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Japanese survey links video games to learning English
Odds are, if you can read this blog post, then you know English. It's crazy, we know, but we've performed several calculations and experiments before coming to this conclusion. A Japanese company called iSHARE INC. wanted to get to the bottom of a similar issue, polling 413 individuals with a single question: If you study English, what method is good? Much to our surprise, the top choice was video games!Meanwhile, if you're trying to learn incorrect English, we suggest you check out any of the games on this list.[Via Kotaku]
World of Warcraft listed as one of the 30 most offensive games
The conservative Christian investment firm, the Timothy Plan, has released a list of the 30 most offensive games on the market (Warning: link is to a PDF file). This list details the areas of sex, nudity, gay / lesbian, violence, cartoon violence, language, comic mischief, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, demonic, and game addiction as things that are against any "morally responsible" mutual fund to invest in.In other words they don't want you to invest, like they don't, in companies that make games which deal with any of the above areas.World of Warcraft is on the list. It has an overall score of a 9, which means it is half as offensive as Grand Theft Auto IV. According to the Timothy Plan, WoW is morally deficient in sex, violence, language, alcohol, and game addiction.Some investors will take this advice, and that's their right to do so. After the break we'll examine areas in which WoW is morally deficient, according to the Timothy Plan.
DS Daily: Fluent yet?
A few months have passed since the last language trainer, My Japanese Coach, debuted on the DS, so now seems like an apt time to ask: if you bought one of the DS's numerous language titles, are you still returning each day to learn new lessons? Has the DS made you feel confident enough to converse with real people on the streets of Paris/Tokyo/Madrid?Oh, and as this is sort of related, did anybody ever pick up the hilariously inappropriate Spanish for Everyone?%Gallery-28607%
Vatican approves iPhone app
The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communications has approved an iPhone app called iBreviary, which is apparently a virtual version of the liturgical book. The app itself was created by an iTalian (and yes, pun intended) priest, and during a trial release in Italy, was downloaded 10,000 times. Now, the app has made it to the worldwide app store (in English, Spanish, French, and Latin, with Portugese and German coming in a later version), and is available for 74p (or 99 cents on the US store). A while back, we heard about an iPhone saving a wedding, and who knows -- maybe this app will save a mass. If you've been looking to keep from having to carry a breviary and Apple's handset in your pocket, your day has come.
The Queue: Momma said knock you out
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.Another day, more Q&A. Let's just get started, eh?MauroDiogo asked... I'm facing a bit of a dillemma. I've got a level 80 druid (Feral). a 70 warlock waiting to be levelled and a fresh new Death Knight (and many many other alts which I dont feel like levelling at the moment) I've recently spent almost 3K Gold in new tanking gear,enchantments and gems for my druid and the following day I went a bit emo and lost interest in the druid. To make things worse Allison wrote the article about how feral druids are doing in comparison with the other in-game tanks. Shall I just stick with my druid and hope that better days will come or shall I focus on a different character?
Kids try to get around Wizard101 language restrictions
Player 1: What can you see out your window?Player 2: A large fruit. You?Player 1: Uhh, OK... I can see Russia from my house.Player 2: What? Usually the language restrictions in MMOs consist of vulgarities and, less frequently, racial or sexual slurs. But Wizard101, a game targeted to a younger demographic, goes beyond that and disallows revealing location to other players. In fact, players under the age of 13 are not allowed to use the full chat function at all. This is to prevent kids from detailing where they are just in case.The problem is that kids get curious and ask other players where they live regardless - mind you, it has to be in a roundabout sort of way. Since many cannot answer directly, they have been trying to use features of the state or nicknames to describe their location. They may not get very far in actually depicting their state, but the effort surely must be a learning experience in speaking indirectly. With this type of skill, these players may just have futures in politics.
Ask a Lore Nerd: Shared tongues and other oddities
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, where each week blogger and columnist Alex Ziebart answers your questions about the lore and history of the World of Warcraft. Ask your questions in the comments section below, and we'll try to answer it in a future edition.I fulfilled my dork quota in last week's Ask a Lore Nerd, so this week I'll ramble a bit less, and answer some more of the simpler questions we've seen recently. With that said, let's get started with Chris's question...Why is Gorehowl just an epic weapon? It was claimed to be wielded by Grommosh Hellscream and if so shouldn't the weapon be legendary?
