I'm a lady geek who enjoys the finer things in life: Gaming, science fiction (and fantasy too...who can resist a unicorn?!), old movies, vintage (read: Goodwill) clothes, and writing.
I got my undergraduate degree in anthropology and applied archaeology in hopes of becoming Indiana Jones. I dropped out of my fancy graduate school when I realized that archaeologists don't really get to beat up Nazis. THANKS, COLLEGE.
I like cats, Diet Coke and rock music. I currently work for BioWare as a community representative on STAR WARS: The Old Republic. (Clearly my opinions here do NOT reflect those of my employers.) Mostly, I just try to be awesome, and play a lot of games.
This is me.
This is not my dog.
That's it! Oh, and be my Twitter and/or Facebook friend if you want to. Yay, friends!
Because I am a cultured woman of the world and possess many leather-bound books, I am currently attempting to learn the fanciest of languages, French! I can’t say that I’m any good at it really, despite hours of practice and learning all the best swear words. I even got Rosetta Stone, and for anyone who’s ever seen a SkyMall catalog, you know THAT’S a BIG DEAL.
So yeah, I mean, I’m learning and stuff. But frankly it’s getting boring. My Rosetta Stone software is the best around, sure, but it’s a bit repetitive. I suppose it has to be—how else am I supposed to learn this fancy shit?—but when you have lesson after lesson full of the same old thing, it gets to be kinda boring, y’know?
Not pictured: Kids not running.
So I got the best idea ever: I love games and I’m trying to learn French, so why not find some FRENCH GAMES ONLINE?! Man, high-five self, good one! Let’s see what a Google search has got for me!
The first site that came up was this thing. OK, not that exciting-looking, but it’s got games, right? Games are fun!
I decided to try the word find. I think that really the words “word find” are all you need to know to understand how THAT went. I mean, look at this fucking shit:
OSTI DE CALIS YA RIEN QUI MARCHE TABARNAK WHY IS CHAUSSURE STILL IN THE LIST, I FOUND THAT MERDE ALREADY!!!!!!
Doing this word find is like playing Blue Screen of Death: The Game. (Actually, has anyone made a Blue Screen of Death game? I might pay cash money to play that.) Not to mention it kept having bugs that wouldn’t accept the words I’d find which was HELLA FRUSTRATING, though at least it gave me the opportunity to try out all the swear words I’ve recently learned.
I decided to move on to greener pastures and found a BBC site that looked fun. Oh, except for all the games were aimed at 8-year-olds. That made me feel worldly, let me tell you. I clicked around a bit and I can safely say that the games they offer are truly bizarre; I mean, I played one with a dog in space (??). Really, who sends a dog into space and then won’t let him come back to the shuttle unless he answers questions in French correctly?!
Needless to say I got bored, which is really sad, because that means that I have less of an attention span than an 8-year-old child.
For the last game I decided to try I just let Google surprise me. Aaaand...
So, back to Rosetta Stone for me. I mean putin de merde, how difficult is it to make a fun educational game online?! Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?! Next time I'll try that DS French game...surely that can't be so bad, right? Right?! If anyone's had an experience with it, let me know, because I don't really think I can handle any more shitty learning games. It would make me cry like this (including autotune):
If you really feel like punishing yourself, you can play the word find here (WARNING: Only attempt if you want your eyeballs to bleed out of your face), the BBC stuff here, or the "Kiddies Games" (which I haven't tried for obvious reasons) here.
Learning a certain language has gone badly for me as well. I've come to the conclusion that the only way for me to learn Japanese without loosing focus within 5 seconds is to move to Japan and stay there until I become fluent. Otherwise, I have little hope for myself :(
I'm seriously gonna have to send you some "En Français" games from Quebec since nobody here seems to buy them anyway. There's only one thing however they cost 5 to 10 bucks more than the English Version and since the shipping cost will raise the total of the purchase;
You have no other alternative to come live here with some(a) fancy French Canadian(s)>_>....
Also , the PS3 has a lot of multilingual games so you might want to look into Heavy Rain or Assassin's Creed 2 =D! But of course you'll need to buy the console first.....
Educational "games" tend to be terrible to mediocre, since they're relatively easy to program and don't require high-level graphics (i.e., shovelware). There are several exceptions with historical games, but in those cases the line between education and "regular" gameplay is blurred.
If you do want to learn French from games, I would recommend the same approach I mentioned on the weekend about watching movies: Play a regular game, just with the language set to French.
