Josh McNeill

Tag: video games

French lessons with the Daedric Prince.

May 19, 2015 / / 0 Comments

It’s not as dark as it sounds, although it is most definitely as nerdy as it sounds.

There are numerous strategies for learning languages, but perhaps the most effective strategy is total immersion. That is to say, learning a language is easiest when you’re constantly forced to use it because no one around you understands your first language. In fact, linguist Stephen Krashen developed the input hypothesis in the 1980s based on the idea that immersion is literally all that a learner needs. But how can one achieve the same effect in a place that is distinctly not immersive? One solution I’ve found is to use online worlds.

I’ve been playing massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) since the 90s. These games are played exclusively online with hundreds to thousands of other players in giant worlds filled with interactive characters (NPCs). Currently, I play one called The Elder Scrolls Online (@joshisanonymous if you play yourself), which is an online version of a very popular single-player role-playing game (RPG) series. What’s special about this game, besides its fun high fantasy setting and game mechanics, is its extensive use of voice-overs for NPCs, available in French. In fact, not only will basically every NPC speak to you in French, but their dialogue is also displayed in written form.

ESO Screen

Since this is interactive, NPCs generally speak one to three sentences at a time before allowing you to respond. This has the effect of providing regular amounts of linguistic input in chunks that are small enough to process, with an answer key when you can’t figure out a phrase. All of this is also provided within an activity which you would naturally be drawn to partake in. My personal experience has been that this helps greatly with listening comprehension. It even provides an opportunity to learn new vocabulary about an activity you are naturally inclined to talk about–I know the French word for ballista now, which may not seem useful, but it is when you play a lot of video games.

This environment could potentially lead to many interactions with other French speakers, as well, although The Elder Scrolls Online doesn’t seem to be particularly adept at grouping speakers of the same language together. Still, one could potentially join a guild of players who speak French in order to play through all the in game activities in an immersive way.

Obviously, this is not as effective as real life language immersion because you can’t simply spend every hour of every day playing games–I mean you could, but you probably shouldn’t. However, it is a reasonable compromise.

I intend to have regular posts like this, explaining creative learning strategies for acquiring a language.

When you QQ, I confuse morphograms with pictograms.

July 15, 2013 / / 0 Comments

I am a nerd. As such, I have an huge inventory of acronyms which are basically useless in the real world. Still, the following threw me off today (as I was wasting time I don’t have indulging said nerdiness):

One female human thief in LLK of TC in EB of WvW, from Guild [PinK] of SOS servers.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/wuv/wuv/A-Thief-in-TC-LLK-in-WvW

In normal person speak, this says: “Someone was in the Tarnished Coast game server’s Lowland Keep in the Eternal Battlegrounds Player versus Player game zone. They were in a guild named Pink that plays on the Sea of Sorrows game server.”

In fact, that’s not really normal person speak as I’m sure almost nobody who doesn’t play the game understands the translation. It would have to be parsed even further to make sense to people who don’t play video games, let alone Guild Wars 2. Maybe it would be something like this: “Someone playing an online video game against other players was in an enemy player’s base in an area where players fight eachother. They were a member of a group of players that often play together and call their group Pink.”

Of course, this loses all specificity (and makes awkwardly heavy use of the play morpheme). I’m not sure there’s actually a way to translate the original sentence to someone who has no familiarity with the subject at all without going into enormous amounts of explanation, which probably fits well into Language Log’s concept of nerdview.

But what really caught me was the orthography here, not the semantics. The original sentence was difficult to parse on the first reading even for myself. There are six acronyms (PinK, as all guild tags in the game are, is actually an acronym) which all require significant familiarity with the game. MMOs thrive on this sort of thing because so much conversation is typed while performing various other actions. Shorthand becomes essential for efficiency so that your character doesn’t die. Hell, even MMO is sort of for efficiency. It stands for massively multiplayer online… game. It used to be, more commonly, MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game), then it got shortened because even the acronym was too much. Sometimes you’ll still see MMOG (massively multiplayer online game) but I’ve only really come across this being used by people who don’t play these games. This reminds me once again of the debate over Japanese orthography. Kanji are essentially serving the same function as acronyms in MMOs and the difficulty in understanding them for the uninitiated is often outweighed by the benefits they offer for the initiated.

This also reminds me of one of my favorite MMO shorthands: QQ. This isn’t actually an acronym–it’s not even a morphogram like kanji–it’s a pictogram. It’s literally supposed to look like two eyes with tears coming out. It means cry. I was confused by this for the longest time while playing Dark Age of Camelot, where (if you can call a game a place) it was invented because I kept wanting to read it as an acronym. Actually, I guess this wasn’t done for efficiency since there’s literally a one character difference. Maybe it’s for the semantic effect: I don’t believe you can use QQ to show sympathy for someone; it’s always used to mock. Hence one of the advantages, inherent in languages written in multiple ways like Japanese: intonation in writing.

And if you don’t understand what I’m talking about, QQ more newb.

Collective consciousness anyone?

October 7, 2008 / / 0 Comments

I was pleasantly surprised by a video game today. I usually follow PC gaming so I know what’s coming out and all but the game that caught my attention tonight was a Playstation 3 title called Little Big Planet. The developers bring a novel idea that, to me, speaks to the perpetually greater amount of connectivity that technology is bringing to our world.

First of all, the game looks fun. It’s a side scrolling platform game. The catch is that it’s a pseudo-sandbox setup. You make your own levels and play other people’s levels. Essentially you can make whatever you want. Seriously, it’s extremely open ended to the point where one person has built a working calculator in the beta version of the game. The things you build can also be shared online with other players. You get ratings, friends, comments, etc. They seem to have tied social networking into their video game.

If this all works out, I think this will be a big step towards showing the real power of video games. There are so many positives here. They give people an outlet for creativity and creative thinking instead of being confined to a linear path. They give people the opportunity to spread that expression of themselves around the world instantly and even get noticed if they’re aspiring game producers. They give people a chance to learn through the game as essentially anything is possible (see calculator). I feel like I’m forgetting a bunch of things that I was thinking about earlier but you get the picture. Extrapolate.

Anyway, seeing is believing. Here it is:

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