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Mage
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the sixteenth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself. It's also the first installment with a title that rhymes! The Mage is the foremost master of magic in the Warcraft universe. Although all the other classes excluding the Warrior and the Rogue use magic of one sort or another with equally wonderful effects, the Mage is the class that's named after the stuff.But what is magic? What does it feel like to harness it? Does the mage have to do a strange ritual or utter incomprehensible words in an ancient language in order to cast her spells? Other fantasy settings often have one or more of these elements together, but as far as I can tell, Warcraft lacks them.Arcane magic in the World of Warcraft is an ever-present energy field surrounding the whole world. Mages access it by concentrating in the magic energy within themselves, feeling it rush through their body, and directing it as they please. Those spells that require reagents need an extra focusing item with magical properties of its own in order to bring about the desired effect, but for the most part, fireballs, frostbolts and arcane explosions can be created through the mere act of will on the part of a properly educated mind.
My Japanese Coach: Konnichiwa and beyond
Just as we did with My French Coach, we're taking a long, hard look at the recent My Japanese Coach -- but with one key difference. This time, instead of just lowly little me, slaving along with some knowledge of French, this time I'm struggling with a language I know very little of, and I'm working with a "partner" who knows quite a bit of Japanese already.Before tearing into Ubisoft's latest DS language trainer, if asked, I would have struggled to produce ten words in Japanese, and one of those ten would have been in the title of this post (and another would have been sushi). Perhaps that's exaggerating; after all, I did know a bit more than the fact that I prefer nigiri to sashimi, such as the words for red, blue, and green, and words like "please." My Japanese Coach-partner -- also known as my husband -- has always been very good about teaching me words when I ask. I suppose that makes me 1% more knowledgeable about the Japanese language than the average person pulled off the street.And that fraction means absolutely nothing, I learned, when you sit down to study a language like Japanese with any tool, even My Japanese Coach. %Gallery-28607% #ninbutton { border-style: solid; border-color: #000; border-width: 2px; background-color: #BBB; color: #000; text-decoration: none; width: 100px; text-align: center; padding: 2px 2px 2px 2px; margin: 2px 2px 2px 2px; } .buttontext { color: #000; text-decoration: none; font: bold 14pt Helvetica; } #ninbutton:hover { text-decoration: none; color: #BBB; background-color: #000; } NEXT >>
The plural of "necropolis"
With the Scourge invasion in full swing, there are a lot of large, pyramidal structures hovering around Azeroth answering to the name of "necropolis." This has led to a certain amount of discussion in game and around the WoW Insider bullpen, as well as on the WoW Ladies community, on the topic of what you call more than one of them. Naturally, I had to go look it up.And the answer is: necropoleis or necropoles. The first form comes from Greek, where the word originated (literal meaning: city of the dead), and is pronounced as if it were spelled "-ase." The second form comes to us through Latin (as most of our Greek-derived words do), and is traditionally pronounced by English speakers as if it were spelled "-ese" (although in Latin it would have been pronounced as "-ase" again). Necropolises is also perfectly acceptable as an English-native pluralization, so don't be too hard on your fellow adventurers who just want directions to the darn things.There are a number of words that are not a reasonable plural of "necropolis." Foremost among them is "necropoli," which arises by mistaken analogy to words like "cactus." Although the -is ending in "necropolis" is pronounced more or less the same (depending on your dialect of English) as the -us ending in "cactus," it does not come from the same category of Latin words (third declension as opposed to second, if I'm not mistaken), and thus does not pluralize the same way. Just say no to "necropoli" -- kill that urge and fight the Scourge.Edit: Yes, I know that languages evolve, and that M-W likes "necropoli." I still don't like it, though, mostly because it's based on a bad analogy. Now get off my lawn, you crazy kids!
DS Daily: I think I'm learning Japanese, I really think so
My Japanese Coach is probably one of the most anticipated games hitting the DS. After our week with My French Coach, we can say that piece of software was effective. So, how many of you are looking to pick this up to learn Japanese?Any of you learn another language through the aid of software before? Did you pick up any of the other language coach games? Or are you not excited by My Japanese Coach at all?%Gallery-28607%
My Japanese Coach needs a release date coach
It's a little odd when Amazon is the main source of information on a game, and when it comes to My Japanese Coach, nearly all the substantive news has come from the online retailer, from screenshots to release dates. According to Amazon, the training title, which was originally scheduled for September 18, has been delayed to October 14. My Japanese Coach was already previously bumped, but only for a week.There were some concerns over the game when those first, very early (and very rough, in places) screens appeared, and that, combined with the double delay, makes us wonder if there aren't some fixes in the works for the title. But who knows? It could be something as simple as inauspicious scheduling.We hope to actually see My Japanese Coach in mid-October. Gallery: My Japanese Coach
Conan will start speaking Russian later this year
Funcom today announced a partnership with huge Russian developer/publisher 1C Company to localize Age of Conan for the Russian-speaking market. All text and voices in the game will be translated to Russian, and 1C will provide customer support and community services to the Russian community. There will also be a Russian server. This is all due in Q4 of this year.The English language version of the game has already been released in Eastern Europe, and it's done pretty well. All the marketing hype quotes in the press release stress that the game will be a massive success when available in the native tongue of the region. We're not going to make any predictions about that, but this is probably good news either way if your native language is Russian and you're already playing the game.