J'ai appris un peu de français quand j'étais jeune, mais j'ai oublié la majorité de mon vocabulaire maintenant à part quelques phrases utiles comme "Excusez-moi monsieur, est-ce que votre fille a dix-sept ans?" et 'ornithorynque', le meilleur mot dans la langue française, peut-être à part 'pamplemousse'.* En tout cas, votre blog était bien marrante.
*Il y a sans doute beaucoup de fautes dans cette paragraphe.
WOW! Xandaca Tu es pas mal bon!!!! Ton vocabulaire est excellent je dois dire, en plus le Français est tellement difficile à apprendre c'est tout à fait normal de faire des erreurs d'ortographes ici et là.
Ca aide beaucoup d'avoir un dictionaire à côté de moi! La seule raison que je me soutains d'autant de français est dans le cas où j'aurais la chance d' impressioner Alizée Jacotey...
I passed my French exams by the skin of my teeth, which is still a miracle considering how much time we spent learning compared to how much time we spent getting yelled at till they found out who threw the battery at the teacher.
Give me a call sometime, we can go out for some petit galettes and steak au poivre. Maybe a croque monsieur with a side of pomme frites and a Perrier? Or un Coca et l'amburger? C'est magnifique!
It'll be just like the date in the French 1-2 companion videos!
I was always tempted to try and 'learn' another language the cheap way. Like play half-life 2 in german w/ english subtitles. But I dont think that's actually possible to mix the two language platforms in the game, I think im gonna try that now.
Also, steamtoid chat, why are you not part of the awesome?
I don't know a darn about French, even if it's a latin language like Spanish. My sister does though, and she even got a French boyfriend lately.
Anywho, educational "games" creep me out sometimes. Especially on how people is drawn and their color choices for their Web 1.0 layouts.
I remember trying to learn Mandarin Chinese in high school. The first semester was ok, but then it became BLOODY FUCKING HARD. The Chinese have the most messed up grammar ever. At least to learn how to execute it as third language.
I took 3 years of French in high school and 16 hours of it in college. I hated it. Know what a jackass born in Mississippi and raised in Louisiana on a steady diet of video games, self-loathing and animal torture sounds like when he tries to speak French? The answer is a giant douche. I applaud your efforts to learn a foreign language but for me, it was a dark path.
Also, this:
This is the thing I pray to now when I go to church. Thanks for sharing.
Huh. You're kind of awesome. I'm glad to see Destructoid still has some awesome people pouring in. I dig you, madam, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
This was great. Really like the shoops. I don't do French, but German yes. Also, some Japanese, enough to get through my import of FFXIII. I even learned some stuff with that. Also, two semesters of Spanish that was promptly forgotten thanks to summer and a not insignificant amount of alcohol. You get a fap.
Hrm. I hadn't thought about French games before, that'd be a real good way to pick up a few more words - er, well, if the game was any good, obviously. I would like to see more characters screaming Sacrebleu! at each other.
Ah ben tabarnak!
Dtoid est en train de virer francophone.
Good luck learning our beautiful language.
When you're done, give Victor Hugo a try, you'll be amazed.
My problem is that while I can somewhat understand other languages (french and spanish), I can't actually speak them to save my life. Then again I have enough trouble with english as it is haha.
Good luck in your pursuit to "culture" yourself :P
Rosetta Stone is the shittiest vomit bloody shit stain fucked motherfucking cunt of a program. It tries to teach you another language by showing you a picture of a young kid fisting an old woman who is eating a cake and then the narrator says the scene describes "Ching Chong Dooby Pongo" in Chinese and you have to figure what the fuck exactly in the picture he is referring to.
Yeah, I was gonna say what Kraid said. Canada is officially bilingual and French is the official primary language in Quebec, so a lot of the games available there will be French and that's probably one decent way of getting the immersive experience needed to learn a language.
I do think that you have to use a language to retain it though. I lived near Quebec when I was a kid and could speak French pretty fluently... but having moved to the west coast as an adult I can't remember any of it. You might consider looking to see if you can get some French movies (not the naughty kind... those have crappy dialogue anyway), or see if you can get a French TV channel (if you are anywhere close to Canada, you likely can).
Best of luck! It's wonderful to learn a new language!
@Beverly - you totally should, we are..how would people say... the crazies of destructoid. Elitist, Goons, Internet Matlocks, etc. To prepare for the end of the world I offer you invitation to our little home, we are only equipped with one woman and could use more to prepare for the rebuilding of civilization.
This totally does not make us sound like a disturbing cult by any means.
I'm gonna have to go ahead and correct your title, "C'est de la merde" would be more fitting. But good luck with that!
