Hey italki community!
As a Spanish native speaker I hardly ever swear (almost never, I would say) but when learning other languages I realize I tend to swear. This happens particularly with English, although with German, for example, I would say something considered really light when frustrated. I'm quite amazed by this and I was wondering If other people experience this too since, you know, as they say, "a different language, a different personality". Could it be that the people I speak with in English, they swear a lot? (but Spanish people swear a lot too!) or maybe because certain swearings in this language aren't considered as hard as their literal equivalents in Spanish? or maybe I just acquire a new personality every language I learn!
What about you? Random thoughs welcome!
Hey italki community!
I've read a lot about movies and books for learning languages but what about videogames? Have you ever tried playing videogames in another language? If so, could you share your experience? Do you have any game recommendation? do you prefer solo adventures or cooperative / competitive games?
I think I've played a lot of adventure games in English and some in French so far. Currently, I'm playing a graphic adventure in German. At the beginning it was strange 'cause I was pretty lost, but I'm starting to get used to it. Graphic adventures contain a lot of text so I wouldn't recommend it for beginners.
I believe this method is not really used when it comes to learning languages since a lot of people stop playing videogames at a certain point, but those who still play, I'm sure it's a powerful tool: you have text (reading), dialogues / voice (listening), sometimes you have to make decisions (understanding) or you can cooperate with other players by voice (speaking).
I want to speak today about "Keep talking and nobody explodes" a game where one person is using a computer and the other has a written manual full of instructions and symbols. The person in front of the screen will find herself/himself in a room with a bomb. The bomb will have a timer and lots of things such as wires, colors, numbers... The person in front of the screen has to describe the bomb and the other person has to look on the manual for the correct way of deactivating each part. It's a hilarious game based on communication.
I've played that game so much with a friend up to a point where we became super efficient and finished all levels and even created harder bombs. We used to play in English but I can't stop thinking how cool of a language practice this would be since you need to describe a lot of things and communicate things properly under some stressful but funny conditions --nobody wants the timer to go 0! If you want to know more about this game you can look on youtube, there are a lot of funny videos about this game.
I encourage everybody to try videogames or even this videogame (which is more like a boardgame actually) and I would be up for deactivating some bombs with you in Spanish or German any time! Just let me know. I think it can be a really fun experience (at least we'll learn the colors and numbers by heart and how to say "wires", believe me :D)
