A really fun way of learning new languages!

February 25th, 2008 admin Posted in General |

After studying around 30 minutes French or German I start to get tedious and anxious. It has always been like this, and not just for languages, but for almost everything: math, chemistry, programming, etc. About a year ago, I found a really good way of studying languages, which never got me tired or anxious.

I’ve always been a computer geek and always loved to play computer video games. Someday, when I started wondering about things (usually this happens in bathroom…), I started questioning myself how did I learned English (I’m from Mexico, so my first language is Spanish). A good percentage of my English was learned at school, but what I discovered was that most of my English came from video games, especially RPG’s (Role Playing Game). Then, a marvelous idea came to my mind: why not do the same with French and/or German? Immediately I began my search for some games.

After a good research, I remembered I had a game called The Secret of Monkey Island, the CD version, which came in several languages. I began playing it in Italian (I didn’t know any Italian, 0%, nada), and after around 30 minutes, I noticed I started to understand a lot of words. After beating the game in 2 days, I was able to talk some Italian (just some… I wouldn’t survive in Italy… or maybe I would, but just because the Spanish is like a brother to the Italian). Then, I decided to start the game again (damn, I love that game), and during this second time I was able to understand around 70% of what the characters were saying. And after beating it the second time, I started it in German. Well, I guess you got the point by now.

The most important thing about this technique isn’t how fast I started to get a catch about the words, grammar, etc., but how long I lasted playing the game! When I study French the classical way, I only last about 30 minutes without a headache… when I study French playing a video game, I only last… well, I’d last until I gotta go to college.

If you believe you can stand against studying languages the classical way, do it! You’ll learn in a better quality way. But if you are struggling because of all those headaches, I recommend to try this out.

Don’t have a video game to start studying? Well, you can download The Secret of Monkey Island. This game is so old they made it abandonware (it’s free). Or you can buy a video game which comes in several languages.