Among Us For Language Learning?

Some time ago, I wrote a blog post about language acquisition and games. Instead of making a game now, let's use an existing one. And what better game than the currently popular "Among Us"?

Other games do work as well, though. ("Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes")

Why Among Us?

Among Us Skeld Map With Translation
~ by GreenyNeko

So, why specifically Among Us? Despite its fantasy setting, some of the vocabularies are practical outside of the game as well. Compared to other games, players need to describe the situation as detailed as possible while the imposters try to manipulate information believably. On top of that, the game encourages communication, specifically via voice. The fun and popularity play a role in this choice too.

Language Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis

Summarizing the Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis, we learn a language through comprehensible input. In the game, intelligible communication is fundamental to win the game. Whether or not you're an imposter or crewmate. Being unable to get your point across is sus. In this scenario, language production goes hand in hand with comprehensible input. The talker is the teacher, and the listener is the student. The game's context helps to make messages intelligible. Even with limited language understanding, your game's knowledge helps comprehension expanding your proficiency by filling the gaps.^[1]

How To Get Started?

Technically you can jump right in and figure things out, but you might lose the first few rounds. Alternatively, you can acquire a language by watching other people play. Similar to how kids don't talk at first.

Among Us German Acquisition Comic
~ by GreenyNeko

Possible ways to learn the game's vocabulary would be

• listen to Youtubers play "Among Us" in the target tongue (preferably with subtitles)
• change the game's language to the target language (if applicable)
• translate the game and most relevant vocabulary
• lookup a list of the words

Now gather learners of the target language and a few natives. Among Us requires 4-10 players, but you know the saying the more, the merrier. Lastly, try to only speak in the target language, even if you only use single words. (report, blue imposter, etc.)

Off You Go!

Continuing to play this way will steadily improve your understanding through active listening and thinking. It isn't limited to this game but feels like it's a better one. Good luck with your language learning journey.

Have I mentioned this Among Us research I have going on?
It only takes 10-20 or 30-40 minutes!
>> Click to check it out!

^[1] www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiTsduRreug

Acquiring Languages and Games

Since I'm coming close to writing/performing the last exam of the semester, it's about time to continue learning Japanese. What I did not expect was the number of videos about language learning vs language acquisition, which ended up in my feed. Curious as I am, I watched them, of course. And here is what I've been thinking about it.

Language Learning VS Acquisition Summary

Firstly, what is language acquisition? The idea behind it is that you do not learn the rules (grammar), vocabulary, etc. of the language (language learning). Instead, you acquire it the same way children or babies do (language acquisition). But how do babies learn the language? By being immersed in it. We start not understanding a single word, but after some time, given their context, we can figure it out. The more words we acquire, the more we can derive through what we already know. Supposedly we do not obtain through repetition as many apps do it. (for example Duolingo) ^[1]

My Approach To Such An App

For maximum immersion, throwing the player into a fictional world instead of asking questions about language makes more sense. The goal is to create a virtual environment tailored to obtaining it similar to acquiring it by living abroad. This virtual world most likely needs the player to navigate it, which means we have to teach the user words that describe these actions. (right, left, up, down, north, east, west, south, jump, etc...)

Like in real life, the player can be asked to complete quests. Starting with simple ones such as: Bring this orange to the fruit store to the right or bring this sword to the northern guard. Whether the words "right" and "northern" are marked, is a question of difficulty I would say. The idea of these quests is to teach the user the meaning of those words. Important is ensuring that the possible mistakes the player makes are limited. They might not notice subtle hints, and we don't want them to get frustrated. Naming the store of the orange quest "store" is a positive example of this. On the other hand, the sword fetching quest is going to be frustrating, since the player might not know what north, sword or guard is.

From there on out, it pretty much builds on top of each other. Slowly teaching the player vocabulary and later on grammar through context. For example, let's assume the player learns German. They already know the word "springen" (engl.: jump). Putting NPCs that react to him with "Du springst" (engl.: "You jump"), then they get subtle clues to what "du" (engl.: you) could mean. If some children say: "Wir springen" (engl.: "We jump"), and they do it, we get more clues about pronouns. This may not even be the best approach, but you can see what I'm aiming at here.

Conclusion

So, as you can see, if this approach does indeed work, it might be possible to create a fully immersive game, which supports you on your way to acquire- instead of learning a language. Done through reading and hearing, and interacting with the world and its speech.

However, this is just my thoughts on it. Whether or not it works needs to be put to the test, and maybe this post sparks a conversation between people who develop language learning applications.

^[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=illApgaLgGA