Many people have learned English mainly through TV series and video games. We know that language acquisition happens when someone is exposed to a language that’s mostly understandable, with enough context, visuals, and motivation to make sense of it.
But it’s often hard to find good content in your target language. Textbook dialogues can be boring, movies can be too complex, and many video games aren’t even translated. Constantly looking up words can be tedious.
With today’s technology, we should do better. That’s the goal behind lingostories.org: make stories more accessible to language learners. These are interactive stories you can read and listen to at your own pace, with replayable voice-over and on-demand translations. The feedback has been very positive so far, even though the amount of content is still limited.
Recently, I’ve wondered: what would it take to bring this concept to the next level? Instead of a text-based story, what if we had a video game?
This is not gamification
When people hear about games and language learning, they often think of gamification. Lots of language apps start from a course and try to gamify it. For example, Duolingo uses boring textbook exercises and attempts to make the app addictive through streaks and other psychological tricks.
I want the opposite: a game that’s genuinely enjoyable, then adapted to language learners. Movies can have subtitles in another language; books can be graded readers. Video games could go further.
What kind of game?
Here are some of the design goals I have in mind:
- Story-rich gameplay with meaningful text
- A mix of dialogues and narration, like in a novel. The narration can give emotional and atmospheric context.
- Accessible vocabulary, using language from everyday life
- Immersion, not instruction. Let the player enjoy the game, don’t force them to type words again and again, just to prove that they remember those words.
I think a game like Firewatch works well with regard to immersion and narration through dialogues. In a different way, I also enjoy Disco Elysium which provides book-like descriptions (although the language is too advanced).
My goal is not explicit teaching, it’s comprehensible input through play. Video games have a natural advantage for language learning, it’s repetition. Every time you interact with an item, you see its name. When you talk to a character multiple times, some dialogue will probably repeat. For language learning, this redundancy is a feature, it’s a bit like a natural form of spaced repetition.
Language features
The game should be compelling and meaningful enough to stand on its own, but augmented with optional features for people playing in their target language:
- Replay voice lines as often as needed
- Toggle subtitles and translations on demand
- Get on-demand grammatical explanations or definitions (so that the player doesn't get confused by a sentence)
For example, I like to hear audio first, try to understand it, then check the transcript if I didn’t understand. This kind of flow is tedious to do when watching a movie, but could be supported in a game.
A relaxed state of learning
As I was reading the science behind language acquisition research, I found the concept of “affective filter”. It’s a simple idea: stress, fear, or low motivation create a mental barrier that slows down language acquisition. The goal is to have a “low affective filter”, e.g. when you’re relaxed, as it enables more effective learning.
So the game shouldn't be punitive or pressure the user. You shouldn’t lose a “heart” for a typo. The experience should be accessible, low-pressure, and accepting that everyone can go at their own speed.
The plan
I am planning to make a small 3D game, with exploration and some point & click mechanics. I am currently building a short prototype using Godot. I’ll aim at about 30 minutes of content, with support in several languages. I am thankful to all the people who helped translate stories in lingostories.org and I plan to use a similar workflow.
Here's an early screenshot after a week of work, using mostly free assets. Lots of things will be redesigned.
If you like this idea, I’d love to hear your thoughts. I’ll share progress on Lingostories channels: Reddit and Discord. In particular, please reach out if you'd like to contribute.
- This idea has been discussed on Reddit.