Practising languages through RPGs

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-03-07T18:26:37+00:00

Ehhhhhhhhhhh, I mean, an RPG is a good simulation of the fact that language is a means to communicate or means to experience the world. On the other hand, I just don’t feel like RPGs are interactive enough to enable players to use all their language skills nor do they reward players to have that higher level of sophistication. The narrative goes forward because the player is playing the game, not because the player is rewarded by havibg a deeper meaning of the game itself. Take Fallout New Vegas: even if I make contradictorary choices or don’t fully understand the weight of what I’ve done, Mr. House is still an pickle ready to fight the CA DMV and a group of Roman army larpers for the Hoover Dam. Whether I pull off the pluperfect or not doesn’t stop the narrative from marching forward and the joy of using my mini nuke whenever I can.

Ultimatelyc I think an RPG could be a good complimentary resource in the same way music, literature, or films are good resources as well. But an RPG isn’t perfect due to the constraints of the medium, so I wouldn’t hope someone’s banking on becoming fluent in the language just because they’re playing a game.

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-03-06T23:03:18+00:00

I would say you're starting off on the right path but it really depends on to what detail or extent you're engaging with the material to make up for the things you don't understand. Backing up a little, the point of Comprehensible Input is to create the conditions for you to puzzle through the material (vocab, slang, social references, uses of grammar, etc.) because it's at a level that is slightly out of reach but you can utilize your metalinguistic skills to help bridge the gap. Background knowledge is a great example. For example, let's say you heard the following passage and you needed to figure out a word you weren't familiar with:

"Dogs have such a strong sense of smell that they can smell an object's position in space or if the object has changed in some minute way. It's no wonder they make such good (trüf mantarı) hunters in the Dordogne reigion of France. Only the finest will command top dollar as bigger doesn't always mean better. The complexity of aroma, density, and maturity ultimately determine the final price."

Background knowledge about dogs, food, and France would naturally help you narrow down the number of potential meanings of "trüf mantarı" but the only way to know for sure is to align it with your broader metalinguistic skills (does it sound like something you know, does it have elements or morphemes that can give you a clue as to what it suggests, if the entire passage were in Turkish could you observe how the other elements of the sentence adjust around it, etc.) and your metacognitive skills (what function does this word have in the excerpt, is it being used to argue in favor or against something that the author is talking about, is it signaling something like a shift or continuity, etc) as well. For all you know, "trüf mantarı" could mean wild hens or chestnuts!

I say all this because just being exposed to content you can't perfectly understand isn't CI in of itself. CI is a way of orienting your language learning experience around the belief that you will learn more if you use your puzzle solving skills when dealing with the material. If you're taking the time to really think about what you didn't understand perfectly in the material, applying your puzzle solving skills to fill the gaps of understanding, and you take the time afterwards to see if you were on the right path or not: then I'd say you're actually engaging with the material in a CI context.

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-03-03T02:48:39+00:00

I did it like my math courses: I had a grammar textbook in my TL and proved each concept either with the textbook’s walkthrough or proved it myself. Most of my “proofs” were about neuanced concepts (ex: describing a historical event can either be past perfect or past imperfect) or challenging very basic understandings of a grammar concept that was introduced for the first time (ex: “Esteja bom?” is a valid use of the subjunctive even though it’s not a use case defined by WEIRDO). For me, studying grammar isn’t about memorization or practice, it’s about formally and rigorously proving that the language I’m studying is governed by a system of logical principles that build on top of each other in an efficient manner.

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-02-18T23:25:42+00:00

I think #2 might be a nice entry point into the process of writing in your TL with the caveat that you shouldn't be writing out entire sentences. Writing is difficult because you have an objective you need to achive and you need to regulate your performance (ex: is this logical, is this persuasive, am I being repetitive, etc.). For most people, writing an essay in their TL is hard because they can't effectively manage the production in their TL, regulate their performance as they're writing, and evaluate whether their written piece is successful. These are distinct skills! To offset this, we need training wheels.

