Brazilian athlete says he learnt English playing online games

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Brazilian athlete says he learnt English playing online games

Postby DaveAgain » Thu Nov 17, 2022 5:48 am

In a recent interview, Renato Moicano, a Brazilian athlete, said he learnt English by playing online games, and chatting with the other players.
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Re: Brazilian athlete says he learnt English playing online games

Postby Fortheo » Thu Nov 17, 2022 12:05 pm

DaveAgain wrote:In a recent interview, Renato Moicano, a Brazilian athlete, said he learnt English by playing online games, and chatting with the other players.


His post fight interview really was something :lol:

I'm glad he's getting some attention. He's been fighting tough guys for a while now, so hopefully he'll get a big pay day soon.

In regards to the language aspect of the topic, I always find it interesting to hear stories like this. I've never been into gaming, at least not modern video games, so I honestly don't know how "learning a language by playing online games" could work.

Have any of you had success with this?
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Re: Brazilian athlete says he learnt English playing online games

Postby cito » Thu Nov 17, 2022 4:15 pm

Fortheo wrote: Have any of you had success with this?

Hilariously, I did, but long before I was into language learning. I used to play a game with a community team finder online (there was a fan made website designated to finding others for multiplayer activities), and ended up in a group with a bunch of Germans. I had no idea what they were saying, but at one point in the game, everyone had to fire when the squad leader said so, and I figured out through context he was saying “fire”! It was a funny experience.
Once I have more time and I get a bit better at Russian I might try and find some people to play CSGO with, but it’s been a while.
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Re: Brazilian athlete says he learnt English playing online games

Postby badger » Thu Nov 17, 2022 4:32 pm

Fortheo wrote:Have any of you had success with this?

I haven't, but most games these days have in-game text & voice chat, and there is a huge gaming ecosystem on reddit/discord/twitch/etc. so there's no lack of gaming-related content or opportunity for interaction.
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Re: Brazilian athlete says he learnt English playing online games

Postby Sae » Thu Nov 17, 2022 7:28 pm

There's a lot of communication in online games and a lot of context to go with it and it can be a very social thing, so I find it plausible, especially to improve on it. I dunno how it'd be to learn the language 100% from playing online games, but I expect it is input heavy and throws you into quite deep, but yeah, as badger says, there's a whole Ecosystem, I'm in multiple Discord communities for example. It's a very social thing now. And IMO it's great, as because of it, I have friends all over the world.

I've not tried it though, whilst I do know a Vietnamese guy in my online gaming social circles...but he doesn't speak the language as he grew up in the US.
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Re: Brazilian athlete says he learnt English playing online games

Postby Marluxia88 » Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:50 pm

I'd say it's believable. I am also an example of this, since I learned English through video games and anime with English subtitles, also manga in English. I'm sure none of you have ever heard of it, but there are entire communities of anime fans in Russia that learn popular languages through anime and manga in said languages, namely English, German, French, Italian and Spanish. The only and decisive downside to this method is the fact that only a handful of languages can be studied this way. These five, mine, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Chinese and Japanese itself. Everything else would be a problem since it's almost impossible to find video games, animes and mangas with either subtitles or dub in other languages.
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Re: Brazilian athlete says he learnt English playing online games

Postby Querneus » Fri Nov 18, 2022 11:22 pm

I learned a lot of English with videogames (while also taking weekend classes) back when gaming wasn't even that social -- almost everything I played as a teenager was offline. It was quite good to get me to practise what I was learning, more so as I especially enjoyed games with quite an amount of NPC dialogue (like Pokemon, Golden Sun and Final Fantasy games...). I haven't played videogames in a bit over a decade, but I imagine it's only got more compelling with the new social aspect now.
Marluxia88 wrote:I'd say it's believable. I am also an example of this, since I learned English through video games and anime with English subtitles, also manga in English. I'm sure none of you have ever heard of it, but there are entire communities of anime fans in Russia that learn popular languages through anime and manga in said languages, namely English, German, French, Italian and Spanish. The only and decisive downside to this method is the fact that only a handful of languages can be studied this way. These five, mine, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Chinese and Japanese itself. Everything else would be a problem since it's almost impossible to find video games, animes and mangas with either subtitles or dub in other languages.

I think there's also a lot of anime fan-subbed into Indonesian, and manga in Korean, judging by what YouTube recommends me or what I accidentally come across, but your point by all means stands.
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Re: Brazilian athlete says he learnt English playing online games

Postby MaggieMae » Sat Nov 19, 2022 11:38 am

I know at least 3 or 4 kids that have learned English through Peppa Pig, so nothing really surprises me anymore in that regard. :lol:

But I will say that my German took a dramatic upturn when I started gaming in German. Playing DnD in a foreign language is no easy task... But not just DnD, I had to learn words like "torch", "armor", and various natural resource words, too. You'd think Minecraft wouldn't have a big language component... but then you'd be wrong. :oops:
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Re: Brazilian athlete says he learnt English playing online games

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Sat Nov 19, 2022 4:25 pm

MaggieMae wrote:I know at least 3 or 4 kids that have learned English through Peppa Pig, so nothing really surprises me anymore in that regard. :lol:

But I will say that my German took a dramatic upturn when I started gaming in German. Playing DnD in a foreign language is no easy task... But not just DnD, I had to learn words like "torch", "armor", and various natural resource words, too. You'd think Minecraft wouldn't have a big language component... but then you'd be wrong. :oops:


I also learned a lot (of vocabulary) from RPGs when I started with that hobby. In fact, it was my main written source of English. But I already knew the language. I just didn't read in it (other than textbook lessons) and I didn't really speak the language either (other than in class, 2x40 minutes per week...).
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