Description

Othertongue 1: Spellbound

Othertongue is a language learning card game where players use vocabulary from target languages they are studying to fight each other! The best part is: two or more people can play together even if they are studying different languages. In this game, players are required to speak vocabulary words in their target language, which belong to different categories (like animals) and different linguistic types (like loanwords). By doing this successfully, they activate the magical powers of their cards and battle.

Word types included: animals, plants, countries, bodies of water, song lyrics, religions, and more!

Linguistic types included: opposites, loanwords, calques, nouns, verbs, homographs, portmanteau, tongue twisters, survival phrases, and more!

In Othertongue, players can construct their own personal decks strategically before the game or share a common deck in melee format. During the fight for survival, players will reinforce what they already have learned, but also learn new words, sentences, idioms, and even how to write in other languages, from each other. Players may also attempt to bluff each other and declare challenges. If a player loses a challenge, they must discard some of their cards.

Throughout the game, you can take cards, improve the strength of your cards, and destroy your opponent’s cards, by demonstrating a rich and colorful knowledge of your target language. Of course, strategy and luck will also be needed!

Othertongue is a more challenging language learning card game than you will typically find on the market these days. It will take you a little time to learn how to play and much longer to master. Moreover, what happens each game will be surprising and different due to the infinite possibilities of interlocking combinations of unique card powers. As a result of these things, I’m sure you will be excited to play Othertongue again and again, especially if you have the chance to battle a wide variety of foreign language learners. The number and type of vocabulary words that can come up during a game are virtually unlimited!

What does Othertongue mean?: Othertongue means your target language!

Othertongue Language Learning Card Game Vlog

Game Specs

Languages

This game works for any target language!

Players

2 or more

Age

12+

Time

20-40 minutes

(Flexible; depends on number of players and cards included.)

Theme

Fantasy

Difficulty Level

Challenging

(An intermediate level knowledge of your target language and card gaming is important.)

Shipping

Shipping is free to any location worldwide! Please allow 1-2 weeks for delivery.

What people are saying about Othertongue….

“I want to start by saying that I appreciate the enthusiasm you bring to your correspondences; it’s refreshing to see someone so excited about their product! I have had a chance to play Othertongue with some classmates in my linguistics department. We all had a really fun time, and the game has an uncanny knack for helping you identify where there are gaps in your foreign language knowledge. The artwork is gorgeous, and each card is a treat to look at. And, I personally enjoy that there is depth to the game like in trading card games, as it provides more depth than might otherwise be expected of an edutainment card game.” –Matt, Linguistics Major, Canada “I just received my decks! Your packaging is utterly adorable and I love everything so very much already! Thank you for creating such a fun way to help people learn! Seeing that these games exist inspires me greatly to work on the card games I’d kind of pushed to the side. I hadn’t considered making something to help someone learn! Maybe once I finish my own language studies I’ll be making fun games as well. You can guarantee I’ve already been sending pictures to my friends, and trying to convince other friends to study a language, too, so I have someone to play with. I’ll be taking these to university this fall, where I’ll be majoring in Romance Languages with a Minor of Japan Studies. So I’ll be sharing a lot with my fellow students and linking to you a lot!” – Akasha, Romance Languages Major, USA

“The really cool thing about this game is that the language you play it in does not have to be the same as your opponent! For example, my brother and I played this and my language was Japanese and his was French. The rule cards are very helpful, but as for the PDF rulebook, I think the stories should be separated out. This game has a lot of flexibility and is open to interpretation; I don’t particularly like that. I will say that you have to have a nice base understanding of your language to play this. I also think it is a great resource for learning and teaching a new language. It would be great for polyglots and people who love learning and sharing their languages.” –Andrea, Founder of Honestly Andrea, Canada

“Thanks! I just got to open my parcel there and have already fallen in love with the cards. They’re absolutely beautiful!”

–Morgan, Scotland

“I played with someone without a lot of language skills but who plays a lot of mtg (Magic: The Gathering). We had fun and I like how I have a new list of words I never would have thought to learn before the next game.” –Dawna, USA

“Thanks for your quick response to my order! I really like the way you packaged it! The game seems too long and complex for my Esperanto club as-is, but playing the cards on their own as challenges will be fun. If you can write up some ideas on how it can be easily adapted, I’m all ears.”

–Jorge, USA

“Shut up and take my money! This game is gold!”

–Leo, Italy



“First thing we noticed about the game was it was hard to understand the rules. So this is definitely a game for people who are already into card games. If you know MTG, or something like that, it will be easier because we have both played that. Overall, I think it’s cool and there’s value to it. The really nice thing is that it causes you to think about very specific words that you don’t normally think about. It’s gamification of language learning, which I think is fun. If you’re learning a language and you like card games, you should definitely try it.”

–Aaron, founder of Fingtam Languages, and his friend, Koon, U.S.A.

“The rulebook PDF leaves something to be desired, but the rule cards included in the game helped a lot. I do find the game to actually be really fun. Using your Othertongue (target language) will allow you to activate different cards. You draw a card, play a card, activate any cards you wanna activate, and then play passes to your opponent. The game is simple, but there are quite a few interesting things in the way that the cards can interact with each other. There’s a really good range of difficulty on these cards, which is something I enjoy. And the game can be played in multiple languages, which means you don’t have to go buy expansion sets or other translations.”

–Dakota, founder of Dakota Abroad (formerly Language Learning Lounge), USA

“The cards look wonderful and one deck already fulfilled its destiny as a gift. Thank you for the excellent service and totally amazing products. I think these will be great gifts for some special ESL students this Christmas. So I’m grateful to you for creating educational games that make suitable gifts for serious ESL students.”

-Elisabeth, Teacher, USA

“We tried Othertongue, but honestly, we couldn’t figure out how to play it. We read through the rules but we had too many questions that couldn’t be answered. It’s not that my husband and I are foreign to games, we play a lot actually, but it just didn’t make sense to us. You have a gift of writing and you’re very creative. But it lacks clarification in the rules. We spent more time trying to figure it out than actually practicing the language I was hoping to practice. I hope you won’t take offense to this but rather learn from it and make changes because I think you’re on the right track, it just needs to be fine-tuned.”

-Sheyna, USA

“Your cards look beautiful and I love the fact that you included protection sleeves (card loaders) [in our order]. You clearly put a lot of love and care into their development.”

-Victor, Founder of Linguacious, USA