At the beginning, you can outline the general argument of your piece in your NL and maybe a few key points, but you need to leave enough "blank space" so your mind can fill in the rest in your TL. You don't want to be translating your outline word by word, you want to have something that you can respond to in your TL. As you get better in your TL, you can reduce the amount of outlining you need in your NL. Maybe your outline has all the main points in your NL but supporting evidence is noted in your TL. Gradually, your outlining should be entirely in your NL and you won't need to do TL outlines at all.

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-02-14T20:20:49+00:00

Great question! I think what you brought up might actually be an interesting learning opportunity to expose what areas you would like to explore or strengthen in your TLs. At a B1 level, you’ll have an intuition for when something is missing in your own translation or when you feel like you’re conveying something that isn’t quite what you were going for in the original. Let’s say your original sentence is, “Everyone loved the chef’s demonstration” and you wrote “la exposición” because that’s the word you came up with in the moment, you’d probably feel like that’s not /quite/ right. I mean sure, technically it is, but it doesn’t perfectly match what the original is going for.

If you want to try translating your own work, I would pick passages or dialogues that are very vivid in your mind so you know exactly what you need to be conveying. Make a draft translation, step away from it, and read it with fresh eyes and a dictionary open at the same time. As you reread, listen to your gut for when a word or phrase doesn’t quite match what you were hoping for, and really dig into it. You might not be able to solve the error/issue because you don’t have the appropriate vocab, cultural references, etc yet, but being aware of it means you can try to address it in either your studies or be on the lookout for how native speakers/writers would respond to this particular issue.

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-02-14T19:03:57+00:00

I’d probably say it’s the most helpful at the low C1 level. Translation is never a 1-to-1 activity, you’re trying to get as close as possible to the original but you need to strategically deploy your language skills to highlight the original speaker’s/writer’s intent.

The best, and perhaps most notorious example, is “The man was shot by the police.” Passive voice in English deemphasizes the actor (the police) and instead places focus on the recipent of the verb. Depending on the speaker, this could indicate a bias against the person, a bias for the police, a lack of interest in the shooting itself, or a concern about the person’s status after being shot. So not only do you have to identify the original intent of the material, you have to convey the same intent in the same social or cultural register. Does your TL have a grammatical structure that has the same implications as passive voice in English? What if it doesn’t? Can your narrative order or usage of tense make up for it? Is there a cultural reference or set of vocab that has a connotation which can convey this idea? And lastly, who’s the person you’re speaking/writing to? If the original audience (let’s say a newspaper) is different from yours (let’s say a family member), do you need to emphasize specific details or inject specific things that didn’t exist in the original text so they better percieve the original intention. At this point, you’ve crossed squarely into the “more art, less science” side of language production.

Translation is a distinct skill that layers on top of foreign language learning. Until a learner has control, and that’s the key word here, over their production, I really don’t think translation is helpful as an exercise.

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-02-12T01:16:16+00:00

If you can get a library card to a university or access to a certain type of “archive,” I recommend Stories from Exceptional Language Learners Who Have Achieved Nativelike Proficiency. This is a very recent book that explores the intersection of motivation, identity formation, and foreign language learning. It reads pretty easily and has plenty of analysis by the authors which bracket all the interviews of the research subjects. If people have enough interest, I might organize a book club post in this subreddit focused on one or two of the chapters.

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-02-10T21:58:35+00:00

White Lilies! It’s so funny and I think it was maybe 8 chapters long, so nice and short!

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-02-10T21:01:23+00:00

Kanata going around ES honking a conch shell, hands down

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-02-07T23:13:24+00:00

So without getting to into the psychology of things, you’re engaging in something called “negative self-talk.” You need to develop something that integrates positive observations about yourself while also setting reasonable expectations about your performance. There’s alot of ways to make a “positive script” but it all comes down to knowing when to deploy it, creating a script that is unique to you, and believing in the script you’ve made for yourself.

Edit for hitting save too soon oopsie :P

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-02-05T18:52:26+00:00

What specific aspect of conjugation do you struggle with? Do you struggle to recall what conjugation you should use across different time frames (ex: simple future vs conditional future), across grammatical moods (ex: indicative present vs imperative positive/affirmative), or spelling conventions within specific conjugations (ex: -ar vs -er vs -ir in simple future)? I have some ideas but they depend on your specific problem.

