Play games and improve your English?! YES!!!

It's me, Mario.

I'm here to teach you about video games for English.

Whoo, that was hot and sweaty under there.

I'm Ronnie.

I'm not Mario, sorry.

People are always saying, "Ronnie, how can I learn English?

I hate textbooks.

I hate lessons.

I hate reading."

Me too.

What do you like?

You know I like video games.

I'm sorry, did you say you like video games?

I know so many people who have learned amazing

English simply through playing video games.

This is good news.

Parents, hold on.

Before you turn me off, let me turn you on to video games for learning English.

This can be for children, it can be for teens,

it can be even for people who are not children

and teens, adults, if you will.

If you like video games, why not learn English while you're doing it?

We have an expression, "Kill two birds with one

stone", so you're having fun, you're playing

video games.

So, video games for learning English, here's the argument.

First of all, why do it?

It's not boring, yes.

The problem with learning a language or learning anything is it's boring.

You got to sit someplace, it's a book, and kind of read it, I guess.

And then you close the book and you forget it, or like, "Oh, my phone, let me do some

social media-ing here."

Oh, okay.

So, if you do something that you don't like, you lose concentration.

It's not beneficial, you do it.

We say it goes one ear and out the other.

So, doing something you like, it's not boring,

it actually motivates you to learn because

you actually want to do it, and continue with the learning.

Unfortunately, the way that we process information

in a language is we have to review and repeat.

We have to continue.

Video games are built on this same pattern where we start, maybe we die, we go back to

the beginning, we review it and get it right.

It's the same with learning English.

You have to learn, make a mistake, review it, learn, make a mistake, review it until

you get it right.

So, each time that you're making mistakes in

the video game, you're subconsciously reviewing

the English language.

There's subtitles you can stick on if you're not really strong in English.

Have the audio in your language and put in your subtitles.

You're learning English, wow, and it's fun.

Okay.

You're going to make mistakes when you speak English.

You're going to make mistakes in the video game, but guess what?

It doesn't matter.

Eh, eh.

At least it's not in public, in front of people and your friends.

You're just at your house, you're just like, "Oh, ah, ah, ah.

Dun, dun, dun.

Dun, dun, dun.

Oh, I died."

That doesn't matter.

I'll start again.

"Oh, I died again."

No one's there to make fun of you.

Ha, ha, you died.

You're just at your own pace, gaming away, gaming away.

And it relieves stress.

Do you know how many...

Oh, everyone, that's how many.

That's how many people have stress in their life.

I'm guilty of this.

I play a little game on my phone.

I'm not going to tell you what it is, because

you guys will all want to play it, and then...

But it's a cute little game where I match things.

It doesn't make me hungry, so that's good.

I played Candy Crush, I think, at one point.

I'm like, "I'm so...

I want candy."

So I stopped playing that game.

But I play a game on my phone, and why?

Because it reduces my stress, because I'm so stressed all the time.

It reduces my stress levels.

If you've got something to do that relaxes you, motivates you, you're like, "Wow, this

is fun.

I don't have stress.

I don't have to study grammar."

Do you know that when you're playing video games, you're learning the grammar?

You're not forced to learn the grammar, you

just read the sentence, and you're like, "Oh,

okay.

Oh, oh, oh.

Oh, that happened in the past, so that's the past tense.

Damn.

We're going to do well, level up on this English.

Big mushroom for me."

So how?

Okay, yeah.

How...

Okay, Ronnie.

How does playing video games help me learn English?

Because I'm just sitting there, pressing the buttons.

Yeah, but guess what?

You're learning vocabulary.

There is very specific vocabulary for each kind of video game.

So let's say I've got this video game.

Oh yeah, it's upside down.

Final Fantasy 42.

There's going to be very specific vocabulary,

and it's quite possibly the greatest game

ever made.

Or we've got Metal Gear Solid 4.

I'm sure there's lots of vocabulary that I don't even know in this one.

What about...

What about this?

Uncharted Among Thieves.

Uncharted Among...

Oh, Drake's Fortune.

So all of these...

All these video games have very specific vocabulary that'll help you.

I mean, learning vocabulary is what you need to do.

You need to absorb it, eat it, get it in you, get it all over you.

So there's going to be on-screen vocabulary.

When you're given instructions, you're like,

"Oh, you must move 10 paces to the left.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten."

Okay?

So you understand.

"Oh, what are paces?

Oh, steps.

Okay.

10 steps to the left, 10 steps to the right."

