Game of Thrones language High Valyrian gets the Duolingo treatment
Subtitles can be a real buzzkill when watching movies or TV series. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t stand watching anything that has a dubbed soundtrack but sometimes I just want to watch the action and not have to read the little words at the bottom of the screen. This is particularly true if the action involves dragons burning slave owners to death.
Well it looks like the people behind language learning app Duolingo have people like me in mind. Duolingo has teamed up with Game of Thrones language specialist David J. Peterson to bring us a High Valyrian Duolingo language course. As I’m sure you’re all aware Daenarys is the only character, on the show, who uses the High Valyrian dialect with other characters using more brutish versions that have been bastardized since the fall of Valyria.
Duolingo has quickly established itself as the most popular language learning app available. Even though the service is free it uses a highly succesful language reinforcement technique that was originally employed by very expensive language laerning programs like Rosetta Stone.
Rather than teaching you vocabulary and grammar points Duolingo uses photos and situations to build up your knowledge of a language in the same way that children learn languages. This means that rather than feeling like a chore, language learning can feel like a game that you’re playing on your phone or PC.
The only thing missing with Duolingo is the ability to regularly converse in the language that you’re learning. If you’re learning French or Spanish you’ll be able to find somebody for a language exchange without too many problems. High Valyrian, however, could be a little more challenging.
You’ll just have to start watching Game of Thrones from season 1 again and if anybody says anything you can just say you’re doing your homework.
The High Valyrian Duolingo language course is currently in Beta and can be accessed here.
Dracarys!
