For Non Native Speakers, did computer games help you to learn English?

[Jotari]

I know we have more than a few people on the site who aren't native English speakers. And I only know this because they occasionally mention it because their English is usually as good as the rest of us. I'm going to start work on my Master's Thesis soon and the idea I have in mind is something to do with computer games and English education, so I figure getting some first hand experience from people might help solidify my ideas. So have computer games helped you to learn English and if so, what specific games or genre of games do you think assisted the most?

And if you're a native English speaker who ignored the title and came here anyway, have games helped you learn any foreign languages?

Edited January 30 by Jotari

[Acacia Sgt]

Well, I'll certainly admit they played a part. I did had proper English classes in Elementary School, but my dad wanted me to learn English as soon as possible, so as early as I was like three I had Eduntainment Games I'd play on the computer. I also consumed a lot of English media as well at an early age too. VHS's would be bought in English, same for DVD's would be set to English audio, etc.

[Etrurian emperor]

Yes. Without a doubt. There's no better way to learn a language than be continuously exposed to it. I think that is among the reasons English literacy rate is so high among Dutch youths. Games, movies, shows are almost all aired in English over here while countries like France and Germany dub these things in their own language. 

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Well, I'll certainly admit they played a part. I did had proper English classes in Elementary School, but my dad wanted me to learn English as soon as possible, so as early as I was like three I had Eduntainment Games I'd play on the computer. I also consumed a lot of English media as well at an early age too. VHS's would be bought in English, same for DVD's would be set to English audio, etc.

Do you feel like the Edutainment Games specifically helped? I get the impression games specifically advertised as educational aren't that great because the people who make them aren't actual game designers, leaving them rather basic and just not that fun to play.

[Acacia Sgt]

Yeah, I believe so. I found them fun, too.

[Cysx]

That'd be my backstory, yes

... well not specifically computer games, but my brother randomly traded a few of our Sega Saturn games for two imports, one of them a First person J-RPG called Shining the Holy Ark, fully in english. I was obsessed with it, and wanted to play it so bad it basically taught me the basics at 7-8 years old. Then as my household got access to the internet, I repeatedly got frustrated at how lacking french resources clearly were compared to english ones (also, video games still came to France in their english version back then, so I had to either deal with it or not play them). Since I could interact with the latter unlike most french kids my age, I just did. To this day this still keeps me well practiced on a daily basis, as I otherwise exclusively communicate with people in my life in french.

The game in question has a relatively straightforward battle system, but unlike most current games of this sub-genre(now called DRPGs) it has an actual story, and puzzle elements that required me to understand the text to progress.

School also did its part, however, since I had learned to read it, but nothing else.

 

Edited January 30 by Cysx

[ARMADS!!!]

it absolutely did, I play videogames since I was a toddler and one of the first words I learned on English were "play", "game", "start", "level", "zone", "boss", "jump", "attack", and vocabulary related to the games I played (such as "dress"/"dress up" because of those dress up games, what the names of the characters from Sonic meant and their surnames/species, etc).  When I watched movies in English I always had portuguese subtitles available for them (or even dubbed), when I wanted to read a book there was always a portuguese translation available, even anime was always dubbed, but games... they're almost never translated to portuguese (the ones I play at least, there's a bunch that are) so I had to play in English. And after I already knew a decent level of English (but still not enough to read a whole book or watch a whole movie without portuguese subtitles), I could easily play games that have story, in english, because while a subtitle would go away to fast, dialogue in games like Fire Emblem and Ace Attorney don't go until you press to skip it, and there aren't giant chunks of text on a language you're not competely familiar with, like on books. Listening to music in English and reading smaller chunks of text in some forms of social media (such as memes with text, puns, long Reddit posts, participating in discussions here on SF) helped too, but out of these things that have small chunks of text, videogames were the best medium, and they were not too overwhelming or out of my realm yet (I didn't want to read children books or whatever to train my english, but probably could have done that too). 

Also in some games the characters have those same sentences that they keep repeating throught the levels or when you finish a level, and hearing it non stop will force the thing into your head whether you know what it means or not.

