. Language and culture are intertwined and without culture, a lot of vocab will not be understood. That said, most games are either English or Japanese therefore you'll be learning more about Japanese or English culture which is bad if those are not the target languages. And too many language learners divorce the language from the culture while they are learning. The emphasis should be learning how the language is spoken in everyday life and to this end, TV shows that take place in a country of the target language or songs in the target language are ideal. The problem with video games is that the language is often "fantasy language", especially if the genre of the game is fantasy. Apart from that, video games are a great COMPLEMENTARY method of learning vocab in a fun way. I will admit that some of the most memorable expressions in Spanish I ever learned came from video games.

[@jamalcharles9533]

As for how to get games: 1. Change your mobile devices to the desired language and games will automatically change to said language if it was translated in that language. The same should go for console systems. 2. www.romhacking.net is a great place to get patches for games in many languages for old, legally obsolete games for play on emulators. Happy gaming!

[@jamalcharles9533]

Oh, and try to change to mix up the genres and settings from time to time, if you play too many fantasy rpgs, you'll end up learning more of the same vocabulary after a while. So change the setting whenever necessary.

[@jamalcharles9533]

Oh and btw, most Mario games are terrible for learning language as you said, but Super Mario World and Super Mario 64 have loads of dialogue for Mario games lol. And any of Mario's RPG games are excellent!

[@spartandud3]

I've met 3 people who learned English from video games. 2 learnt it from Knights of the Old Republic and 1 from playing Halo 3 online.

[@humanitysenterprise]

Aight, time to play some Wolfenstein.

[@dreamingoffluency1519]

Great video! Video games are something I have been thinking about trying to incorporate into my language learning because... it's fun right?! I like how you made sure to mention the dangers of playing video games in different languages as I feel it's definitely a trap myself or others could fall into. Thanks :)

[@gudmundurThor96Nr2]

I learning Japanese and Russian now. I am currently playing Metro Exodus in Russian. Sekiro in Japanese

[@MorbiousTactical]

This is what I am planning on doing for russian. :) can't wait to learn a new language.

[@kerembayrammusic]

I was born in turkey, and I learned English through playing siege with my buddies and just trash talking to a bunch of people online lmao. And now I speak better than my old English teacher, live in Canada, and made English better than my first language

[@toiletking8442]

OMG! I want to travel and study in Canada in a few years :3 A greeting from Colombia

[@abdoulmdghri3706]

New subscriber hope you reach million subscriber soon. Good content deserve more

[@brickabang]

I’m gonna go play minecraft in french

[@Juancollins69]

Console games on ps5 have absolutely helped me with Spanish

[@fiorinajean8190]

Is it better to learn by listening to the dialogue while reading subtitles or the other way around?

[@BrianHallmond]

I tried to do this on Netflix for Spanish. Spanish Audio but with English subs (or the other way around) but I know a TINY bit of Spanish and the Audio didn't match the subs. The message was the same, but the words used did not match up so it was pointless. :( I thought I was genius when I started that. I wish the subs were accurate as I would keep doing it.

[@ceruleantear1]

I fell into this same problem. I think it's because I wanted to watch shows that were originally in English, so the Spanish subs are translations of the English script and were not exact matches for the Spanish dubbed scripts. So, I would recommend trying to watch movies and shows that made from Spanish speaking creators. For example, the movie, "Como caído del cielo." This way the Spanish subtitles should match the original Spanish dialogue. Good luck!

[@BrianHallmond]

@@ceruleantear1 thank you!

[@alibobsmarland9572]

Great video.You are right. The key to keeping the motivation going is to find fun things to do. I used to play Pro Evolution Soccer with the Spanish settings so I could learn the football terms and listen to Spanish game commentary.

[@FingtamLanguages]

Yeah man. I didn't even touch on how you can play certain games to work on the vocabulary from specific domains, but that's a great idea. Thanks for sharing!

[@uzielsunderland6980]

You can buy a psp hack it and play thousands of classic games with lots of dialogues, like final fantasy or zelda I've been learning english that way and it's useful specially with vocabulary there are many words that I didn't know and now I know

[@FingtamLanguages]

Nice. Thanks for sharing that!

[@chachacha934]

could you pls explain this to a beginner? 🙂

[@sapphirelewis1389]

I just found your channel a day ago. I like your sense of humour. Your confidence on your mission trip to Hungary made me laugh. Like you said that funny t-shirt broke the ice lol. 😅

[@FingtamLanguages]

Hi Sapphire, sorry for the late response. Thanks for the kind comment, and welcome to my channel!

[@sapphirelewis1389]

Fingtam Languages 😃 When you say mission trip, are you a Mormon or Christian or was it a humanitarian mission? Great channel by the way. 🙆

[@FingtamLanguages]

Sapphire Lewis it was a Christian mission trip.

