As the title goes there’s lots of non native speakers on this server, so it’s got me thinking how did RP and WoW likely improve your fluency and how long did it take?
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Pretty much all that I know came from WoW. I remember doing quests in Mulgore as a young Tauren and having no idea what those quests wanted from me, there were no map markers or progress info on the side of the screen.
It took me months upon months to get to lvl40, mostly through getting XP by exploring new zones and killing some mobs that I found interesting.
Then some years later I moved to AD and that polished whatever knowledge I gathered as I observed roleplayers speak in correct English.
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I got a pretty solid handle on the proper use of “would” in a sentence, for one.
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I’m a native speaker but roleplaying in WoW improved my grammar substantially over what it was from ignoring my lessons at school.
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A ton.
My English grade was 5-6 on a grade of 4-10 (4 meaning a failing grade) during the first school years. Suddenly my motivation to learn the language went through the roof when I discovered roleplaying in Ultima Online. 
I pity my first rp guild there who had to bear with my fumbling English.
A couple years later my grade rose to 9 and stayed pretty consistently there. My main setback was that while I got pretty good at written English, as I used the language primarily in text form outside school, my listening comprehension and pronounciation lagged far behind for a long time. Still not perfect but that’s okay, and I can live with my foreign accent.
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Actually hysterical while scratching the mental scars of so much bad emoting.
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As a Brit who left school at thirteen and who sucked at his own language…
… I actually learned a LOT via RP. I learned lots of new words, how to formulate sentences better, all that stuff. And this got me one point off an A+ in English GCSE when it came to writing a story!
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The great ‘would’ epidemic of 2017 lmao
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its my first language but like akamito RP helped improve my grammar, my vocabulary and my sentence structure by leaps and bounds in ways school couldnt.
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A lot.
I could (mostly) read English when I arrived on AD but I quickly realised that there’s a great difference between “being able to decipher a text” and “being able to express myself”. For the first two or three years, I’ve always RP with a dictionary or a translation thing open on the side (even basic stuff escape you when you’re new to it, I had to check how to say flat. I knew flat! But couldn’t remember it) while I think I am mostly fluent both in reading and writing nowadays. In writing I had the mixed advantage of being from a romance language, and since many English fancy words come from that root as well, those were easy. (Mixed, because they also take more recent words and change the meaning without warning, and whoever decided that “entrée” means main dish, I hate you, I hope you step on Legos for the rest of your misbegotten life)
My accent and pronunciation are lagging behind though, and I’ve apparently stolen bits of southern english accent while in writing I swing wildly between Brit and usa.
English is technically a secondary language to me, but I have adopted it as a primary since I do not find myself as connected to my native tongue - due to many reasons of personal development.
The gaming presence for me, have helped me learn languages easier (English, German) through the stories they have made, and later on, the connections I have made as we turned to a more online experience.
Due to my age, World of Warcraft have more assisted in refining my use of the English language, then teaching - with that being said, there are always room to learn, or teach, others.
I would say about 50%. I had excellent and very motivated english teachers growing up, and WoW was the place i got to apply theory in practice.
I didn’t learn much English from WoW or RP, at least not so much that it bears mention. I did learn quite a few words from Warcraft 3 back in 2002, though!
Im a native speaker, though I apparently sound danish according to Dane’s on discord so… ok.
I also teach primary English and my qualifying… qualification is in English (though one would be hard pressed to tell from my forum posts lol).
So WoW didn’t really teach me much, but what it did do and this has helped me professionally, is expose me to the way EAL speakers (or writers) handle the language and its complexities.
One that stood out was a person not grasping that ‘think’ can, under the right circumstances, not be a ‘maybe’ but can be a definitive certainty. To me that was a given, because I knew how I said it in context. To them it was baffling that ‘think’ could mean ‘definitely’. They were Spanish I believe.
Anyway yeah it’s helped me grasp how other speakers grapple with the language which has helped me teach it to EAL children.
So well done WoW. Your an education resource.
Yeah. Your. Suffer.
While I’m also not a native speaker, most of my fancier vocabulary was learned from the Legacy of Kain games.
RP did help a lot in teaching me how to better phrase myself or structure text in general, whether it’s actively in roleplay or just other types of creative writing. RP is how I learned that it’s “for all intents and purposes” and not “all intensive purposes” as I thought it to be for years beforehand, just by virtue of not seeing it written down.
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I’ve been keen on language all my life but gaming and especially roleplaying has contributed a lot to expanding my way with words as RPing is time sensitive (you need to make a decent sentence before the other players get bored and leave). It’s just that learning british english in school as correct while 90% of media is american saddles me with both a peculiar accent and frequent spelling inconsistencies that I really shouldn’t feel so embarrassed about considering what native speakers get up to.
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Gaming in general’s really what taught me english.
WoW definitely helped my English but I’m not quite sure how much RP specifically helped with it. At least I feel like the level of English wasn’t that advanced back in the day that it was massively impactful. A lot of players on Euro realms are writing English as their second language anyways.
I learned English playing Pokémon! Basic directions, conversations, every fire-type move- all the good stuff. And all those edgy 90’s movies that viewed on the telly.
RP has certainly helped me with grammar and the like, but even more so it had me delve into different accents, phrases and their origins that I would’ve never otherwise stumbled into.
I even had some characters that spoke in a certain way to challenge myself, like a harvest witch that spoke primarily in rhyme and an undead thief speaking mostly in old English slang.
All in all; yes, I’d argue that not only has WoW and a focus on RP helped me discover joy in the subject of language, but too to approach a character (and people IRL) by seeking to understand how their accents developed and where their phrasing hails from.
Most of my English comes from movies and games in general. Since I’ve started studying it more seriously, I was wondering if there are any groups or guilds of non-native English speakers focused on practicing and improving the language.
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