“Kloo – Words Stick Together Like Glue!”
The Kloo game comprises 2 decks of cards which can be used alone or together. Included are instructions for 3 games, 1 that can be played with 2-4 players and the other two to be played alone. More games can be downloaded for free from their website. I enlisted the help of t’husband for the multi-player game. Basically, we had to deal out hands of 7 cards each and then using the cards, which are a mixture of nouns, present tense verbs and adjectives, attempt to construct as long a sentence as you could manage and be able to translate all the words in the sentence. Each card also has a different word along the side of it with the translation; this word is for another card found in the pack, so as you play you are discovering new words to build your vocabulary. Every card used in the sentence earned a point and a correct translation of the word earned another. The game was relatively fast paced and neither of us came across a word we didn’t know, but then considering our Spanish is at a more advanced level than the game is aiming at, it wasn’t surprising. We had fun though, making rather contrived and somewhat tenuous sentences about ‘important beer’ and ‘interesting cheese’.
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| T'husband hasn't got a Kloo |
Of the two games aimed at solo players, I found one better than the other. The instructions for all the games I felt were slightly confusing and indeed one the solo games I still don’t really understand the end objective. However, you could just use the deck to try and construct sentences without trying to follow the rules of either game.
The downfalls were that with only 128 cards it wouldn’t take very long for the game to get boring, it certainly wouldn’t take you very long to learn all the words in the two packs, but there are another 2 decks of cards available. With a learning game such as this, there isn’t anyone to correct any mispronunciations. There is a written pronunciation under each word, but you would need to understand some basic rules of the language to know where to place the stresses, which are all important in the Spanish language. For this reason I‘m not convinced this game would be good on its own for an absolute beginner. Also, the first two packs only deal with ‘I’ or ‘We’ verbs which would make for a very one-sided conversation should you be wanting to put what you’ve learnt into practice. The full set of 4 decks only deals with the present tense so will only take you so far with the language.
I felt that the game would be of assistance to someone beginning to learn the language, as used alongside conventional methods it would make a welcome change from text books and audio tapes/CD’s. It would also be great for those whose language knowledge has lapsed and are wanting a tool to help refresh their memories. I also feel that it would be a good piece of kit for teachers of Spanish to have as a fun learning session for their students; I would certainly have appreciated the game as a pleasant alternative in my own lessons. Kloo says that it is for players aged 8-100, but in all fairness if your child has a good reading ability then I don’t see why they couldn’t play a little younger.
To get your own Kloo cards or just to find out more info go to www.kloogame.com. Kloo is also available in French.