DS Daily: In desperate need of a coach
For many people, My Japanese Coach is like the best thing ever. It seems like such an awesome idea to help gamers learn the language of the land that has all of the best games (well, maybe that's up for debate, but that discussion is for another time and place). We know many of you can't wait to check it out. Heck, neither can we!But, brushing the My Japanese Coach aside, what other languages do you wish they'd make helpful software for? My Klingon Coach? How about My Simlish Coach? Do you want something a little more grounded in reality, like My Greek Coach or something?
My Screenshot Coaches
We know My Chinese Coach and My Japanese Coach are coming, but we haven't seen much of them ... or anything, really. We didn't need to, though, to get excited about these titles; after all, people have been begging for a Japanese language trainer for a long time, and a Chinese language coach is just neat.But if you were holding out, just to see what the titles included and whether or not they were set up like Ubisoft's previous language coaches, many of your questions will now be answered. Screenshots have turned up at Amazon, of all places, and while they seem to be pretty early shots -- there are in-game pictures missing -- they do give a good idea of what sort of things are included in the titles. In other news, they look pretty difficult! As masochistic as we are, we can't wait to try them out.%Gallery-28607%%Gallery-28610%[Thanks, Feba!]
iKanji release due Thursday
Indie developer Rory Prior expects to release version 1.0 of his iKanji application this coming Thursday, he announced today.iKanji is a tool for anyone learning Japanese, and combines meaning, reading and writing training and tests. Over 2,000 Kanji characters and 20,000 example words are included. This is an app for advanced learners who already have a grasp of the hiragana and katakana characters (which are covered in Rory's existing iKana app). Until release, iKanji is still in beta and Rory is still accepting beta testers, with priority given to students. If you're interested, let him know sharpish. Pre-orders are also being taken, and they qualify for a 10% discount on the standard price of €20 (about $30).Rory also makes photo gallery maker InstantGallery, and news reader NewsLife.
Say Hola to Latin American WoW July 25th
Blizzard is once again expanding its World of Warcraft player base. July 25th will mark the launch of Latin American Servers for Mexico, Chile, and Argentina. The expansion will be supported and sold in other countries in the future. New players can also purchase the Burning Crusade and 60 day prepaid game cards. A free trial is available at juegawarcraft.com. The launch will be accompanied by celebratory events with Blizzard staff: July 25 Blockbuster Pilares Av. Universidad #697 Del Valle, July 26-27 Plaza Satelite Estado de Mexico,
ESRB says 'konnichiwa' to My Japanese Coach
Following the listing that was found on Gamefly, the ESRB has revealed the above listing for My Japanese Coach, yet another language coaching title. Searching for My Chinese Coach comes up empty, but at least we can all be pretty certain that My Japanese Coach will be releasing to North America. We're totally expecting to hear about it next week at E3.
Nintendo's DS handheld used to teach English in Japan
We've already got Nokia handsets being used to teach math in South Africa, so we totally knew it was only a matter of time before a gaming handheld or two got in on the fun. Select middle school kids at Tokyo Joshi Gakuen school are not only allowed to bust out their DS in class, they're required to. As the school attempts to make English education "fun" for everyone, it's currently using Nintendo's famed handheld along with English learning software in order to keep students interested in nailing those dilettantes, truckles and wunderkinds. There's no telling if the pilot will blossom and invade other institutions, but we have all ideas children across the country will be requesting it when asked to fill out end-of-year comment cards and the like.[Via Switched]
WoW's global conquest continues: Russian version imminent
Blizzard will begin testing a Russian version of World of Warcraft next week. The first phase will be called the technical alpha, and will focus on "the technical aspects of the game." Never would have guessed! After that, the localization beta will commence. Blizzard has invited all its Russian-speaking subscribers (of the European version of WoW, presumably) to participate. A Russian-language forum will launch next week as well. There's a fancy flash-powered Russian teaser page already.Even though the Massively staff includes folks of several nationalities, we unfortunately don't have any Russians on the team to analyze this. We're talking about the country of the great novels The Brothers Karamazov and The Master and the Margarita, the films of ultra-weighty director Andrei Tarkovsky, and the experimental, unforgiving, plague-themed video game drama Pathologic. Is Russia going to be receptive to the lightness that is World of Warcraft? Oh, hell, probably so![Via WoW Insider]
