Hi!
I was wondering if anyone could recommend games or something for learning Chinese? Only skrittering can get a bit tedious, and it would be great if there was some other effective and *active* way of learning (i.e. I consider reading/watching tv-shows as passive)

If anyone could recommend a game thats either created specifically for learning, or a Chinese (simplified) RPG that you can get (buy online/download), it would be great!

If you have no idea about traditional characters and know simplified (or vice versa), there's a neat game called Chinese Characters Fly which...


...Oh wait, you have an Android :p.

^^ :P Thank you anyways

DaXia, I'm not sure what kind of computer you are using, but if you can get your hands on Final Fantasy VII, then maybe you can give that a try. Be sure to check out this blog post for more info.

http://zhongruige.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/final-ly-fantasy-vii-in-chinesepc-version/

Good luck, and let us know if you find anything.

Thanks for the help guys, but I finally found a game I have been looking for forever: 英雄传说Ⅵ 空之轨迹
or "The Legend of Heroes VI: SoarnoKiseki" as it's called in english/japanese. It's a really cool RGP translated to simplified Chinese with a great story. If anyone else is interested in downloading it then try this link
(you will need 迅雷)
http://www.verycd.com/topics/2765823/ It's pretty fast too. I'm in sweden and I'm currently downloading at 1.2M/s

It's a classic manga/final fantasy style rpg from 2004. You can look at the pictures at the download page, and listen to this intro movie to get a "feel" for what kind of game it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8Fwt2ADpEw

^^!! That game is 这么厉害 DaXia, thanks for the link!

I've mainly have experience with Blizzard games. I did actually read every single word and learned every single unknown character in World of Warcraft 3! Starcraft 2 looks far better for Chinese learning than Warcraft 3, because of its increased RPG elements, but I spent little time with it because I find that playing video games isn't good for my wrist and finger health. World of Warcraft is an intense challenge. I played it for a couple weeks or so to restart my rusty Spanish a few years ago, and that was really effective. But unfortunately the Chinese font for World of Warcraft is really hard to read. It might be fine for me now, but a year ago it was miserable.

You might check out TLBB 天龙八部 1 and 2. They are original Chinese games, based on the popular wushu novel. I tried out the first one while back in both English and Chinese, and didn't really get into it at the time. They're free-to-play MMO's.

@ DaXia: that I have to ask probably demonstrates that I wouldn't understand much of the actual game either, but can you tell me how exactly I can download the game from that site?

@ChrisClark - my wife learned a lot of English playing Quake. Unfortunately, Quake players aren't known for their spelling when they're chatting. ;)

你應該買starcraft 2!

It can be a bit tricky to navigate the online sites in chinese to purchase the chinese or Taiwanese version, but once you have worked it out its great (:

@inkubus
Sure! First you will need a download client called 迅雷, just google it. It manages torrents, emule, normal downloads etc.

Install it, then go to the site I linked and in the bottom of the grey field called "电驴资源" (电驴 is emule btw), press 下载选中的文件 and voila, 迅雷 should start up automatically and start the download.

Instructions on how to install and crack the game are in the 破解(crack) rar file.


For those of you living in China, I recommend 魔兽世界 (world of warcraft). It's great for learning Chinese, and hugely popular in China (about 5 million active players). Not only are there ton's of quests etc in the game that actively makes you have to understand all the text, but you also have to chat with your raid/guild mates etc. It's really cheap too. You buy "recharge cards" that are sold pretty much anywhere they sell telephone recharge cards, and you charge the game with x hours of gameplay depending on what card you bought. A warning though, this game is TIME CONSUMING. When I lived in China, I spent almost 2 years of wow'ing, and although I learned a lot of Chinese in the process, my social life took a serious hit.

Lol no WOW playing!


http://wowdetox.com
http://www.quitwownow.com/
http://www.wowaholics.org/
http://www.wowquit.com/

I decided to check out browser-based games. Hong Kong-based Koram games has some great offerings. Three Kingdoms Online (三国风云) is one of the games that they advertise a lot for in banner ads for the English market. Note that the Simplified Chinese site is more limited than the English and Traditional Chinese sites.

One of their games, KungFu Online (武俠風雲), looks great for me. It's a very simple role playing game with lots of Chinese culture vocab. It's available in English, Simplified and Traditional, and some of the other many languages they support. I started playing it, and it's good enough to keep you playing, but it's nowhere near as good as WoW, so the addiction risk is low :) Since it's browser based, you can cut and paste text, which can make reading Chinese much more pleasant. If you like, you can also play the game in multiple languages at the same time, in separate browser windows.

http://www.koramgame.com/

Their games are free to play, but they charge money for VIP status, etc. within the game.

@董雅各
True! I tried out wow a few years ago in China, and thought that it would be a great way to study and have fun at the same time. I got hooked pretty quickly, and kept playing the Chinese version for 2 years, then when I came back to Sweden 18 months ago, I installed the english version and started to play on the EU servers...and since it was the english version, language learning had nothing to do with it anymore.

I have been trying to quit a few times, unsuccesfully. Last month, I got a hold of myself. Deleted all my lvl85 chars with pretty darn nice gear, unistalled the game, then I cancelled my subscribtion. No turning back this time.

@Chris Clark
Looks interesting! I will check it out!