Ubisoft to assist in the learning of glorious languages
by Alexander Sliwinski 
{ May 15th 2007 at 8:55PM }
Bonjour! Gamefly is really letting us know what's coming down the pipeline lately. Siliconera reports that they spotted "games" My Spanish Coach and My French Coach for the Nintendo DS on the site with an October release. We're going to guess that the Ubisoft published games are meant to assist the average unilingual American in picking up another language -- although French wouldn't be all that helpful on the North American continent unless you got lost in the wilderness of Quebec.Ubisoft will also release My Word Coach, which would seem like a vocabulary enhancement tool. Wii cüd rly uz dat. We'd like to think that these "games" would be used in schools to teach kids, but dagnabbit, this is America and nobody should speak anything but American. And drink Budweiser, eat Kraft cheese, drive a GM truck ... etc., etc. Can't we just bypass the whole "learning" thing and just get a universal translator up and running already?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mike @ May 15th 2007 9:03PM
Ironically, Budweiser and Kraft are obviously German names and not English or "American".
Rubang B @ May 15th 2007 9:13PM
Wait, humans actually drink Budweiser? I still thought that was a joke. And the only Kraft I'm down with is the Kraftwerk.
Ken @ May 15th 2007 9:16PM
Mike, to save you the embarrassment...
That line you're referring to, Alex didn't add a
/sarcasm
because he put enough sarcasm in his tone. Seriously... L2R LOL!!one!!1!
Fernando Rocker @ May 15th 2007 9:17PM
My favorite is XX Lager... what a glorious beer... so refreshing...
I want one now :(
Fernando Rocker @ May 15th 2007 9:18PM
Im latin...I speak spanish mainly... but I least I try and speak english, not very well, but at leat people understand me.
And my english accent... all the girls like it. :)
Dopple Boppler @ May 15th 2007 10:02PM
Mein deutscher Trainer bitte.
zwarrior @ May 15th 2007 10:33PM
I'm waiting for a Chinese Coach DS game, with all 3 main languages, oh boy
Yardarm51 @ May 16th 2007 6:22AM
You forgot to mention the not inconsiderable French speaking populations in New Brunswick, Ontario and Manitoba. It was a pretty useless thing for me to learn growing up in Vancouver but out east it was very useful for watching the late night French language TV shows. Mind you I guess it really didn't matter if you understood what they were saying as long as you could see what was or wasn't on if you know what I mean.
Steve @ May 16th 2007 9:17AM
Yea! I can now use my DS to teach myself how to speak french! This is great because I found myself so bored last week that I decided to pass the time by learning the irrelevant and useless language of a dead and lazy culture. Well, it was either that or analyze the process paint undergoes when it dries first hand. On second thought, at least understanding all the details of watching paint dry could at least be useful in life.
polly @ May 16th 2007 9:58AM
awesome awesome awesome.
trent @ May 16th 2007 11:10AM
i wanna learn japanese... or cantonese!! wheres my ds cart?!
Tush @ May 29th 2007 12:11PM
Steve,
Was that language English??
Badum-ching!
Aaron Walker @ May 16th 2007 12:43PM
I could see this as being helpful. I wish I would have had something like this while I was struggling through freshman Spanish (or spanish in general).
It'd be like having a pocket tutor.
Great idea IMHO.
Mike @ May 16th 2007 1:21PM
Da mi la programma para espanol por favor.
CC @ May 16th 2007 4:06PM
Well, I live in Quebec, and speak both languages. French is also Canada's second language.
Don't forget that this game is actually a good thing for the DS' audience, which is large.
Quebec's wilderness? At least, we are open minded people, have both cities AND wilderness, and are bilingual! Lemme see what YOU have. English? Violence? Bad reputation around the globe? Stupid president? Stupid people voting for him?
Please, show some intelligence. Don't talk about something you don't know anything about. :)
Megaqwerty @ May 16th 2007 6:39PM
If someone would just port Power Japanese to DS, that thing would sell like hotcakes.
But, yeah, I appreciate this: I've been using that guitar sim to improve my sense of pitch and I used an Anpanman game to learn hiragana and katakana. Learning some really basic Spanish and French via DS games isn't all that alien, really.
Peter S. @ May 16th 2007 9:25PM
As much as it is important to be culturally aware, English and Spanish are really the important languages around here in the U.S.A. (this won't apply to other countries, of course). Yes, it's harsh, but true. At least, considering the large Hispanic presence... Then again, the need to learn Spanish mostly stems from the fact that TOO MANY HISPANICS don't know English, so it's more of a grudging necessity at that. I'm Mexican, so I've seen it occur all around me in my area. I grew up learning English, but am taking Spanish classes and yes, it is difficult. However, given the country, it makes all the more sense learning the language of the land (which is by de facto, English).
In that regard, French is useless in the U.S.A. Spanish is really only for communicating with the Hispanic majority with members who aren't accustomed to English yet (by choice or by situation). On the world scale, English may be the choice language considering it's dominance; but then again, so may Chinese (in whatever the preferred dialect is).
The solution: Esperanto. None of this culture-tied stuff to distract people; plus there are no irregularities in the language. "Wait, so you pronounce it as 'habia puesto' instead of 'habia ponido'?"
Of course, Esperanto has a long fight ahead of it in order to gain widescale acceptance. Even I don't know the language, but I have strong intentions of learning it. :3