 Granted, I played games that had a story, in english, as a kid and didn't understand a thing, I took years to beat Sonic Adventure DX partly because I didn't know what I was supposed to do- they said what I had to do but I didn't understand so I had to guess - and without knowing what was the story (but still, their catchphrases were hammered into my ears before I understood what they meant, such as Eggman's "Nooo waaaay I can't beliiiiieve it!" and "Get a load of this!", or Amy's "It's my turn now!", or when Knuckles says "RIGHT NOW!" me and my sister were always repeating that cause we found funny way before we understood what the hell that meant).  I played some 3D TMNT game from beggining to end when I was a kid/pre teen and don't know the story until today too cause I never played it again after the first time.

 Also, the fact that games usually have menus with - naturally- not a lot of text, helps too, stuff such as a menu or a Sound Test, or things with short names (like types of weapons or the zones in Sonic's games or skills in FE, you search up the translation for these words and all of them end up on your vocabulary). Also things related to games help too, such as: when I wanted to search for an information regarding a game I had to check on a wiki or site, and it was always on english in english so had to find my way throught it, or when I wanted to search for a specific song from the OST it had to be in English too (and if the song had a name or lyrics, I'd naturally want to know what those meant), so along with music (in general), videogames were absolutely the first and main source of english learning for me (also music was great for learning because I wanted to know the lyrics of the songs I knew, either to sing them or to know what they were about).

 Now I live in Portugal (when I was a kid it was in Brasil) and here a lot more people know their stuff in english because here no one dubs movies and the like (except movies for kids) so you're absolutely forced to be more exposed to english. Dubbing a GAME in portuguese of Portugal? Not even in hell that they do this (and portuguese people don't like to watch stuff with brazilian portuguese dub, so the only solution for them is to watch it/play it in English). The first time in my life I watched a movie NOT dubbed was right before moving here (and I couldn't even follow the subtitles in time), and after I came I just didn't find any movie or series that wasn't with the original audio so I simply had to learn to watch whatever shit with subtitles (and that also helps to learn english you listen to what they say).

 Think I expanded more than I should, so I'll leave the post like this, but if you wanna ask anything specific about how videogames influenced my learning I'll be glad to answer. Good luck on your Master's thesis (also, just out of curiosity, what is the Master's degree you're taking on? if you don't mind telling).

[Nauriam]

I am a native English speaker, but I was recently at an international digital signal processing conference, and I got to meet a lot of PHD students from European countries that don't have English as their primary language.

One friend I met there was so fluent he had barely any accent (no accent meaning he speaks like how you would hear most English speakers talk in the majority of TV/movies). He initially learned English by playing Runescape as a child, and he refined his speaking by playing CS:GO on European servers. I was pretty blown away by his ability to pick up English through Runescape as a child, and I'm even a little jealous that I wasn't ever exposed to anything that would help me learn a different language at a young age. As for him though, computer games made him a better communicator and presenter than most of the attendees at that conference because of his fluency.

[ARMADS!!!]

33 minutes ago, Nauriam said:

I am a native English speaker, but I was recently at an international digital signal processing conference, and I got to meet a lot of PHD students from European countries that don't have English as their primary language.

One friend I met there was so fluent he had barely any accent (no accent meaning he speaks like how you would hear most English speakers talk in the majority of TV/movies). He initially learned English by playing Runescape as a child, and he refined his speaking by playing CS:GO on European servers. I was pretty blown away by his ability to pick up English through Runescape as a child, and I'm even a little jealous that I wasn't ever exposed to anything that would help me learn a different language at a young age. As for him though, computer games made him a better communicator and presenter than most of the attendees at that conference because of his fluency.

 Oh yeah, I have some friends (also not english speakers) that evolved their english a lot because they play these online games with realtime cooperative modes where they talk to other people, all in english, they speak very well now and mostly with any accent too. I was never of doing these sort of stuff totally not cause I can't to afford these games + a computer that is good enough to run them + a good microphone. I understand english well enough and can comunicate well throught text but I'm not great at speaking out loud (I mean, I can do it, but my weird accent and lack of practice would certainly make it harder for someone to understand me when I speak).

