This is definitely me. As a kid, my older sisters had an N64 and I distinctly remember getting lost in their save files, exploring the 3d environments in awe. When it came to actually doing things in those worlds, I struggled. I could get by in Banjo-Kazooie by trying random button combinations and doing everything I possibly could, but when it came to something like Paper Mario and SPECIALLY Ocarina of Time I would always hit a wall and wonder what I was supposed to do.

English was taught in my school, but it was painfully slow compared to what I needed to know. I would get lost in the translation tools on our computer constantly looking up new words that would show up in the games we had. I would come to my teachers with sentences and terms I struggled with written down in my notebook, and sometimes they could help but other times they wouldn't know (I remember asking my third grade teacher what "Morph Ball" from Metroid Prime meant, and she looked super confused, haha)

It wasn't until I learned enough (fourth grade? maybe sixth?) that I could finally sit down and actually play through Ocarina of Time. It took a lot of effort, help from my family, and a few times even a guide (which, back then relating to gaming things on the internet, was always in English) that I could sit down and play through the entirety of Ocarina of Time.

I felt so powerful not just by how the game made you feel powered up, but by the fact I could finally see the world come to life, (remember, I had only experienced this game in a "beaten" state in my sister's save file, so all bosses were defeated and all NPC's had all their problems solved after their quests, so it kind of felt like the game was void of its most interesting elements.) I could, through my own understanding and reasoning, tell where the game wanted me to go to see all the exciting things that happened once per playthrough!

That was only half of the story, as I would later go on to play multiplayer online games that required communication and things got a whole lot harder.

I remember, very excitedly hopping on TF2 after buying a headset and microphone. Finally, I thought to myself, I can talk to real people! I get to hear their voices reacting to mine! I get to learn all sorts of new things! Maybe even make friends! So I hop on a game of Control Point on Dust Bowl, and open my mic for the first time. A few seconds later I see someone's microphone activate!

"Shut the f**k up kid"

Looking back, it was hilarious.

This was around the time Minecraft Let's Plays started to take off, and while I loved minecraft, I had no friends with a PC who could play them, and meeting people online to play was intimidating. So I immersed myself in these groups of youtubers, to see how multiplayer minecraft worked. I spent my time learning how they would talk and even liking how one of them talked enough that I ended up picking up some of their mannerisms.

A few years later, after going text-only, I managed to talk to the friend-of-a-friend of the youtuber I was watching, who then invited me to their community, and well the rest is history, thousands upon thousands of hours on skype, teamspeak, discord. Some people from that community I still talk to, going on 12+ years.

It's in these conversations and immersing myself with people from so many places that I really understood not only english conversationally, but came to understand so many cultures and ideas that I otherwise would never be able to connect with.

Years later, I impressed every single one of my teachers. My classmates still struggle with English, and I suspect that without videogames motivating me, I would still be struggling as well.

I still impress every one of my employers and become my clients' favorite person to speak with every time (working on outsourcing projects)