FFXIV to learn a language

[Meimi_chan]

I guess it depends a bit on your friend's current level of English.
When I started the game, my English was honestly terrible; I was really slow at reading and kept a translator at hand for the most complex sentences.
Some NPC dialogues (like with Baderon) left me scratching my head trying to figure out what they were saying, luckily when I leveled an alt my bf would translate for me in normal English.

It may sound silly but the thing that really helped me was reading FC chat with people bantering and listening (albeit with some difficulties because accents) to them talk on voice chat.
Not to mention, I asked to be corrected in case I wrote/said something weird haha.
And when I got enough courage I attempted to speak, I think that was the hardest part for me and sometimes I still struggle with some words.

[Kahnom]

"Oi, wha' 'ar's aboot ya'r gills n' skeens! YARHARHAR!"

O.O
Is that even a language !?
If someone said that to me,I'll throw lala er.. popoto to their faces.

[Niqote]

So... a lot of people here are focused on the game (NPC) dialog.
The tutorial dialog would also be decent practice but as a firm believer in the natural approach to learning; the real value would be from speaking to other players.

Now, while I understand you wanting to play with your friend, if they simply don't have the time then an MMO might not be right for their schedule. That being said, there is no harm in trying it for a month or two ^^ Don't forget the recruitment code!

[Kitfox]

So... a lot of people here are focused on the game (NPC) dialog.
The tutorial dialog would also be decent practice but as a firm believer in the natural approach to learning; the real value would be from speaking to other players.

This is the real value, talking to other players. Using a foreign language daily in text or even better in voice chat is the best thing you can have.

[Caitlyn]

Wanted to learn english with FFXIV.
Learned Dragonspeak since Heavensward instead.

Dis an sohm in, rhos an kym. Sah djahs afah an, mah morn narr! xD

[Niqote]

Wanted to learn english with FFXIV.
Learned Dragonspeak since Heavensward instead.

Dis an sohm in, rhos an kym. Sah djahs afah an, mah morn narr! xD

And I thought I was dedicated in learning to read and write the Eorzean script ... well now I feel so average XD

[SessionZero]

I don't know that I'd call the main NPC dialogue unintelligible (aside from Urianger, whose dialogue is hilarious). They just take really roundabout ways to say stuff.

Instead of saying, "He punched me in the face," they would say, "He dealt a swift and mighty blow to mine countenance," which I guess adds to the fantasy setting, or something.

More to the point: interaction with the playerbase will help your friend learn English. The game itself likely will not.

[raela]

Player interaction is definitely great, even with those with rather "loose" spelling/grammar - I think it adds another level of understanding, since in many cases you need to recognize the sound and not the word itself (like u, r, etc). Language exposure from a variety of sources can be helpful, and a game environment keeps things entertaining.

[Niwashi]

Once you've learned enough of the basic fundamentals of a language that something like playing a game in that language even becomes possible, the best way to get better at it is with regular use, and playing a video game in that language can be a good way to provide that regular use.

It's only in a few places where dialog is mimicking accents (the most extreme being the rogue's guild or anywhere you're talking with goblins) that the dialog in the game gets hard to follow. 99% of the game's dialog is clear modern English, more formal from some characters and more casual slang from others, but clear in either case. What I'd be more concerned with is the horrible English that players themselves often use, riddled with all kinds of errors and weird acronyms in place of actual words.

But gaming in a language you're trying to learn can still provide a lot of valuable practice at it.

[Niwashi]

The nearly unintelligible FAKE old english that the orginal FFXIV:ARR has

A couple quibbles about this (apart from the fact that it's not old English at all, just a slightly archaic dialect of modern English). The biggest is that there's nothing fake about it. The writers of this game are quite good at what they're doing, and any time they do incorporate any archaic terms, they're always used correctly. (If they actually were fake, then I'd agree with you. There's nothing more grating than seeing archaic forms thrown around haphazardly and not even conjugated correctly, but I've never seen any trace of that in this game.)

The other is that it only very rarely comes up. Sure, you'll see it in Urianger's poetry, and some very localized bits like Ramuh's dialect, but it's pretty rare otherwise. I'd be more concerned about some of the other dialects. Jacke's dialect can in some places be hard to follow even for native English speakers, and some of the other Lominsans drop vowels in a way that would frustrate learners of the language who still have to occasionally look up words. (It's pretty hard to look something up when its spelling has been adapted to indicate the speaker's accent.)