[@sapphirelewis1389]

Fingtam Languages Nice, I am a born-again christian. God bless you and your work brother! 🙋

[@BadWolfSilence]

I’ve played lots of games on both my iPad and my Xbox One in Spanish without ever having to buy special consoles or games in those languages, all I had to do was change my iPad language and my Xbox One language to Spanish. Not every game has this feature, for example my favorite games, the Fallout games, don’t, but plenty of games I love like the Batman Arkham games do. Very good if you don’t want to spend more money!

[@juexielle]

any game reccomendation which has dubs on portuguese? (pc games only pls)

[@romainch505]

Exceptions for Mario games: Mario rpg ( Bowser's inside story for instance)

[@Marycore]

this is very helpfull thanks !

[@friidomarchives]

Thank you for confirmation

[@WinterWolf7u7]

Thanks man, I have many games with a lot of text and I just have to change the language:3

[@SriHarshaChilakapati]

It's an interesting idea. However, I get that we first need to be able to read the target language as it would fail otherwise. Main problem comes with Indian languages for me, as I can read 4 Indic scripts and be able to guess the characters in 2 others due to similarities. I'm interested in knowing how would you tackle this problem if you are trying to learn a script which is completely different from what you already know?

[@togek1ss]

if anyone needs to play video games in another language on an old console like a nintendo ds i'd recommend buying a flashcart (like an r4 card) and downloading roms of the games to a micro sd card in a language you want to learn since old games are marked up very high in price. i'm doing this with japanese and its been a wonderful experience without having to put a dent in my wallet.

[@YnChwarae]

You can play don't knock twice , which is a psvr horror game in virtual reality in Welsh, now that's immersion.

[@lucianolatouche6776]

What games to use for learning Spanish?

[@jamalcharles9533]

Any dialogue heavy game will do. RPGs are the best for this, but any genre will do as long as it's dialogue heavy.

[@4N50N]

Runescape, creates the whole world in set language, so every item, quest dialogue and person is in set language. Best thing too is, there's like 7 languages to set it too. Edit: It's a massive MMORPG incase you didnt know, and its completley free. I've met some of my best friends from switching up the games language.

[@HarmonyOfTheVoice]

Love this game to death, only problem is that its hard to get into if you didnt play it before

[@w1nGsEEEhTV]

Thats how i learned english, good memories

[@wmsj1]

off topic but it's crazy how the pokemon games you show in this video are almost over $100 now

[@Couch_fighter]

I support this idea in general but I prefer to watch youtube let's plays it allows me relisten a voice line as many time as I want that I think is the most convenient option. Furthermore I also listen to what a streamer talking about. Btw I knew that Skyrim or another Bethesda game would be mentioned here:-) The amount of dialogues there are fantastic.

[@drewmcdonald4082]

oooo KOTOR - definitely a classic, great game.

[@black5000001]

I learned a lot of German Vocabulary through Assassin's Creed

[@Falanu]

I love uncharted it's adventure and it's not in English in my house so it's the closest thing to getting a plane ticket! I remember only understanding 10-20% just inhaling vocabulary. Now I get to learn focused vocabulary for different themes/activities.

[@pidgeoncrossing963]

sometime i put acnh (animal crossing) in japanese because sometimes the game gets boring and i want a change in the ui- but hat ended up making me want to learn japanese

[@1brianescobar]

Man, you are such a cool dude.

[@FingtamLanguages]

Glad you think so! 😅

[@Nicolas-lo8db]

i learned english by playing oblivion while i strugled in english class in highschool. Best learning method to get the basis. the only thing lacking is speaking practice.

[@ジョジョさま]

Skyrim doesnt let you pause line by line.

[@onazy5607]

I learned english by video games but mostly KZbin videos it took like 2 years but idk how did I learn like that

[@onazy5607]

I am saying how I learned English

[@nanuk1334]

@@onazy5607 i think i learned english by playing games and watching videos

[@renaryugu9120]

nothing new to me i allways does this when i get intressted in learning a new language, i did want to try to learn korean but i droped it due to i could get to play any games in that language. so for now i try to learn chinese its fun but hard. good luck for you. and plus its easier to learn a latin based game for you can read the stuff. in game or language like chinese thats has characters all are diffrent makes it a pain in the ass to learn but if you really want to you can.

[@FingtamLanguages]

Yeah, I totally believe that its way harder to play games that dont use the latin script, but it will probably be just as helpful, if not more!

[@3.1ly]

Anybody recommend a mobile or ps4 or pc game to learn Spanish ? Latin Spanish if possible ?

[@jamalcharles9533]

If you want to learn Spanish, you're in luck. Final Fantasy 3-7 & 9 Secret of Mana Chrono Trigger And all are on IOS or Android.

[@3.1ly]

@@jamalcharles9533 gracias !!!!

[@jamalcharles9533]

@@3.1ly De nada!!!!

[@dxubty]

Getting a Gameboy with a pokemon game for that price 😭 what a shame, they're like over $180 now on the second hand market

[@hooviridis8388]

I might start a new file on Pokémon Sword (on a different user) and I might do this playthrough in French. I've played the game before so I'm nearly familiar with everything. The only issue is that it will help me to read it, not speak it, since French words have weird pronunciation rules. I think it's still worth a shot though.

