HOW TO LEARN A LANGUAGE BY PLAYING PC GAMES?
Hello dear students, how are you? I hope you're fine.
Are you a gamer? Do you need to learn English or any other language? If your answer is yes, use this advantage, you're a language learner, in order to learn any language you want.
On the other hand, if your answer is NO, I think you’ll change the opinion once you read this article from the beginning till the end. That’s because you’re going to figure out what did you miss so far so now.
Learning process is like this:
- Choose the game genre you like: fight (e.j. : mortal kombat) , race (e.j.: need for speed), strategy (e.j: heroes of might and magic) etc
1a Choose the games wisely --- I’m saying this because, many people choose the games like “Candy Crush” , “Super Mario”, “Bubble” or something like this, just to catch the time. Trust me, those games are useless, because you have nothing specific to learn. There are no specific stories, there is nothing specific to do (maybe to block something, to jump, to go around, etc) and it’s a pointless.
- Playing a game by using English is not A MUST. That's why, feel free to put the target language, so you can learn it in an interesting, original and nice way.
- Practice your reading --- try to understand the stories you have to read, as much as you can, from the situations.
- Practice your vocabulary --- Whatever you play... games like "Barbie" or "The Sims" etc., you'll always have something to use --- maybe to create the people and their personality, maybe to choose the perfect car for your races, etc. --- Use your dictionary for the unknown words (if you don't have a dictionary next to you, you can always write the words down and then you can look for the meaning on google)
- Practice your listening skills --- In some games like: Dungeon Keeper, Mortal Kombat, etc., you'll listen a lot, because you'll have a lot of different and interesting stories. It'll attract your attention so much. Usually the music and soundtracks are so good as well, so you'll "accidentally" translate everything in your brain, and you'll get to use to the sound and voices.
- Practice your writing skills -- Almost every game has an option "Play online". Use this opportunity and write to other players, so they can give your a hand and so you can practice your writing with them. If you don't have this opportunity, then you can always try to find some "forum" regarded to the target game, and you can discuss with other users there.
- Make new friendships, with different players from the whole world and talk to them on Skype or any other communicating tool in order to practice your speaking skills.
- If there is any problem with the game, contact the customer support. That’s how you’ll practice your writing skills, you’ll learn a lot of new words and you’ll solve a problem in a short period of time. Three prices for one.
Additional suggestions:
- Try to take 15-20 min (as a min) and not more than 2h for your games. I know that games can be contagious, but if you take too much time on it, you’ll have no time for other duties you might have like: family, work, etc.
- Don’t be shy and don’t be scared --- Trust me, nobody knows everything. We all learn. Also, if you don’t make mistakes, you’ll never learn.
- Don’t think too much if somebody is going to make fun of your language skills – The person who does it, he/she is not the worth of your time. This behavior shows he/she is unhappy, full of envy, hate and all types of negative feelings. That means, instead of helping you and motivating you, this person is going to teach you wrongly and this person is definitely going to demotivate you and that’s not what you want, right?
- Appreciate the people that make corrections, because those kind of people definitely cares about you and they’re absolutely into this. They really want to give you a hand and you should be thankful to them. The most beautiful way of “thanking” is repeating the correct answer you have been told and learning from your mistakes. That means you make progresses, because obviously, you’re not going to repeat your mistakes any more or at least, you’re going to make your mistakes less and less.
And that’s the end of this story. Please, feel free to give me any kind of feedback like: critics, suggestions, praise, etc. Your opinion is very important to me, because they help me improve my working skills. Plus, I’m here because of YOU, my dear students.
STOP learning languages because you “MUST” and start learning languages because “IT IS FUN” and because “IT IS INTERESTING” because only that’s how you’ll really learn. If you have fun and it’s interesting, you’re “accidentally” learn new things and even without knowing it, you’ll make huge progresses in a short period of time :).
Best wishes,
Suzana
May 7, 2018