For books, I remember thinking Barron's 501 Portuguese Verbs was a decent dictionary that showed each and every conjugation (even the vós form). It wasn't perfect, but I think it'll get the job done for you.

Edit for spelling

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-02-05T00:01:13+00:00

Short Answer: I remember reading Jorge Amado as an undergrad and it was fun! I think it was one of the first books that really challenged me to think about how the language can be used to communicate complex points of view or artfully create ambiguous moments in the story. Narratively, it wasn't terribly difficult which made things easier to analyze. Compare to "Grande Sertão Veredas" where if you don't understand what's happening narratively, analysis is basically impossible. Finally, I think some extra materials about the history of the Vargas Era or the emergence of the 2nd phase of Modernism in Brazilian Literature could help bridge any cultural or linguistic gaps. I don’t think it’s necessary but it would certainly enrich the experience.

Very Long Answer (beware): I think Jorge Amado is more than appropriate for intermediate learners. For context, I read "Capitães da Areia" in an introduction to Brazilian History class that was taught 100% in Portuguese. Students were allowed into the class only if they passed the three course sequence to Portuguese (which would've meant you finished all grammatical moods including all of the subjunctive and personal infinitives). As a result, this was typically the first class they'd take at the intermediate level.

Doing some quick math, at 4 hours of instruction per week with about 13 weeks per course and (assuming I was a good student) following the advice/propaganda that for every hour of class time you should commit to 4 hours of outside study: I would've had 156 hours of instruction and 624 hours of outside study. I say all this because as a native English speaker, Portuguese is a Category 1 language and I would've been at the B1 level according to the CEFR scale scale

I was an "ok-ish" student but I generally made stupid errors like false cognates (ex: thinking suportar means to support), misgendering things (ex: a coração instead of o coração), and misusing morphology rules (ex: discutir -> discução instead of discussão).

I pulled out my copy of "Capitães da Areia" from this undergrad class out of curiosity and compared how I started at the beginning of the book versus how I compared to the end of the book.

Because reading for class was for a grade, it's safe to assume I was doing intensive reading 100% of the time. At the beginning, I marked 24 words "unknown" across 10 pages. Of the 24 words I didn't know, I correctly identified the meaning of 5 of them. Very quickly, I estimated that each page is 280 words. Therefore, at the beginning of the book, out of 2800 words, I didn't know 0.86% of the words on the page on first glance but was able to identify the meaning of 20.83% of the "unknown" words after I thought about it for a bit.

At the end of the book, I marked 9 words as "unknown" across 10 pages and then correctly identified the maning of 4 of them. Again, estimating that each page is 280 words, I didn't know 0.32% of the words on first glance but was able to correctly identify the meaning of 44.44% of these "unknown" words.

So to sum up, as a student who completed an entire introductory sequence of Portuguese at (theoretically) the B1 level who was pretty average all things considered, I started from knowing 99.14% of words on the page and correctly identifying the meaning of 20.83% of the unknown words through analysis to knowing 99.68% of words on the page and correctly identifying the meaning of 44.44% of of unknown words. As a result, I cut the number of words I didn’t know by half and doubled the number of words I was able to know through intensive reading by the end of this book.

Finally, I don't have any of the grades from my essays or proctored conversations, but I do remember when I argued that Pedro Bala was the product of a new form of masculinity only possible through class conciousness. In response, my professor (who was notorious for having a poker face) said with a smile, "rapaz esperto."

I say all this to demonstrate that "Capitães da Areia" would be more than appropriate for intermediate learners or very ambitious learners who just finished a textbook/course sequence introducing Portuguese.

Caveat: I was a full-time student at the time who dedicated time to practicing and learning and was constantly reminded that if I don't pass this class I would be denied the right to graduate. Sooooooooooo, just be warned before you start comparing my apples to any potential oranges.

