Lumosity just released a series of games that prime your brain for learning new languages

If your lexicon has stagnated a bit since your SAT-studying days, it may be time to expand your vocabulary. After all, there’s nothing like a word no one knows to break the ice in awkward social settings, and if you’re looking to become the life of the party, Lumosity may be able to help with its new language-focused games. On Tuesday, the brain game company announced the launch of a brand new Language category, designed to aid users with their language skills. With these five new games, you can expand your vocabulary, determine the etymological foundations of your favorite words, discover the nuances of definitions, and of course, learn how to use all the aforementioned in a cogent sentence.

“At Lumosity, we’ve learned a great deal about creating adaptive, game-based products and we are excited to build on these learnings to create new experiences for our users,” said Beverly Chung, senior product manager at Lumosity. “We are always looking to create rich experiences for our users and we chose language as the first new area to explore because of feedback we’ve received from them.”

Created in partnership with what Lumosity calls “vocabulary experts,” the company’s Science and Games team developed brand new ways to work out your brain with games like Word Bubbles, Editor’s Choice, Taking Root, Continuum, and Contextual. Think of them as test prep … for the test of the real world and adult human interactions, where language skills really are important.

“Lumosity’s new offering provides adults of all ages with an accessible and fun way to practice language skills,” Judith Scott, an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz’s education department. “I especially like that it provides playful encounters with words and patterns related to words.” Scott worked with members of Lumosity on the new Language games, bringing some of her academic expertise to the table.

Moving forward, the education technology company says that it plans to expand its current collection of games and focus on other knowledge verticals like math to offer an even more robust product range to consumers. And if we can get smarter by playing a game (though that may be an open question), might as well give it a shot.

from Planet GS via John Jason Fallows on Inoreader http://ift.tt/1N7t9jg
Lulu Chang