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“Gaming taught me English AND got me a girlfriend with HUGE eyeballs!”
Seriously.
Once you hit the intermediate level (i.e. “I don’t know one word in this sentence” instead of “I only know one word in this sentence”), get yourself some dubbed video games. After beating the Mass Effect games and Portal 2, I’ve been playing the bajeezus out of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. It seems like there are hundreds of hours of recorded dialogue for these characters. A little interaction goes a long way. And talk about a motivator- I get to run around in the Mojave wasteland and do battle with road warriors and rogue factions and whatnot. Input got you to this level, and I have faith that more input will take you to the promised land of milk, honey, and international consequence-free sex.
Don’t want to be a broken record here, folks. This is just what I’m up to lately.
Well that and training to be a fitness model.
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7 Comments…
Good one, Matt!
People are so uptight about playing a game for an hour or so. They’d rather suffer over the study books and hate themselves for it.
I’m pretty sure that two weeks spent on Diablo 3 playing with Brazilians on Americas Battle.net server was exactly what pushed my Portuguese into the intermediate stage, making me ready and prepared for meeting up with natives and practicing speaking.
Fallout are great series. There are five games, each is translated to major European languages, according to the Steam store. Playing slowly and soaking it all up easily amounts to half a year’s worth of content. First three games (Fallout 1 & 2 + Tactics) worth only ten bucks in one package.
I am thinking of picking up French and I am definitely doing a Fallout epic run. It’s been ages since I played it back in school. Good times ahead.
Thanks Roman!
I haven’t played the old Fallout games because I love the dubbed audio in the new ones. But for $10…
If you’re doing French, check this out: we’re starting a ‘Booster Pack’ series of blogs here soon, where we’ll link to a whole bunch of cool stuff we’ve found in French, Korean, Spanish, and German. I’ll hook you up with some Fallout ‘Let’s Plays’ if I see any
Keep us updated on your progress, and take it easy!
You should definitely check them out. They are classics! The second game is truly epic and contains about 10 megabytes of written text in dialogues. I’d say that’s a decent amount if you’re looking into improving your reading skills!
Glad to hear about the Booster Pack. Let me know if I can contribute. I have some great stuff I used for my Portuguese and Spanish practice. I am a content-oriented kind of learner too and go through tons of different media to improve listening skills, vocabulary and the overall ability to comprehend the language.
This is a great idea! I always say carry on doing the things you enjoy but in the language you are learning so that the process is enjoyable.. This post: case in point!
Now what if I, the all powerful Matt, bow-wow-wow, were to tell you that somewhere right here in the steam, is a place with lots of dialogues?
That’s right, from AJATT to lingQ, fluentin3months to the Anki, we’re coming to you loud and proud in a special live report
I just finished re-skimming a Japanese book called “100 Secrets to Becoming Better at Guitar.” One of the suggestions was to get your self to a game center and play some of the rhythm games there.
It’s funny, I’ve been playing guitar for well over a decade, and still suck horribly at fake-guitar rhythm games like Guitar Hero. I think it’s the rule of specificity- just because I’m good at playing a six stringed instrument doesn’t mean I’ll be good at playing a four-buttoned fake guitar (but I’m sure building rhythm in general is a good thing). I think the idea of ‘gamifying’ our goals is one of the great ideas of recent times.
p.s. I’m boss at Guitar Hero drums for some reason.