When I worked as a developer at an EFL / ESL educational software company, I proposed something similar for the Japanese market. Make an RPG (JPRG in style, of course) where the base language was Japanese. Have the usual storyline where characters discover ruins, a lost civilization, hidden secrets and conspiracies, etc. The ancient civilization's language was English. So, to progress through the story, the characters have to learn enough English to decipher the old records, to figure out how to defeat the (English-speaking) bad guy resurrected from the tombs, and even for the use of magic, since all the discovered spells would be in English.

I got this project as far as the very early design stage. I've always been sorry I couldn't convince the execs to let us finish it.

It totally started out as a JRPG in my head. I definitely think there's a market for it, though I would start with two languages that share an alphabet to simplify things.

I think you could get away with almost any language as the base and English as the target since the English alphabet is almost universally understood.

Going the other way around, English - > Japanese or English -> Russian for example, would require additional guidance to explain the new characters.

The idea of having to learn "spells" in another language in order to use them strikes me as a fantastic mechanic.

That's a great idea. It would be perfect for kickstarter, no?

Thanks for the encouragement. Might be worth trying again to make this.

We should chat sometime, I have a lot of ideas in this vein.

I've thought first person games could be useful for self improvement in lots of other ways too. Such as getting comfortable with public speaking, or social anxiety in general.

For language learning, this might sound silly, but I've also thought a first person role playing game where you're a baby and everyone speaks to you like they do to babies in the language you're trying to learn. (My pet theory is that children aren't necessarily way better at learning language, but it's more how people interact with them: speaking slowly, using small words, telling them what they're doing, etc.

I'd welcome a chat / email. I've spent most of my career in educational software, thought frequently of how to improve it, and would be happy to talk with someone of a similar mindset. Added an email to my profile here.

I do like the baby sim idea. I know some language learning systems go with a very gradual immersion in a similar way, and work in children's books and television as part of it, but I don't know how effective it was. Sounds like it should work well.

See also SPARX, a mmorpg game that teaches CBT techniques.

https://www.sparx.org.nz/index.html

Currently has an unuseful page about restrictions for anyone outside NZ.

That's a really great idea!

Thanks! It's something I would love to tackle someday but I have some other things to accomplish first.