If you fancy learning a new language, Lingotopia [Official Site] might make it less of a chore as this adventure game has you play as a little girl shipwrecked on the shores of a strange island. You don't speak the language and so you must decipher what everyone's saying by gradually learning more words.
Funded on Kickstarter earlier this year, the developer Lingo Ludo was able to secure over €12K to help make it happen.
Direct Link
It's not just an educational game, as it does actually have a story you progress through:
Will this really help me learn a language?
Yes! Learning words is the most important part of language learning. You can learn several hundred words by playing Lingotopia. As the game only translates individual words and not entire sentences, you also learn word order and grammar by playing. All dialogue in the game is tied to the setting and story, so you have a reason to decipher each and every sentence.
- Explore a lovingly handcrafted city.
- Click on objects in the environment and your guide will teach you the word for them.
- Learn words by talking to the city's inhabitants.
- Voice recordings by native speakers teach you the correct pronunciation.
- Learning a language with a different script? Toggle between the romanised and native script at any time.
It does already have a working Linux version, which I've briefly tested and it does seem to work quite nicely. The movement could really use some adjustments though, as the turning speed of your character is a little too fast. Other than that, it seems like it's quite interesting and I've already learnt some more Spanish so it's certainly working as advertised.
It will be available on itch.io (page isn't live yet) and Steam on August 16th.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
QuoteThe official languages are Arabic Mandarin Chinese, French, Japanese, German, Russian and Spanish. You'll be able to learn these languages in English, or learn English in any one of the official languages. There are also many languages that have been partially translated by the community.
At the moment, these are:
Basque (32%), Croatian (72%), Czech (33%), Danish (40%), Dutch (100%), Esperanto (99%), Estonian (41%), Greek (33%), Hungarian (35%), Icelandic (100%), Indonesian (48%), Italian (64%), Lithuanian (33%), Norwegian (98%), Polish (90%), Portuguese (PT -44% and BR -90%), Romanian (37%, Slovak (33%), Sranan Tongo (36%), Swedish (87%), Turkish (49%), Vietnamese (62%) and Westrobothnian (30%).
The number refers to the percentage of content that these languages have translations for.
Hopefully the full release version will have a bit more depth to it.
Kallestofeles Aug 11, 2018
I've been on and off with German and Russian languages for ages now, this might be just another push that I need to continue developing them skills... will definitely give it a go. :P
I've played a few other learning games and tested a bunch of apps, but many have the huge problem of not dealing with the fact that learning Chinese doesn't work like learning a western language, as pronunciation and the symbols/characters are (almost) entirely separate things. Some didn't even have pinyin, making them basically entirely useless.
Most learning games I played are little more than interactive dictionaries.
And learning with those is borderline useless as well, as they don't even apply a spaced repetition system.
Claiming that learning words is the most important part of learning a language is almost within lie territory, too. The most important parts are understanding the grammar and flow of the language, especially if said grammar and flow is very different from your own language. Increasing your vocabulary happens naturally over time as you learn the rest - it doesn't work the other way around, knowing a thousand words won't help you form a correct sentence.
I do not know this specific game, but if it is like others, you'd be better off learning basics with specific apps or books (if you feel truly hardcore) and then dive right into a normal game, set to the language you want to learn and play the game with a dictionary/browser open in the background.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 11 August 2018 at 1:00 pm UTC
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