What makes Disco Elysium so special for language learning? Surprisingly, it wasn’t even designed as a language learning game. Here are the reasons:

1. On-the-fly language change by pressing Q or L in the game. This is the number one reason and a huge enhancement introduced by the developers.
   
2. Disco Elysium features a lot of high-quality text and has ideal gameplay for language learning: no rush, allowing you to take your time to read most of the dialogues.
   
3. Extensive language support. Disco Elysium is translated into 13 languages, making it easy to pick one you want to learn:
   • English
   • Russian
   • Simplified Chinese
   • Spanish (Spain)
   • Korean
   • Portuguese (Brazil)
   • French
   • German
   • Traditional Chinese
   • Polish
   • Japanese
   • Turkish
   • Arabic

All these reasons make it perfect for language learners. Even if you’re not specifically interested in learning a foreign language, you might pick up some new English words (like peripeteia and escapism).

First, we want to enable German (or your chosen target language) to English switching in the game. To do this:
Go to the Main Menu -> OPTIONS. Set DEUTSCH as the switch language in-game as shown on screenshot:


You can test how it works by returning to the game, opening a dialogue with any character, and pressing Q (or L). The dialogue language should switch.

While language switching with Q is a great setup to start learning, it isn’t enough to dive deep into learning. Ideally, we want to stay in the target language most of the time and avoid using our native language as much as possible. This is where Lookupper comes in. It is a free app that allows us to look up dictionary definitions of words and save the words we look up.

• Download Lookupper for Windows[lookupper.com]
• Download Lookupper for Mac[lookupper.com]

After you download and run the app, you will see the onboarding process.

You need to go through the onboarding to initially configure Lookupper. To do this:

1. Select your target language (I want to learn…).
2. Select your native language.
3. Try to look up a word by hovering over the foreign word and pressing CTRL + D.

Once you’re done, follow the next step.

To fetch dictionary entries in Lookupper, we first need to enable the right dictionaries.

Put the Lookupper Dictionary on top and disable the Translator, as shown in the screenshot. Set Lookupper Dictionary Translate to your native language (e.g., English).

The Lookupper Dictionary is a special AI dictionary designed for language learning through playing games. It provides the lemma (base form) of a word, high-quality audio pronunciations, and the definition of the word in the target language. It also features click-to-reveal translations. If you don’t understand the word’s meaning in its native language, you can reveal its translation. If that still doesn’t help, you can reveal the whole sentence translation.

Because we have this translation capability in the Lookupper Dictionary, we don’t need the Translator. Moreover, we can translate the text by pressing Q anytime, but this is not recommended because translating is not effective way to learn the language.

Optional: Install offline dictionaries
For those who are already proficient in the target language or prefer playing offline, I recommend installing offline dictionaries. It’s easy. Go to the Dictionaries tab and click Add Dictionaries. Then select the dictionaries you want to use (in this example, I use the Cambridge German-English Dictionary)

For Mac, while the lookup popup is open, click “Configure Dictionaries”. I recommend arranging the dictionaries as shown in the screenshot. In this case, the bilingual dictionary will be at the very end of the list, and you will refer to it last if you don’t understand what is said in the explanatory dictionary.

Every time you come across an unfamiliar word or expression in the game, point at the word and press the shortcut (CTRL + D) to look it up. This way, you will get the meaning of the word. Then, think about the word and the meaning of the whole sentence in your head and try to understand it.




Yes, it will be tough at first. You might even want to switch the game back to your native language. But that discomfort is the feeling of new neural connections forming in your brain. I assure you, sooner than you expect, you will understand almost everything automatically and look up words only occasionally.

Very important! Do not try to understand every sentence. Don’t torture yourself unnecessarily. Especially if you are a perfectionist and want to understand every line of dialogue. This way, you can get stuck for 20 minutes on a dialogue with each character, trying to understand every idiom in their speech. Don’t. Play, have fun—that’s the most important thing. Remember, neural connections are made without your conscious effort. In time, you will start to understand everything; just keep playing and look up unknown words.

And don’t overuse the translator. The final goal is to understand everything without ANY translations, naturally. So if you can play using just an explanatory dictionary (for example, just German, not German-English), you are on the most efficient path to language fluency.

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I put a lot of effort into creating the Lookupper and making this guide. Please share your feedback in the comments. I will also be happy to answer your questions.