DS game mania and adjusting settings

[Triggles]

Okay. An odd one here (or perhaps not... we'll soon see based on responses )...

DS2 has a 3DS game. He loves to play it. That's fine. We try to limit the time he spends on it. But...

he spends ages digging through the activity log, trying to change settings on it, looking through the manual, and CHANGING THE LANGUAGE on it !!!

He knows exactly how to change everything back - but honestly, sometimes I'll look over and he's playing his game and all the words are in German or French or Italian. And he's still happily playing away....

I don't for one instant think he has mastered or even learned these languages, by the way. I suspect he has memorised where all the specific buttons/controls are on the screen for each game, so doesn't NEED to know what the word say IYSWIM.

Anyone else dealing with this?

DS2 is also obsessed with the idea of learning another language. When he is rattling off speaking so quickly I can barely figure out what he is saying in ENGLISH.. god help me if he learns another language!! I'd have to learn it as well just to keep up!

It fits with stuff my DS does.
practically everything DS shows an interest in - all his rote learning - I have realised its just about patterns. He just likes learning patterns. So he always goes into computer games the same way, even if you show him a quicker way he does the way he learnt first. The alphabet was a pattern, Numbers a pattern. Songs a pattern. On a pre school website poisson rouge there were alphabets from different countries and he learned all those. And foreign flashcards on the iPad - he knew french vehicles at 4 as one of the flashcard apps had them. Ditto American road signs. Learning songs by heart. Learning books by heart. Being able to read and spell words he does not understand. He is not fussed about what any of this stuff means, just the pattern. Actually I think he could rote learn another language quite easily (although his understanding of English is still about age 3) and do translation work when he is older as he could easily rote learn two massive lists of words and if you asked him one in one language he could probably tell you the corresponding word in another.

Yes, DS2 does the rote learning. He has memorised all the flags of all the countries. Literally can tell you on sight what country each flag is for. But he can't tell time - cannot grasp the concept at all - we even tried just appealing to his memorisation skills to memorise different useful times, but nope. Time is just beyond him right now. I wonder if it's because he struggles with the whole concept of time in general??

You know, ds1 does this, also has asd. I just leave him to it. It might teach him a few words of Spanish, and it can't hurt.

Ha, yes, and also only has a shaky grasp of how to tell the time....

Another one here with a DS who does this, except we have now gone one further with DS watching 'you tube' clips over and over again in all sorts of different languages, mainly italian

I think we have safely established its not the words he is interested in, just the pics

Until DS starts talking like Gino D'Acampo we have decided to leave him to it!

I don't know about talking like Gino D'Acampo... but if DS2 could COOK like Gino D'Acampo my life might be a bit easier!

When I got my new HTC fone dd2 loved playing apps on it then she found the text messaging function which she enjoyed. Until I realised that actually what she emoted doing was changing the language to polish!! Evrrytime she grabs my fone now she whizzes through the menu changes text language dictionary to polish and saves it leaving me struggling to sort it out!