Zon

Today I made a search for online Mandarin games for learners. What I found was a game called Zon. This site is still in Beta but it looks really interesting. Click here to go to the site ZON

Zon is an interactive massively multiplayer online role playing game for learning Mandarin Chinese. We are currently trialing it for use with Mandarin classes in our school.

In Zon, a new player assumes an avatar who arrives as a tourist in Customs at the Beijing Airport. With little more than some traveler’s checks, a passport, a backpack, and the clothes on their back, the player must first pass through Customs, then navigate the Airport on the way to their Hotel. Throughout each new scene, players are presented with various learning tasks and ongoing assessments that teach them about specific Chinese language concepts and cultural information about the context of the scene.

A new player begins as a Tourist, and can progress to Resident and Citizen levels by accomplishing various tasks in the environment.