Resources/Original Sifteo Cubes/Creativity Kit (forum)

Building Language Skills

Sarah Crane Newman
posted this on December 27, 2011 04:44 pm

Marshika Szabo has created a bunch of Creativity Kit games that help players become familiar with the vocabulary and structure of foreign languages. Most of her games were created in one language, but the idea behind them can easily be applied to any language you'd like to learn. 

How do you signal a question in different languages? There are several ways to do this in French: by changing word order, by using question words, or by changing intonation and punctuation. Questions in French builds familiarity with the first two (more challenging) options.

How do prefixes change the meaning of words? Which prefixes can also act as words? In English, the prefixes in redo and disagree can't function on their own, but those in upgrade and withhold can. German verbs also use both kinds of prefixes: practice those with separable prefixes and those with inseparable prefixes to become familiar with each!

How do numbers work in Chinese? Unlike French and German, which are in the same Indo-European language group as English and therefore share a lot of base assumptions, Chinese numbers show us that even something we think of as objective can be used very differently. Learning to count in Chinese is fairly straightforward (if you're already comfortable with tones!), but using those numbers is more complicated: it's important to learn measure words! The good news is, days and dates are also described using numbers in Chinese, so you've already gotten a head-start at learning the Chinese calendar.

But what if you just want to be friendly and festive? You can use your Creativity Kit to learn to wish a visiting Hungarian a Happy New Year or toast a friendly Trekkie in Klingon by using Marshika's holiday expressions games. Have fun!

 

The blog posts I've linked to here are:

Useful Expressions for the Holidays from Around the World

Holiday Shopping in China and Measure Words

Days and Dates in Chinese

Counting in Chinese

German: Separable Prefixes – Verb Practice

Questions in French