Edited January 30 by ARMADS!!!

[Saint Rubenio]

Etrurian Emperor put it best. There's no better way to learn a language than actively utilizing it. Back when I was a wee(er) lad, information for games in my native language was very limited. I also found many games, indie, older releases, etc. that were not available in it either. So, I just started reading English and slowly perfecting it. Then on top of that I started playing Team Fortress 2 and using English to communicate with other people.

I have never sat down to study an English textbook. Aside from like, perhaps basic grammar notions, everything I know about this language I picked up from videogames and the internet.

[Ruy]

Yes, videogames played a major role. I did learn the basics on elementary school, but it was thanks to videogames that I could improve and expand my vocabulary. As for which games had the most impact, I would say Zelda Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. There is quite a lot of dialogue on those games, but not so much that it becomes overwhelming, and, if I did not understand some sentences, there was enough context for me to guess what I had to do.

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, ARMADS!!! said:

Also in some games the characters have those same sentences that they keep repeating throught the levels or when you finish a level, and hearing it non stop will force the thing into your head whether you know what it means or not.

 

Indeed. My Japanese is not great, but I am fluent in Super Smash Bros Melee Marth dialogue XD

6 hours ago, ARMADS!!! said:

Good luck on your Master's thesis (also, just out of curiosity, what is the Master's degree you're taking on? if you don't mind telling).

It's on teaching English to children, but my Bachelor's was in Computer Games Development, so I'm hoping I'll be uniquely qualified to merge the two.

6 hours ago, Nauriam said:

He initially learned English by playing Runescape as a child, and he refined his speaking by playing CS:GO on European servers. 

From what I recall RuneScape is text only, isn't it? I don't think that would help perfect an accent. English has a lot of traps because of the ridiculous spelling inconsistencies. Someone only reading and not listening to English would probably never naturally conclude that the 'w' in sword is silent, for example.

[Capt. Fargus]

@Jotari How did you learn your command of our language? You use it well. 

[Jotari]

4 minutes ago, Capt. Fargus said:

@Jotari How did you learn your command of our language? You use it well. 

I'm not sure what you mean? Are you talking about English? Because I'm a native speaker of English. I think a non native speaker would probably be more careful and make a lot fewer typos than I do XD

Edited January 30 by Jotari

[ARMADS!!!]

14 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Indeed. My Japanese is not great, but I am fluent in Super Smash Bros Melee Marth dialogue XD

It's on teaching English to children, but my Bachelor's was in Computer Games Development, so I'm hoping I'll be uniquely qualified to merge the two.

From what I recall RuneScape is text only, isn't it? I don't think that would help perfect an accent. English has a lot of traps because of the ridiculous spelling inconsistencies. Someone only reading and not listening to English would probably never naturally conclude that the 'w' in sword is silent, for example.

WHAT?! THE "W" IN SWORD IS SILENT?! Anyway, yeah, the spelling "rules" (or lack of thereof) in english language are riduculous sometimes and this only serves as another piece of proof. I even saw a meme some times ago that was a screenshot of a native english speaker saying "what? the english language is not inconsistent, every letter always sounds the same!" and someone answered by saying the same thing how it'd sound when spoken outloud in english.

[Capt. Fargus]

23 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I'm not sure what you mean? Are you talking about English? Because I'm a native speaker of English. I think a non native speaker would probably be more careful and make a lot fewer typos than I do XD

Whoops... my apologies 

I assumed you were Japanese

[Jotari]

4 minutes ago, Capt. Fargus said:

Whoops... my apologies 

I assumed you were Japanese

Oh no, like I said in my previous post, my Japanese is not great (better than my Irish or French at this point though). It says that on my profile because I currently live in Japan.