[@jamalcharles9533]

All you need to do is complement that with a lot of listening exercises and you'll be fine.

[@eljoao5215]

i want to learn portugues and english agregame Anoahj gamertag i want to learn english hablo español

[@theworld1759]

Nice

[@jamalcharles9533]

Hola. La gran mayoría de juegos en la tienda Apple o la tienda Play están en español. Elige cualquiero.

[@thekungfuguy4678]

It may helpful for learning language. My native language is Indonesian and i have never seen older game or famous game in Indonesian language. I know much basic English when i was elementary school by only playing The Sims 1 and 2 on PS2. I also play many games to learn but i this i prefer game that not only tell what to do but also have action in it like the sims.

[@sayorichan6030]

Star stable is a good game for advanced learns you get to pick between languages

[@FingtamLanguages]

Interesting. I’ll have to check it out. What platform is that for?

[@sayorichan6030]

It a a horse game made by Swedish people there game is really good

[@sayorichan6030]

There are lot of quests you get to do and it is on the computer by the way

[@internetguru4737]

Puzzle and or horror RPG:s are excellent, makes you activate your brain and be a little bit more concentrated. I would suggest: Rakuen To the moon Oneshot Any of the Pokémon games Fran Bow These games give you the right to manually control the dialogue. This gives you the opportunity to take your time and translate what is being said. Although I would recommend doing it at an intermediate stage. It is possible at a lower level, but it could be a little bit overwhelming with a lot of new words constantly.

[@internetguru4737]

@@dylanv1994use I only know tangle tower but that audio is in english

[@gutersteinker]

Metro exodus, they speak a lot!

[@supermario7416]

that's alot of fun

[@FingtamLanguages]

Agreed!

[@ajrollo1437]

I would like to learn how to praise Talos in every tongue. #whitegoldconcordatwasamistake

[@skylandersgiants5504]

Aj Rollo #taloswasagenocidalmaniac

[@4N50N]

Any other gamers out there able to suggest some games to play in French. Done Skyrim and gta 5

[@FingtamLanguages]

I play a lot of games on my iPad. Heroes of Might and Magic, Pocket Mortys, Stranger Things, Fallout Shelter, and KOTR are some of my favorites.

[@jamalcharles9533]

In mobile, there's: Final Fantasy 1-7 & 9 Secret of Mana Chrono Trigger Plus many others.

[@Psx806]

Think I’m gonna use these ideas to learn Japanese and Spanish Yeah let’s see how this turns out lol

[@marwentrabelsi2983]

skyrim it is a big love

[@OzkAltBldgCo-bv8tt]

Consider Diablo 2 Nintendo switch Stories Untold Children of Morta A Highland Song The Walking Dead The telltale series Ghostbusters? Dredge Litchi Town Minekos night market Botany Manor Wylde Flowers Nobody saves the world 80 days Red dead Redemption Edit I don't know if these will be in Spanish or not but because you're a gamer I imagine you could check into that some of them will be great games anyways . this is more less a list of games that I'm interested testing in Spanish Nintendo switches are not region locked fyi GTA trilogy

[@hypnoticskull6342]

Time to play Yakuza!

[@kathens7755]

I play Fire Emblem in German

[@FingtamLanguages]

Serb Hunter Hi, thanks for commenting! What has your experience been like learning German with video games?

[@kathens7755]

I realized that I didn't know as much German as I thought I did. But hey, I'm still learning.

[@yasin4949.]

Do you think playing " tlou part2 " would be effective to learn French?

[@markwhitaker574]

I’ve noticed I get more absorbed in the lore and read everything when I play games in French. In English my native language, I get bored and rush through things and skip side quests. I am learning german as well but I need to get passed the basics first. I wouldn’t recommend playing games in a foreign language until you pass through A1 level which should really only be 2-3 months. If you are an English speaker reading in languages like French Spanish and German will come quickly if you put in some time. I recommend learning these languages in the language you are learning. So if you are learning French turn learn in French when you get to A2 level. Maybe even a little before you get to A2. Use a french only dictionary when looking up words. You will learn to associate french words with other french words rather than English translations. Do this with all languages. Bye lol

[@jamalcharles9533]

In the RPGs that I have played, I pay a lot more attention to the vocabulary when it's in Spanish than in English, thus I enjoy playing video games more in Spanish.

[@matthewdavis9437]

Past*, not passed. To get past is to move beyond something. If something gets passed, someone passes it someone else. Like someone asked you to pass the salt and you passed them the salt shaker. The salt shaker got passed to the person who asked it. Common mistake it seems. Unfortunately.

[@jeffersonleal311]

Vine a ver si los gringos buscaban lo mismo que yo xd

[@trentevans3997]

Rom hack

[@rsoldier7829]

Brush your teeth