You're going to look at chats.

Maybe there's a little chat window that pops up.

Maybe you've got friends that play video games with you.

You're going to talk to them.

Also the people talking to you in the game, called the narration.

Narration is the voiceover.

"Okay, now on your quest to find the dragon, you

are going to have to bow down in my promises."

"Oh, yes, I go."

So the narration will also help you with

acquiring grammar, vocabulary, listening skills.

You've got to listen.

If you don't hear what the people say, how are you going to win the level?

And just through playing, you're like...

"Oh, I got something.

What is that?

What is that?

What is that in English?

Oh, it's a carrot.

Oh, I didn't know that word in English.

Silly."

So, getting lots of vocabulary, it's going to happen.

Pronunciation.

If you're a French person, from French

Canada, you're going to say "pronunciation".

We say "pronunciation".

You hear the words naturally, not like I just

did it, and you're going to hear natural phrases.

You're going to hear natural words.

So maybe in your classes, your teacher has an accent or mispronounces words.

That's normal, that's natural.

But in the video game, they're actually going

to say it properly, like "Oh, that word is

'chaos', not 'chowse'."

C-h-a-o-s, chaos.

"Oh, no way."

Okay.

Damn, thanks, video games.

Identify accents.

So, I know in a lot of video games, there's people from different countries, so they'll

help you with accent acquisition, which means

getting accents or recognizing accents, which

makes understanding people with different accents easier.

Let's say at your job, you've got to talk to people from, you know, different parts

of the world.

Playing video games will actually help you say "Oh, okay, hold on, Charlie talks like

this video game character."

If you listen to the video game character,

you'll be able to understand Charlie in your...

In your Zoom meetings.

This is going to be fun.

Let's bring it on, Charlie.

So you say, "Ronnie..."

No, no, no.

Hold on, hold on.

So I'm sitting there, I'm playing video games, how does this help me with speaking?

I'm not...

I'm not...

Yeah, guess what?

If you're a gamer and you have friends that play, they're going to have to talk to you.

And I see this a lot in movies.

I'm not a gamer, but I see in movies, like, people are on their headsets, they're like,

"Hey, Bob, what's going on?

What are you doing today?"

So not only are you talking about the game,

you're also having little conversations about

daily life.

"Oh yeah, I just broke up with my girlfriend, blah, blah, blah.

Oh no, that's terrible."

And you can hear other people speaking.

It's great.

But there's one thing, as I mentioned before, repetition.

People argue, like, "Video games are addictive."

Yeah?

Mm-hmm.

And?

So it's, like, everything else that's fun in the world.

So why not get addicted to something that's giving you a lot of repetition to help you

learn?

Because, like I said, the more that you review

or repeat something-vocabulary, phrases, words

in English, it's going to get stuck in your head there, like, blah, blah, blah, blah,

and you're going to...

Walking down the street, like, "Oh, hold on,

I have this phrase in my head, oh, that's

English."

Your pronunciation's going to be awesome.

You go at your own pace.

Okay?

So if you're playing the video game and you're like, "Oh, do you know what?

This is just too hard for me right now."

It's okay.

You can go back, you can do it at your own level.

As you progress, you level up, you get rewarded, and you're on your way.

You don't have to do everything at the same time.

It's great.

So I've written some video games here that I recommend.

I've never played them.

I don't play video games, but Mass Effect, Mass Effect, yeah, I have no idea what it's

about, but it has great dialogue.

So you choose the path you're going to take,

you choose what you say or do in the video,

I believe.

I've heard of this GTA, "I live in the GTA", no, Grand Theft Auto.

Grand Theft Auto's great because there's a lot of slang, that's my favourite.

So you're busting out some GTA, busting out some GTA, "busting out" means playing some

GTA, and you're learning all these slang phrases.

You're learning the proper pronunciation of it, the proper context, because sometimes

you'll learn a slang word and you'll try and use it, and people will be like, "What?

You're bouncing what?"

So it's really great to help you not only learn the new slang vocabulary, but put it

in the proper context.

So I encourage you, play video games.

Do fun things to help you learn English.

I do also want to say a disclaimer here.

If you're a gamer and you're, like, a long

time, you know, like, in front of the computer,

give it a break, take a shower, you know, like, walk around, go and see the sunlight

or something.

Hygiene, basic hygiene.

So I'm Ronnie, I'm out of here, and I hope

you have a wonderful day and level up in your

video game and kill everyone, I don't know, whatever you do.