[lenticular]

2 hours ago, ARMADS!!! said:

WHAT?! THE "W" IN SWORD IS SILENT?! Anyway, yeah, the spelling "rules" (or lack of thereof) in english language are riduculous sometimes and this only serves as another piece of proof. I even saw a meme some times ago that was a screenshot of a native english speaker saying "what? the english language is not inconsistent, every letter always sounds the same!" and someone answered by saying the same thing how it'd sound when spoken outloud in english.

This poem seems relevant. And is quite a trip even to me as a native speaker.

[Jotari]

21 minutes ago, lenticular said:

This poem seems relevant. And is quite a trip even to me as a native speaker.

It doesn't help that we have quite a few dialect inconsistencies too. Like, from that poem they rhyme beard and heard, but I think I would be more likely to pronounce heard like a herd of animals. I think the most evil on though is those hard 'ch' sounds, like Choir, which usually come from Greek. We absolutley should have just used Ks or something for that. Just hard Greek Cs in general. Any native English speaker is going to call Cerberus, the Three Headed dog Serberus when the spelling was entirely meant to be the authentic Kerberus. On my original sword example, it always stands out to me in the song Philistine from No More Heroes 2. Particular attention is given to the lyrics by the story and the singer (who I believe is unknown) sounds completely perfect and must have worked so hard to sound native, but messed up on that one singular word and really throws things off (unless it is a native speaker who misprounuced sword in one take by a brain fart and that's just the one take they  or she was going for some kind of rhyming scheme I'm just not picking up).

 

[lenticular]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Like, from that poem they rhyme beard and heard, but I think I would be more likely to pronounce heard like a herd of animals.

That's the point of the poem. It isn't trying to rhyme beard and heard. It's having them next to each other as words that look as if they should rhyme but don't, but then the actual rhyme isn't beard/heard or lord/word, but rather heard/word. There are a few instances in the poem where there are dialectical differences or where language has changed over the hundred years since the poem was first written. "Bade" is one that sticks out to me, since that can be pronounced to rhyme with either "played" or "plaid". But beard and heard are deliberately different.

[Acacia Sgt]

Obligatory...

 

[Jotari]

6 minutes ago, lenticular said:

That's the point of the poem. It isn't trying to rhyme beard and heard. It's having them next to each other as words that look as if they should rhyme but don't, but then the actual rhyme isn't beard/heard or lord/word, but rather heard/word. There are a few instances in the poem where there are dialectical differences or where language has changed over the hundred years since the poem was first written. "Bade" is one that sticks out to me, since that can be pronounced to rhyme with either "played" or "plaid". But beard and heard are deliberately different.

I'm pretty sure some people do say heard like hear-du though.

[lenticular]

36 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I'm pretty sure some people do say heard like hear-du though.

Quite probably some people do. It's possible to find just about any pronunciation if you look hard enough. But it isn't listed as a pronunciation by either Merriam-Webster or Collins, which are my go-to dictionaries for US and UK English respectively, so if it does exist then it's probably a pretty rare pronunciation.

[Jotari]

18 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Quite probably some people do. It's possible to find just about any pronunciation if you look hard enough. But it isn't listed as a pronunciation by either Merriam-Webster or Collins, which are my go-to dictionaries for US and UK English respectively, so if it does exist then it's probably a pretty rare pronunciation.

Might me my native accent XD I sometimes forget how I originally say things vs how I say them now as I've made an effort to standardize my accent for the sake of my job.

[Nauriam]

15 hours ago, Jotari said:

From what I recall RuneScape is text only, isn't it? I don't think that would help perfect an accent. English has a lot of traps because of the ridiculous spelling inconsistencies. Someone only reading and not listening to English would probably never naturally conclude that the 'w' in sword is silent, for example.

Indeed. From what he told me, RuneScape taught him English, but not how to speak it. Early in school they would learn english, and that's where he began learning to speak, but it was playing CS:GO that made him fluent in speaking English. It must have been weird to know how to read/write a language but not know how to speak it. On the other hand, I believe that's where a lot of Japanese people are, as they learn English in school, but very often people never learn how to speak it fluently. People only ever learn approximations of what each word is supposed to sound like, and if you don't spend time talking with native speakers you'll never become familiar with how it's supposed to sound.