I remember well those days when I was getting into the upper-intermediate areas of Japanese, and even getting ready to take the JLPT. I was looking for a way to take my learning up a notch and boost my enthusiasm at the same time. I found it in something I’ve always loved: video games.

As luck would have it, my favorite genre of video games, RPGs, are full of text. I started playing through games in Japanese and taking screenshots whenever I encountered words I didn’t know. I would then go through these images, look up the words, and then turn the whole thing into an Anki flashcard, so I could easily study it in full context.

That was nice, but what really supercharged my learning was when I started doing this with games featuring vocal tracks. I’d record the audio and then extract the dialog in question as part of the flashcard. When you hear a piece of audio over and over again, hundreds of times, it becomes a part of you. It also greatly aids in recalling a word if you can remember the context you heard it in.

I applied a similar methodology when studying French. I’d put together flashcards with game dialog and audio. And I think it did a lot to accelerate my learning.

Even now, despite not actively studying new material in Japanese and French, the games continue to prove invaluable. In my free time I play games in Japanese and French, and they help keep me sharp. One of the most important things in language study is working to maintain what you’ve learned, and the games do a lot for me in that regard. They don’t give you everything (like conversation practice), but they do give you a lot.

Next time, I hope to post some recommendations for games that provide material in various languages.