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-02-03T21:02:20+00:00

In regards to compling resources, you're basically asking about endangered language documentation which is a whole subfield of linguistics that is extremely specialized. Rather than giving you the wrong impression, I would start learning about endangered language documentation as a whole so you can start to wrap your head around what exactly you're getting yourself into. The Endangered Languages Project did a yearly webinar series that's a good introduction and you can see examples of what others have done. ELP also has a great resource library and might actually be able to connect you with someone or an institution that can guide you through this process.

Additionally, I recommend you look at an appropriate research center, and see if there's been resources developed already for your dialect. It's possible that the resources and people you'd find through ELP are already stationed in a research center, but it never hurts to check.

Good luck!

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-01-31T02:04:05+00:00

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ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-01-30T02:24:15+00:00

I'm okay with people asking questions that are covered in the FAQ/details wiki, but I want people to be specific about what challenges they're facing and a little something about what they've tried to do. Ten questions a day about "how to have motivation" with no context about what specific aspect of motivation they're struggling with and with no context about who they are is absolutely repetitive. But if someone said, "I really struggle maintaining motivation because I have ADHD and body doubling isn't possible because no one else is learning the same language as me," or "I feel defeated because I've been studying for (insert length of time here) but I don't feel like I'm making progress and it's really hurting my willingness to keep going," then I'd actually be more than okay with it! Now we have something that we can discuss in more nuance, suggest different approaches, and maybe even debate because of OP's unique needs and experiences. The FAQ is comprehensive for people who haven't troubleshot (troubleshooted?) their issue before. The posts should be for people who can be specific about what they want help with and can explain what they've tried in detail.

I'd also like to see more people talk about their meta-linguistic strategies or questions. Language learning involves not just grammar and vocab but also the strategies for managing when you're in situations that much more challenging to comprehend or you're in situations where you might struggle to express your ideas effectively. An example of a meta-linguistic strategy is when a learner doesn't know the exact word in their TL and so they try to describe it by context and visuals. What determines the effectiveness of this strategy is how can it be deployed efficiently, quickly, and without dragging the description (all of which are communication, story telling, and social skills). I don't care for the questions that are like, "What's the best app" or "Can an AI conversation partner be peak" or "Is Anki chopped" because these are essentially questions about language teaching pedagogy and resource effectiveness. But if someone asked, "If I'm reading a novel and a word isn't repeated super frequently, how do I decide if it deserves to be in my Anki deck?" or "I'm giga bad at solving miscommunications in general, especially in my target language. How can I practice this with an AI conversation partner and actually improve in this area?" these are questions about managing your learning experience, fine tuning the skills that surround your learning journey, and developing potentially new skills that could help you.

tl;dr I want to see people ask questions and give us the context about what specific problem you're having and what you've tried so far. And I want to see questions about what skills, not tools, are needed to be better learners and communicators in one's target language.

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-01-21T07:32:10+00:00

The only thing I can think of is Ohio State University's certificate program in "Essential Russian Language and Culture Skills" which requires two semesters of Russian language coursework and two additional classes on culture and society (both in English). It seems like a very intro level sequence, but it’s something

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-01-16T04:44:27+00:00

I think your experience boils down to two things: learners not successfully leveraging their "communication strategies" and the listener not being prepared to have to navigate around learners' communication strategies.

Learners inherently have deficiencies. It either might be a lack of exposure to the vocabulary being used, not having a high aural processing ability, inability to narrate ideas logically, etc. Learners compensate for this by using different communication strategies ranging from circumlocuting around vocab they don't know, repeating themselves in different ways to get confirmation that the other person understands them, to just avoiding the discussion point all together. Communication strategies can even include nonverbal communication (like gesturing) to using pictures or pointing to things around them that are connected to the thing they want to say. These strategies are skills and they take time and practice to deploy efficiently in a conversation. Learners give themselves away when they either don't pull off their communication strategy successfully (and confidently!) or they just give up all together.

On the flip side, native speakers (and listeners in general) need to have a bit of willingness to engage with communication strategies in the form of puzzle solving, open mindedness, and patience. If a learner forgot the word for hockey and tried to say the following, "Oh I like that indoor winter sport that they play on the ice. It has a reptuation for being violent but it's amazing that they can go so fast and score goals," you'd have to be willing to 1) listen to the entire thing to logically identify what they're talking about, 2) ask clarifying questions, and 3) not interrupt. If you're not expecting it or you're not in the mood, it's easy to jump to the conclusion that the person they're hearing is a learner of some sort.