I have learned english mostly through video games, but not educative ones. So if you want to learn french with games, do it with mainstream translated games (good luck for finding that!).
@Elsa I'm obviously just going to have to move to Canada to be near all these awesome Destructoid people! ...and learn French, of course, yes, learning...and don't be hatin' on my naughty French movies XD
@WastelandTraveler & Tarvu Y'all are weird and I'm joining your cute lil group (cult, whatever).
@Stridechicken SPEAK ENGLISH, THIS IS AMURRRICA! Do I look like some Roman emperor to you boy?!
@Blorp GOD BLORP, WHY CAN'T YOU JUST LET ME BE GREAT?! I'M TRYING DAMMIT! XD
because i know. somewhere. deep down in my heart. i love you.
learning languages is supposed to feed arduous and boring, you never feel like you learn a language and suddenly you hear someone speaking in spanish and you understand shit.
Ahhh, j'adore le francais. :] I can't really speak it for anything, and I'm going into my fourth year, but I can read it like no other, haha. I've realized a deep love for languages. in school, we use this quia.com site for french vocab-y games, and grammar shat, and it works pretty well. The word finds actually work. XD
Well you've obviously never played Mary Kate & Ashley's excursion ascenseur Paris deux! de grands moments. I personally settle for the terrible french accent to enlighten myself.
I tried to learn spanish in high school, the only reason i passed was because i spoke spanish better than my teacher though i had no idea what i was saying... i bullshitted my way all the way up to AP before they figured it out...
Just to clarify, "Le coeur a ses raisons" has been over for 3, 4 years. You should look it up on youtube first, to give you a taste of how brillant it is. Seriously I showed it to a friend who never watches french television, he never laughed that much.
Je suis en train d'oublier mon francais, bien que ce soit ma specialisation a l'universite (quelle honte!). Mais, si vous avez envie d'avoir quelques conversations, je peux vous aider un peu (par exemple, on peut aller a Disney - excusez ma fixation avec cette place magique, mais je dois m'en servir de ma passe). De plus, je le trouve utile de regarder mes films favoris en francais pour pratiquer la comprehension orale. Par exemple, la semaine derniere j'ai regarde "X-Men: Origins" et "Je t'aime, mon homme" en francais; je savais ce qu'ils disaient - parfois je l'avais memorise - donc je pouvais lier les mots avec leurs significations.
Pour le francais ecrit/la lecture, je vous recommande: http://www.tv5.org/cms/chaine-francophone/Langue-Francaise/p-7174-Langue-francaise.htm
Traduction/translation:
I'm forgetting my French even though it's my college major (shame!). But, if you want to have some conversations, I can help a little (for example, we could go to Disney - excuse my fixation with this magical place, but I gotta use my pass). Also, I find it useful to watch my favorite films in French to practice oral comprehension. For example, last week I watched "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" and "I love you, man" in French; I knew what they were saying - sometimes I had it memorized - so I could connect the words with their meanings.
For written French/reading, I recommend the tv5 website (link above).
It's always fun to see someone trying to learn French, has I've been trying to learn English for so long :P Being from Quebec too it's not that hard but hell, getting to speak with someone in English is pretty hard so, I can figure why you would have some difficulties finding someone to speak in French or help you. So if you need help just ask ^^ It would be my pleasure.
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You have no other alternative to come live here with some(a) fancy French Canadian(s)>_>....
Also , the PS3 has a lot of multilingual games so you might want to look into Heavy Rain or Assassin's Creed 2 =D! But of course you'll need to buy the console first.....
I've attempted to learn Spanish through Rosetta Stone like 5 times and have failed miserably.
Also, Steam.
Also also, forniquer cette merde? I 'anno. I don't speak freaky-deaky French.
If you do want to learn French from games, I would recommend the same approach I mentioned on the weekend about watching movies: Play a regular game, just with the language set to French.
That means 'I love you' in French, right?
*Il y a sans doute beaucoup de fautes dans cette paragraphe.
(google translate is awesome)
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF WTF IS THIS MOON-SPEAK!!!
Omelette du fromage.
I really wish that was a joke........
@Kraid :ooooo
I have been considering a PS3...WE SHALL SEE!
@Gobun Right?! I'm afraid that's going to happen to me too. MUST PERSIST
@vApathyv That remix made me cry real tears of laughter. As for Steam...add me yo!
@Guncannon I think movies are going to be the way to go; I already like a lot of fancy French cinema so I'll just start leaving the subtitles off!
@Renagade It does from you, baby.
@xandaca Wow! I aspire to your level...sigh!
