I am a huge fan of word games. I will play anything from anagrams to crosswords and word searches to board games. For language learners, playing word games is a great way to revise existing vocabulary and learn new words.
Scrabble, the immensely popular word game, has to be my favourite game. Ideally you need two people or more to play; there are versions for single players but it's better to play with others! Each player selects seven letter tiles at random from the bag. The first player puts a word down in the middle of the board. Players must then link their words to existing words on the board. Each letter scores a different number of points. The game ends when there are no tiles left in the bag and someone has succeeded in putting down all their letters. The winner is the person with the most points. As a child, I played it with my family. Whenever we visited my grandparents, the game would inevitably come out and a family game would commence. When I'm at home during the university holidays, I often challenge my mum to a game. This year, I downloaded the Scrabble app on my phone; I couldn't take the board game with me, so this was a great alternative!
When I was younger, I also played Upwords. This game is similar to Scrabble, with a couple of exceptions. Firstly, all letters have the same value: 1 point. Secondly, you can stack letters on top of existing letters to change the words which are already on the board.
Yesterday, I played Bananagrams for the first time. You can either play against others or just play by yourself. Each player takes a certain number of letter tiles from the bag; the number of tiles varies according to the number of players. You then race against the other players to make words with your tiles and link them all together, like a crossword.
I also enjoy doing the crossword in the newspaper; I usually do it with my mum. These are a good way to expand your vocabulary and learn more synonyms, as you will need them to solve the clues. I also like playing the word wheel game in my mum's paper. You are given nine letters and have to make as many words as you can from these letters. Usually, one specified letter has to be in every word you make.
Do you like playing word games? What's your favourite word game?