A king, two bishops and two knights standing next to each other. Three chess pieces talk. The king says "Let's talk!", one bishop says "Lass uns reden!" and a knight says "¡Hablamos!".

Using chess as a tool to learn languages: For intermediate and advanced learners

MartinaGe26 Jul 2024542 viewsEnglish (US)

You remember my article about preparing for a chess tournament abroad language-wise, right? Now, we are going to talk about using chess as a tool to learn languages. We are on a chess platform, so, I’m assuming that you kinda like chess. If you are interested in language learning? I have no clue. There are high chances, though, as it seems like you clicked on this article. And again, you are reading the blog of a language professional, so, you had it coming.

Introductions out of the way, let’s start talking about language learning and chess. One thing that people will always hear me saying is the following: If you want to learn a language, it’s very useful to surround the things you love with that language. You love cooking and you want to learn French? What about watching French cooking shows and reading French cooking books with nice little French recipes? As we both know, we are on a chess platform, so surely, this is about surrounding chess with language learning. But... how can you do that?

Listening to podcasts in your down time

One thing that I have to do is commuting relatively long ways by train and sometimes by car. I get headaches when I try to read books while moving and when I drive a car, I can’t really read anyways, right? Thus, a nice way to entertain myself during the commute is listening to podcasts. Listening to chess podcasts is one thing. But, what about listening to chess podcasts in a language that you are learning? Obviously, most of the listening material on chess online might be in English. So, you have the biggest choice of material if you want to improve your English level. Two podcasts that I love to listen to are the following two:

"The Gotham City Podcast" by GothamChess (aka. Levy Rozman), available e.g. on Youtube and Spotify.
"The Chess Experience Podcast" (Adult Chess Academy) also available on several platforms like Spotify. You can check out the availability on the Adult Chess Academy website.

A good trick to find content in whatever language about chess, is to put in the word “chess” in the language that you are looking for into a podcast search tool. If that’s not working, you can try to use words that are related to chess. You can also try to put in the word for chess and add the language name to your search.

Watching streams already?

If you love to watch chess streams anyways, why not changing to ones in the language that you are learning? Streams often are a bit more complicated to understand as you usually cannot put it on pause and click on repeat. On Lichess, you can find some stream links in the upper left corner of the start page. Maybe you can find a streamer using the language that you want to improve? Or you love to watch chess videos? There, you can hit pause and let them repeat the phrases they said over and over again.

If you want to improve your German skills with chess videos/streams, I have four recommendations for streamers/youtubers for you:

ChessGamerin (content on several platforms, links to several platforms are put together in her YouTube channel description).
Lara's Chess College (by Lara Schulze; links to several platforms in Lara's YouTube description as well).
GM Niclas Huschenbeth (Niclas' Youtube link with additional linksfrom there).
The Big Greek (by Georgios Souleidis; Georgios' youtube channel with additional links).

Improving your language with reading material and courses

We went through audio and video material, let’s check out the written bit of chess media. Chess is played basically on the whole world. People create written media about chess everywhere. You are currently reading about chess – or at least about a chess-adjacent topic -, right? If you check out the “community blog” on Lichess, you can choose the language in which you want to read articles in the upper right corner. Have you already checked out the Lichess community blog for the language that you want to learn?

Maybe you are learning about chess with online material. Many people use, for example, Chessable courses to learn openings or tactics. Did you know that there is Chessable material available in several languages? Chessable in particular offers material in German (Chessable DE link), Spanish (Chessable ES link) and English (Chessable EN link; all links from today, July 26, 2024). Other platforms and pages offer content in other languages.

Chess schools often use their local language for their content for chess players in their regions. You could check out if there is something interesting for you from a chess school from a region where they speak the language that you want to learn.

A more offline version of improving your language skills with chess related content are books. There are some chess books that are (or were) so popular that someone translated them. This makes even the chess books that you have already read in your own language a potential learning material if there is a version in your learning language as well. An interesting chess book that I have read in German is the following: "Psychologie im Schach" by Nikolai Krogius (translated from Russian into German by Bodo Starck, published by Ullstein Sachbuch in 1991).

The author is talking about the connection of chess and psychology. the book itself was written in a Soviet context. You can learn something about chess history and how people tick by reading material from different times and different places.

Activate your language practice: Let’s start talking, writing, playing!

Until now, I’ve mostly talked about passive language practices like listening and reading. If you want to improve your language skills, active use is very useful, too! You might not be able to teach a chess class in perfect Ukrainian if you’ve only ever read about chess in Ukrainian without ever talking about it, right?

Going abroad for a tournament

In my other article "How to prepare for a chess tournament abroad ... language-wise", I mentioned going abroad for a chess tournament. Going to the region where a language is spoken is always one of the first things that one gets recommended when looking for language learning tips. It’s not untrue but you might not be able to go to tournaments abroad that often. Don’t worry, there are other options.

Finding chess communities

For most people, playing chess also includes communicating at least a little with other people. Some of you might have a chess coach or a chess group. What about looking for a chess coach who teaches chess in the language that you are learning? When I lived in Portugal, I found myself a dancing class to, firstly, enjoy dancing but secondly, also improve my Portuguese skills in the area of dancing. How easy this task is, depends on where you live. In a city like Berlin and Hamburg, it might be easier to find a chess coach for a specific language than on the countryside somewhere in Bavaria. If you are able to read this article, there is a high chance that you are connected to the Internet. The advantage? You might be able to find a chess coach living somewhere on planet Earth who offers chess classes in the language that you want to improve.

Same goes for other kinds of communities. Maybe there are people eager to play chess who speak the language that you want to learn around you? If not, you can check out online communities. Writing on Social Media platforms in your learning language about chess also helps to find and connect to people interested in the same topic using the same language.

Create your own content!

We talked about all these ways to passively consume chess content in the language of your choice, right? You can also start creating your own content! Write a blog article, create a chess video, write some social media posts, offer some classes or create a chess meet-up, do whatever you want to do (and what fits to your learning aims).

References

Adult Chess Academy: The Chess Experience Podcast. Website, https://www.adultchessacademy.com/thechessexperience.
Chessable DE: Website, German version, https://www.chessable.com/de.
Chessable EN: Website, English version, https://www.chessable.com.
Chessable ES: Website, Spanish version, https://www.chessable.com/es.
ChessGamerin. Youtube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@chessgamerin.
Gerdts, Martina (2024): "How to prepare for a chess tournament abroad ... language-wise", Lichess blog, https://lichess.org/@/MartinaGe/blog/how-to-prepare-for-a-chess-tournament-abroad--language-wise/XkMRYexb.
GothamChess: The Gotham City Podcast. Youtube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@gothamcitypodcast2203.
GothamChess: The Gotham City Podcast. Spotify channel, https://open.spotify.com/show/06AICJ2zaRQzmou0EeTyCK.
Huschenbeth, Niclas: GM Niclas Huschenbeth, YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@GMHuschenbeth.
Krogius, Nikolai (1991): Psychologie im Schach. Translated version; translated from Russian to German by Bodo Starck. Frankfurt/Berlin: Ullstein Sachbuch.
Lichess.org: Community blog. Website, https://lichess.org/blog/community.
Schulze, Lara: Lara's Chess College. Youtube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@laraschesscollege.
Souleidis, Georgios: The Big Greek. Youtube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@TheBigGreek.