BA Thesis about games and their usefulness! [SURVEY ENDED] [GIVEAWAY INSIDE]

I started learning English through this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheHobbit(1982_video_game) on the ZX Spectrum. That is all :)

I can't really contribute to this, as I'm a native English speaker. It's an interesting topic though, I think I might study gamification later in the course I'm doing now.

I just finished assignments on Internet English and the idea that there are 'New Literacies' that English speakers need to learn, and am in the middle of one about using Twitter to teach English.

oh well my native language is urdu but i think m fluent enough in english well video games did not help alot but movies did and conversation with people did helped me alot :) learned english by my self did not take any classes at all. :) good luck to you.

I'm a 23 year old male from Norway. I played games consistently through my youth, with Diablo being one of the major ones. Back then I would still read whatever long walls of text came up (not click through like MMOs have taught me) and enjoy the storyline. I remember learning either prince or king from the game because of the skeleton royalty boss

Definitely a lot, in both vocabulary and listening skill. However since you specify on vocabulary, I think I've learned about Politics and Scientific stuffs ^^

I've been playing games since I was 5 years old. My english grammar has increased ever since. I always get atleast 90/100 in English, while I am Dutch speaking myself. I almost never learn for English tests. I play so many video games that I sometimes like to think in English in my head instead of Dutch, because why not right!

I'm 16, male and English language has a big influence in my life... As soon as I started playing games, (I was like 5) I wanted to learn English, because I wanted to understand what was going on. I think the first words I knew were from game menus. And I know that I learnt a lot of words through playing. Pretty much games are what made me learn English...

I've played a lot of games in my short life and games helped me a lot how to speak english. I don't know exactly how but it did, and somehow english is everywhere: food, TV, tickets of any kind, games(lol)... on the job interview (depending on the job) they ask if you speak english or not, and if yes how much. basically or we learn or we can't go up in life.

Nowadays we can't ignore english. I'm 16 and I use english like my native language, I'm even better in writing english than my native language(which is portuguese).

I'd like to think that my fluency in English is mostly thanks to video games. And TV too, I guess. And generally the internet. I remember not being very good during elementary but became better as time went on through high school.. I played a multitude of games, but mostly JRPGs like Suikoden series... lol

Right now, I'm 19, male.

Well, in my case things are a little bit different. I start taking English classes when I was in the second grade (8 years old - now I'm 25, male) but didn't help that much since since all we did back then was grammar, grammar and yeah, grammar.
So I start watching Cartoon Network to improve my vocabulary and listening skill but the truth is I never had the chance to test & improve my skills (especially my English communication skills) for real until I start playing video games.
RPGs & Adventure games helped me improve my vocabulary, while action games helped me learn how to listen. I know this sounds weird but when I start learning a foreign language I have the feeling I don't know when & how to listen and this can make me miss important aspects of the conversation. I also have a stupid hearing problem that can sometimes be incredibly annoying so this really helped me.
Playing multiplayer games had a major impact on my communication skills since I had, for the first time, the chance to actually meet people I could talk too (text & voice).

So yeah, I guess you could say it helped me a lot.

I'm 16, Russia.
Well, first of all, when I was a little girl I played detectives in English. As you can imagine, they require text understanding, so it has, of course, enriched my vocabulary. Now I play games such as DotA 2 and learn new words as well as pronounciation and intonation C:
P.S. Have only 3 lessons per week in my school. However, I win 1st place in my town English language olympiad every year C:

Male, age 20.

English is a secondary language, studied it privately for 2 years at first, was under 10 years old, then pretty much taught myself the rest from TV and computers. I mostly played strategy games as a kid - Age of Empires 1 and 2, Outpost 2, Civilization 3, Medieval and Rome Total War, Stronghold series, Warcraft 3, Tropico 1 and 2, SimCity 4, Rise of Nations, other stuff I can't remember. Language complexity was low, as far as I can remember. Games were definitely very helpful in improving my English and expanding my vocabulary. And they continue to do the latter.

Male, age 19

My primary language is Dutch, but i learned English on my high school. Videogames have increased my vocabulair alot. I started playing english videogames when I was about 10 and learned new things all the time. The language in online games isn't too complex, but it increased my knowlage of the language. Later on I started playing games with a complexer storyline, which i wanted to understand, and kept increasing my vocabulary this way.

