Games for non English speaking people

[user5656]

Can anyone recommend games for people whose first language isn't English?
We are getting together with family from France this Christmas and although most of them speak good English playing some games together can be extra challenging, are there any that would work in a multi lingual situation? We are all adults btw and quite competitive especially me.

We had a brilliant Jenga tournament last year, which included Spanish speaking relatives. It's safe to say it for very, very competitive 😂

Oh yes we've got Jenga, it's already a favourite.

Ticket to Ride is good. Building train tracks across Europe or the US. I play it with my non-native speaking husband quite often and it works well for us.

Quirkle- no reading necessary (or speaking actually )

Cash and Guns would work too I think, as no writing on the cards, only numbers/pictures

Dobble!
People obviously shout out the words in their own language but that doesn't really matter.

Ive played Pig with lots of non English speakers and they love it. Its a bit silly though.

Uses an ordinary pack of cards.

Sort the deck of cards out into piles of four of a kind. Set aside one pile for each player. Discard the remainder of the piles.

Shuffle the chosen cards well.Deal until each player has four cards.

The aim of the game is to collect four of a kind.Players must choose what they want to collect and discard, face-down, one card at a time each turn.This card is passed to the player on their left who also discards a card to the next player on their left and so on.

Once a player has collected four of a kind, the player must immediately put a finger on their nose.

If another player sees them do this, they too put a finger on their nose even if they don't have four of a kind. The last player to notice the others and place a finger on their nose loses.

I’d second Ticket to Ride Europe edition. Splendor is also very good because it’s so abstract, but has a maximum of 4 players I think.

Thanks for all these suggestions, especially Ticket to ride. We are all interested in travel/geography as a theme.

Junglespeed is great fun, it's a board game, no language needed. Can be a little violent at times so not for frail relatives.

Set is a good game too. No words needed except "set"

Pictionary air the drawing game ????

Perudo is good fun

Multilingual scrabble, you allow words from English and French (or whatever) you will need a dictionary or two google because the art of multi scrabble is to make up words with a high score and hope no one challenges.

Yahtzee? Mancala? Rock paper scissors with prizes.

Multilingual scrabble doesn't work that well though, as different languages have different letter frequencies, so, say a French scrabble will have different scoring and different numbers of each letter, from an English scrabble. And then there are the languages with slightly different alphabets.

If you'd like something daft, no words needed, have a look at Wicked Uncle.

They just emailed me about a game where someone wears an inflatable set of reindeer antlers and a red nose, and the others take turns to try to throw gold rings (six, not five) to land on said antlers.
£12.95 I think.
Might order for little Gdcs and those grown ups among us who enjoy a really daft game.

Second perudo

Sorry! Is a great retro option. And gives an interesting insight to non-natives into the passive aggressive English apology...

Or, inflatable Toss the Cows.
Or indoor croquet is funny, especially when you play round the furniture!

Uno

Ratuki

In our family we like card games such as Uno, exploding kittens and Sushi Go. They all need a little practice to understand the rules though.

Carcassonne

Most card games

Labyrinth is language free. Quite fun
Spoons, snakes and ladders
Chess

Beer pong (or chocolate pong for children?) - I play this as a warm up with my ESOL class!