Language learning gamified
Learning a new language has been one of the most sought-after skills by Bengalis for quite some time now. Many universities even offer a foreign language course. But the entire process of learning a new language can be tedious and quite daunting. So, what better way of making it more fun and interesting than games, right?
Kloo
Kloo is an award-winning card game for people of all ages, which uses cards of five different colours. To score points you need to make sentences. The longer the sentence, the more points you score. Red cards are pronouns and verbs, blue cards are nouns with articles in agreement, yellow ones are adjectives, green ones are connectives and purple ones are expressions. At the bottom of each card is a clue to translate words you don't know, helping you develop your vocabulary as you play. There are different themed cards and with every deck, you can make 3 million sentences. Kloo is fun for both beginners and experts. You can learn English, French, Italian or Spanish using this card game.
FluentU
FluentU is an app that takes content from the real world — like music videos, film clips, headlines, and inspirational conversations — and transforms them into customised language learning lessons. You can watch the videos as usual with interactive subtitles that are translated both by word and by sentence, or you can enter the personalised flashcards using words from the video, giving you a chance to practice either before or after watching the clip. The flashcards contain pictures, videos and example sentences to make things more fun. You can use the app to learn French, Spanish, German, English, Mandarin or Japanese. It is available in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
MindSnacks
MindSnacks offers several apps limited to Apple iOS for learning Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Mandarin or Japanese. Mindsnacks usually offers you around eight mini-games to learn over 800 words and phrases for the Japanese and Mandarin apps, and over 1000 words and phrases for the others. If you upgrade to the premium version, you will have access to over 50 language lessons designed by Ivy League instructors.
Influent
Influent is an online 3D game about a fictional inventor named Andrew Cross who is on a journey to prove himself to the world that he is the rightful owner of 'SanjigenJiten', a language learning device he invented which was stolen by someone. The player will have to control Andrew in either first or third person and navigate through the apartment while collecting words, building vocab lists, and then time attacking those words in a feeding frenzy. You unlock tabs on each object for verbs and adjectives after making a few vocab lists. This is great because you learn to associate adjectives and verbs with the nouns. You will require $10 to play this game, but it is a great supplement to your regular language learning routine especially if you are a more visual, tactile or spatial learner.