17/M
I am not a native English speaker but I learned the language early on from cartoons on TV and PS1 games (age 3 and up, basically). I didn't really understand much but I specifically remember an episode where I tried pronouncing "Continue" (cont-ee-noo-eh :P) and my aunts (who owned the console) laughed at me and taught me the proper pronunciation and the meaning of the word. I'm sure this happened many times more.

I know for a fact that my vocabulary, once I had learned to speak the language, was largely enhanced by Runescape, which I started playing at around age 10. Same thing with all of my friends who I know played the game.

This is the way I learned English in a nutshell: cartoons, video games, music (and movies), books. Sprinkle a bit of English class on top of it and that's it.

Age 30
Male
Romanian

I learned better english than those who only learned it at school because of games. Later that English enabled me to be an avid reader of english written books. I also learned alot of other stuff because of games like Civilization the Total War series etc.

1. I started learn english when i was realy young (5 years old) but i'm realy disappointed becouse i didnt had internet and i started playing online games realy late so i didnt have a chance to perfecting english language, so i just started some years ago playing my first mmo and now i'm trying to skill my language (now i'm 22 years old, a bit to late for learning english but is never to late)

2. Make friends outside your country, chat with them is also good to learn english. So yea, games had a big influence for me to learn english (sadly you need internet).

P.S: What means BA ?

Um I started playing video games since I was 3 years old and they werent childish games it was all about gta and horror games :] yes I am not a native english speaker but I started learning english since I was 4 and won many spelling bee contests for english also I only use punctuations for homework

Video games help me learn English the same way movies do: I listen to (voice) actors and read the subtitles at the same time (I can't stand Polish dubbing). And I see/hear some words a lot (for example weapon types or actions) so I either guess their meaning or just look them up in a dictionary. I think the fact that we play games for fun makes the learning process much easier because out brains are more stimulated than during actual studying session with a boring textbook. On the downside, my grammar isn't that great because I never really bothered memorizing all the rules. Good luck with your thesis! (I'm 22, female.)

I am a 25 years old male Troll and about 70 / 80 % of my english comes from games, not just the words but also the sentence construction and all that makes a language.
Started playing games in English at around 12, and since I loved (J)RPGs and the more interesting ones were US only most of the time, I took a real interest in learning the language.
I learned English to play games at first, and growing up it became enjoyable to learn the language itself.

Some games I played after learning a good chunck of English include Xenogears, Star Ocean 2, Final Fantasy Tactics, Finfal Fantasy 6...
of which Xenogears may be the most challenging for a young foreigner trying to learn common words, and being thrown complex words at the face while trying to understand the story.

From my PoV, as a French person, I find English very easy for most cases due to simplification for some aspects, like there being no female / male differentiation apart from he and she pronouns.

Video games entertain and educate gamers, for better or for worse. When someone makes the argument that violent video games make violent children, they are also making the argument that video games with a heroic protagonist teaches heroism.

You cannot make the argument that violent video games do not create violent children without also stating that educational media cannot educate children. Hard Rain and Southland. Call of Duty multiplayer and Breaking Bad. You can encourage your children to learn to be heroic and do the right thing when presented with a difficult situation, or you can encourage your children to be selfish, greedy, and violent without an honorable reason.

In the same way, games can teach foreign languages. I got interested in French because I found a copy of Dragonball Z Hyper Dimension SNES/SFC that was translated from Japanese to French. Because I am familiar with the anime series, I quickly understood what was being said in the game. From there, music and movies. The same methods were used to teach myself some German, Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish. Russian still gives me trouble because of that Cyrillic text.

Bump! ^_^

Mid-twenties, Finnish, male:
I believe on later age it's quite a lot really. The need to communicate with others on online games and on other hand the resources needed for other material. I think for being member of a community either in MMORPG or just for general reading of games was helpfull. At least for writing and reading. It provide place to produce language...

lol, didn't even notice dis thread, had something to tell though

I learn english when I have been on vacation and watching Cartoon Network in english. In computer game ? Hm. I play in Tibia (yes, yes I know this game is a crap) and learning many new english words. :)

is the survey over? just saw it... if i give my opinion can i join giveaway? :3