@LawofThermalDynamics YOUS A CHEATER!!!!!!!!!1
@Kraid...again XD YOU'RE SO DAMN FANCY!
It'll be just like the date in the French 1-2 companion videos!
I was always tempted to try and 'learn' another language the cheap way. Like play half-life 2 in german w/ english subtitles. But I dont think that's actually possible to mix the two language platforms in the game, I think im gonna try that now.
Also, steamtoid chat, why are you not part of the awesome?
Anywho, educational "games" creep me out sometimes. Especially on how people is drawn and their color choices for their Web 1.0 layouts.
I remember trying to learn Mandarin Chinese in high school. The first semester was ok, but then it became BLOODY FUCKING HARD. The Chinese have the most messed up grammar ever. At least to learn how to execute it as third language.
Also, this:
This is the thing I pray to now when I go to church. Thanks for sharing.
Hrm. I hadn't thought about French games before, that'd be a real good way to pick up a few more words - er, well, if the game was any good, obviously. I would like to see more characters screaming Sacrebleu! at each other.
Also, you used the word hella! Go Norcal!
Dtoid est en train de virer francophone.
Good luck learning our beautiful language.
When you're done, give Victor Hugo a try, you'll be amazed.
Good luck in your pursuit to "culture" yourself :P
@WastelandTraveler Good question...maybe I should join up yo! I mostly use Steamchat to learn bad words in French currently XD
@Monodi You're so multicultural, I'm kind of jealous. DAMN MY WHITENESS!
@Occams You never fail to crack me up. EVERY SINGLE TIME. I love that image; I want to find the original artist and high-five them.
@Y0jimb0 You're so damn nice :)
@Sharpless & Enkido OH YOU GUYS. So nice!
@Beyamor Right?! There really should be more French characters in game. SO FANCY!
@Crimeminister HELLA HIGHFIVE YO!
@AILeBlanc Hopefully I'll learn and not sound like a complete loser when I try to speak French...! It's such a nice language :)
@Celica I have a problem with English too. It's generally related to alcohol consumption.
@Atlas I LOL'ED! So fucking true; I can't really be sure if I'm actually learning anything or not.
You know, maybe you should get some french comedy. My english level went up went I started watching enlish tv.
Je suggère "Le coeur a ses raisons". Une parodie de "The young and the restless".
Yeah, I was gonna say what Kraid said. Canada is officially bilingual and French is the official primary language in Quebec, so a lot of the games available there will be French and that's probably one decent way of getting the immersive experience needed to learn a language.
I do think that you have to use a language to retain it though. I lived near Quebec when I was a kid and could speak French pretty fluently... but having moved to the west coast as an adult I can't remember any of it. You might consider looking to see if you can get some French movies (not the naughty kind... those have crappy dialogue anyway), or see if you can get a French TV channel (if you are anywhere close to Canada, you likely can).
Best of luck! It's wonderful to learn a new language!
This totally does not make us sound like a disturbing cult by any means.
I have learned english mostly through video games, but not educative ones. So if you want to learn french with games, do it with mainstream translated games (good luck for finding that!).
@MikeWuest OH SHIT SON. Muzzzzzy!!! Ahhh, feels good man!
@Elsa I'm obviously just going to have to move to Canada to be near all these awesome Destructoid people! ...and learn French, of course, yes, learning...and don't be hatin' on my naughty French movies XD
@WastelandTraveler & Tarvu Y'all are weird and I'm joining your cute lil group (cult, whatever).
@Stridechicken SPEAK ENGLISH, THIS IS AMURRRICA! Do I look like some Roman emperor to you boy?!
@Blorp GOD BLORP, WHY CAN'T YOU JUST LET ME BE GREAT?! I'M TRYING DAMMIT! XD
learning languages is supposed to feed arduous and boring, you never feel like you learn a language and suddenly you hear someone speaking in spanish and you understand shit.
Pour le francais ecrit/la lecture, je vous recommande: http://www.tv5.org/cms/chaine-francophone/Langue-Francaise/p-7174-Langue-francaise.htm
Traduction/translation:
I'm forgetting my French even though it's my college major (shame!). But, if you want to have some conversations, I can help a little (for example, we could go to Disney - excuse my fixation with this magical place, but I gotta use my pass). Also, I find it useful to watch my favorite films in French to practice oral comprehension. For example, last week I watched "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" and "I love you, man" in French; I knew what they were saying - sometimes I had it memorized - so I could connect the words with their meanings.
For written French/reading, I recommend the tv5 website (link above).