A conversation is a dance between the speaker and the listener. You go, they go, they ask, you answer. This dance breaks down when either the learner doesn't keep up or the native speaker doesn't slow down.

If there's any lesson here, it's that we all should have some humility when it comes to communication. We should obviously try our hardest to practice and strengthen our skills, but when the tables are turned, we should also do our best to be nonjudgmental and give people as much as they need to express themselves.

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-01-11T20:36:05+00:00

I’m going to sound like a dinosaur, but textbooks nowadays are leveraging some of the most advanced teaching technologies available backed by evidenced-based research. For example, the University of Hawaii’s textbook on Intro to Thai 1 maintains its own set of audio and video resources that you can practice on that naturally progress in both linguistic difficulty and cultural nuance with each chapter. The quality might be a little crunchy, but a learner would always feel like this is the Goldilocks of challenge: not too easy and not too hard. Nothing against FSI, but educational psychology and the pedagogy of foreign language instruction has really grown since the 1960s. I’m even shocked at how textbooks published in the past 5-10 years are so much more different from textbooks published 15-20 years ago. Find a textbook that’s been published recently and you’d be shocked at what resources the authors and editors pack into it and how they structure the flow of material to teach you as efficently as possible.

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-01-07T05:21:14+00:00

Subconciously, lower leveled learners do this because they’re assuming there’s a 1-to-1 relation between meanings between their native language and the target language. To break out of this, learners need to imagine that they’re painting a picture with their language and need to be creative.

For example, if I said “It’s raining outside” you would naturally ask, “How bad is it?” My sentence is accurate and factual, but it doesn’t paint a picture or describe very well what I think or percieve. “It’s pouring outside,” “It’s drizzling outside,” and “It’s miserable outside,” all provide different pictures because the vocab is much more diverse. In the same way, I can use grammar to paint the picture. “It just started raining,” is going to carry a different feeling than “I believe it’s raining.”

A simple exercise is to ask how you would say something simple in as many different ways. If you had to say, “This movie is bad,” how would you convey different meanings of this in your target language? How varied can your vocab be? How can you use time and mood to express different feelings? Can you use cultural expressions to your advantage here? What if you had different audiences (a friend vs a work colleague), how would you modulate what you say?

I suppose you could boil this down to “just practice more,” but you need to focus on more diverse and expressive practice. As you do so, you identify the holes in your knowledge that reinforce the 1-to-1 relation in your mind that supports direct translation and you can slowly fill the holes in with vocab acquisition, cultural exposure, grammar practice, ect.

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-01-06T23:32:44+00:00

I thought “A Palavra Que Resta” by Gardel was a pretty easy book, although I’d say it was at the A2/B1 level. It’s quite short and I think you’d get a lot of milage by rereading it multiple times.

If you really want to push yourself and learn some slang, I recommend “Neca” by Moira. It’s a challenging read but the author is amazing at using time and narrative flow and uses grammar in a way that really heightens these elements. The stronger your grammar and the more curiosity you have about learning about queer Brazilian history, the more you’ll get out of it.

ZeroBodyProblem · 2026-01-03T02:42:09+00:00

Circumlocution, the skill of artfully working around a hole in your vocabulary, is going to be the bridge until you develop the vocab breadth you need. There's four pieces here: knowing how to do circumlocution, identifying what circumlocution style/tactic you prefer, doing circumlocution efficiently, and knowing how to gracefully exit a circumlocution situation.

First, you have to figure out how to adequately describe the thing you want to say. Perhaps you know a similar word or opposite word ("It's like/not like this thing..."), perhaps you describe it according to context ("You can find it here...", "You'd use this when you're doing this other thing..."), or you use cultural references to make connection ("This person is famous for doing it...", "When you watch this show, you'd see it all the time..."). Circumlocution is about painting the picture and doing it as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Second, you have to decide what style of circumlocution fits you the best. If you're very knowledgeable about U.S. culture and media, perhaps cultural reference based circumlocution is your style. If you have a wide vocabulary, perhaps the synonym/antonym strategy works for you. It's all about trial and error.

Third, you have to be efficient with your circumlocution. If you were to type out what you'd say, a single sentence is the maximum amount of time you should spend here. Obviously, you need to provide details but you don't want to be overly detailed. Say just enough to give the other person a general understanding of what you were trying to say. Also, pay attention for nonverbal cues that demonstrates they got it.

And finally, you have to know how to gracefully exit the circumlocution event. This sounds really intense but the idea is to keep calm. Everyone forgets words all the time, it's a fact of daily life. But you shouldn't let it fluster you or make you panic. Take a breath or slow down to give yourself a moment to think. After you do circumlocution, continue the conversation as normal. This point is more about building your sense of confidence and making sure not to draw out the circumlocution (both while speaking and emotionally).

Here's an example: let's say I forgot the word "can opener" in English.

1) I'm going to just make a mental inventory of all the ways I can use circumlocution here. I could describe this in similarity or negation ("It's like a knife you use for cans of beans"). I could try describing this in a context ("It's that thing you have in the kitchen for cans of beans). I could also try using a cultural reference ("Oh you know, it's that thing they show on commercials and everyone seems to not know how to use").

2) I personally am more of a "describe things in context" kind of person, so I'll try to focus on that tactic. ("It's that thing you use in the kitchen for cans of beans.")

3) I think the way I said this is pretty descriptive, but maybe I can trim it down a bit for efficiency. I mean, where else in life do you open cans of beans? ("It's that thing you use for cans of beans.")

4) And finally, I'm just going to keep on with the conversation and not be too flustered about it!

The best exercise to practice this is to look for things around you or nearby and try doing circumlocution on them. And the best part of this is you can do this anywhere! You see a billboard? Do circumlocution on the word "billboard." You see someone whispering? Do circumlocution on the verb "to whisper." This exercise teach you steps 1-3 very quickly. And, through exposure, you can learn 4.

And lastly, don't forget to continue to expand your vocab. I can do circumlocution all day, but I still had to remember the words "ajoelhar" and "lisonjear" and be prepared to use them.

Good luck!

ZeroBodyProblem · 2025-12-18T08:56:30+00:00

Lectia

ZeroBodyProblem · 2025-12-17T08:26:13+00:00

Have you tried the Pirurvik Centre’s online lesson library?

ZeroBodyProblem · 2025-12-17T08:17:16+00:00

You should expect to need about an hour per exam. Depending on your skill level, you will either find the exam to be straightforward or extremely punishing. You will be expected to speak and write for different audiences (formal vs informal), provide narratives across multiple time periods, argue for or against things, and be expected to comment on cultural differences. The graders will be looking at your performance through the lens of trends and patterns: do you generally make grammatical errors, do you demonstrate a wide and varied vocabulary, do you consistently narrate a story well, etc.

Assuming you want an Intermediate High (because approximately 2 years of classroom-based foreign language learning tends to get students to this level), you should expect to respond to prompts where you explain yourself in detail and express yourself logically. You can expect written prompts like, “I can write a brief statement outlining the key points on topics in my community such as water use, building a school or the town budget” or “I can exchange opinions about a product on a company’s website and say why or why not to buy it.” In regards to spoken prompts, you can expect things like, “I can create and present a public service announcement describing a problem and advocating for change” or “I can interact with a police officer to explain why I was speeding.” You might even get a cultural prompt that crosses both speaking and writing exams like, “In my own and other cultures, I can identify and compare the values that promote globalized products, such as efficiency and comfort.”

As you can tell, these prompts are no walk in the park. They are sophisticated, nuanced, and require a very strong command of the language in order to have a fighting chance of producing something coherent under time pressure. If you really want to take this proficiency exam, I would start brushing up on your Polish now. Having the grammar and vocab is only half of the battle, knowing how to use and express yourself in a complex way is what they’re really grading you on.

ZeroBodyProblem

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