A board game club in English
English Games
You learn English by playing.
One night a week, one table, one game and one Game Master.There is only one rule: speak Portuguese, lose a life.English shows up because the game demands it.
- 4–6players
per table - 150minutes
per night - A2+minimum
English level - 3lives per
player
Origin story
A generation learned English by accident.
Nobody booted up Pokémon to study. We wanted to get out of the cave, and the cave was in English.
Zelda, Final Fantasy, GTA, The Sims and World of Warcraft did for a lot of people what years of the verb to be never did.5 In 2020, Among Us put sus, vent and emergency meeting in the mouths of people who had never taken a single class.
Video games taught us to read and to listen. Almost nobody got to speak. Speaking is the weakest skill in more than half of the countries EF measures.1
A board game runs on the same engine, with one difference: there are people on the other side of the table. To win you have to negotiate, bluff, accuse and defend yourself. Out loud.
There is a fair counterpoint: people who learned English from games were the exception.6 The video game didn't care whether you learned. English Games designs the whole night so that you do.
- 75this where Brazil ranks among 123 countries in EF's 2025 English index1
- 5%of Brazilians speak English, and fewer than 1% are fluent (British Council, 2013 survey)2
- R$ 342is the average monthly fee at a language school in Brazil. 86% of students prefer in-person classes (ABF)3
- US$ 20Bis what the global board game market was worth in 2025, and it is projected to double by 20344
How to play
A night at English Games, from lobby to save point.
Two and a half hours, two matches, one Game Master per table. Everything happens in English, from the rules to the celebration.
Lobby
Check-in and a two-minute level check. You pick the Easy, Normal or Hard table and get three lives.
Tutorial
The Game Master teaches the rules in English and hands out the cheat codes: the twelve phrases that game is going to ask for.
Match 1
Fifty minutes of play. The GM plays along, draws out whoever is quiet and notes mistakes without interrupting.
Respawn
A break for a beer, some food and a change of tables.
Match 2
A new game or a rematch. Whoever played a co-op now moves on to a bluffing game.
Save point
The GM reads the table's patch notes. Each player writes three new phrases on their sheet and takes home the night's XP.
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House rule 1
Portuguese costs a life
Three hearts a night. Run out and you pay a penalty: narrate the next round like a sports commentator, in English.
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House rule 2
Nobody corrects mid-game
Correcting on the spot freezes people up. The GM takes notes and delivers everything at the end, as patch notes.
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House rule 3
Cheat codes on the table
Every game comes with a card of the phrases it calls for.
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House rule 4
Co-op first
The Easy table starts with a team game. Getting it wrong together hurts less than getting it wrong against each other.
Progress you can see: the character sheet
Fun without progress is just another night out. Every player has a sheet, like in an RPG. It records what the player can already do in English, the way the European framework describes levels: by tasks completed.
Character sheet
Illustrative example- Speaking●●●○○
- Listening●●●●○
- Negotiation●●●●○
- Bluff●●○○○
- Closed a trade in Catan without speaking Portuguese
- Explained the rules of a game to the table
- Lied for three rounds and nobody noticed
- Played a whole match with a native speaker
Quests instead of tests. Negotiate, explain a rule, defend yourself against an accusation. Every completed task turns into XP and raises a skill.
One recording in week 1 and another in week 8. Sixty seconds of speech, recorded at the start and at the end of the season. The player listens to both. It is the save file that proves the progress.
Classes, so everyone has a role. Negotiator, Bluffer, Storyteller, Strategist. Advanced players become Support: they help the table, earn double XP and get one free night in every four.
Eight-week seasons. A beginning, a middle and a Season Finale. The series structure gives you a reason to join now and a reason to come back for the next one.
The shelf
A good game for learning is a game that makes you talk.
Our curation ignores game rankings and measures talk per minute. Every title earns its place on the shelf because it trains one function of the language.
- Just OneDefining with a single word. Synonyms.
- DixitDescribing images and feelings.
- Forbidden IslandSuggesting as a team: let's, we should.
- Love LetterGuessing and deduction in short sentences.
- Ticket to RideColors, numbers and cities. The gateway game.
- CatanNegotiating with conditionals: if you give me…
- CodenamesWord association. Broad vocabulary.
- PandemicPlanning as a group: what if, we could.
- Sheriff of NottinghamBluffing politely and offering a bribe.
- WavelengthGiving opinions and expressing degree: kind of, way more.
- Werewolf and AvalonAccusing, defending, persuading: it must be her.
- ChinatownPure negotiation, no script.
- Cosmic EncounterAlliances, promises and betrayal.
- D&D one-shotNarrating, improvising, using the past tense.
- Blood on the ClocktowerLong-form social deduction. The final boss.
Left off the shelf
They are good games. They just don't serve this goal.
- Heavy eurosTerraforming Mars, Brass, Gloomhaven. Four people doing math in silence for two hours.
- Trivia in EnglishIt measures general knowledge, not language, and embarrasses whoever doesn't know the answer.
- Word-building gamesScrabble looks obvious and is the opposite: silent, and it favors those who already know the words.
- Party games built on American referencesCards Against Humanity depends on jokes the table doesn't get.
Event cards
What will work, what will go wrong and how to beat each boss.
Six buffs hold the idea up. Ten bosses can bring it down. Every boss already comes with a strategy.
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Buff+ talk
The game gives you a reason to speak
Nobody strikes up a conversation in English with a stranger. Everybody trades wood for sheep. The game creates the need and the sentence follows.
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Buff+ courage
The character protects the ego
The one making mistakes is the spy, the sheriff, the wizard. A review of 19 studies points to gains in fluency and less anxiety about speaking during play. Not every study measured a significant improvement.7
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Buff+ repetition
Repetition without boredom
One game of Catan repeats the same negotiation structure dozens of times. It is a drill by another name.
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Buff+ retention
A weekly ritual holds better than an app
Same day, same crew, same table. 86% of language students in Brazil prefer in-person classes.3 People come back because of people.
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Buff+ partner
The bar wins too
An empty Tuesday becomes two full tables ordering for two and a half hours. Mundo Lingo runs in 17 cities across 12 countries, funded entirely by what people spend at the bars.9
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Buff+ demand
Boss fights
The risks in order of danger. The first three kill the project if they go unanswered.
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Boss 1High danger
The Portuguese Boss
Within twenty minutes the table slips back into Portuguese. It is the most common risk for a conversation group that relies on goodwill alone.
How to winThree lives per player. A GM at every table. Cards and rules in English only. One advanced player per table as an anchor.
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Boss 2High danger
The numbers don't add up
A club that depends on single tickets and expensive rent usually closes within a few months.
How to winPartner venues instead of rent. Memberships instead of single tickets. Growth by opening houses in other cities.
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Boss 3High danger
Am I actually learning?
People who can't see progress cancel. Fun alone doesn't keep a membership going, and nobody can sit through a straight lesson on a Tuesday night.
How to winThe character sheet, task-based quests and the two sixty-second recordings, in week 1 and in week 8.
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Boss 4Medium danger
Unbalanced party
The beginner freezes and the advanced player yawns. Neither comes back.
How to winEasy, Normal and Hard tables. A quick level check at check-in. The advanced player gets the Support class and a reason to help.
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Boss 5Medium danger
The Game Master bottleneck
The night is only as good as the GM. Depending on one charismatic host blocks growth and wears out the founder.
How to winA ready-made script for each game and training for those who run a table. English teachers who play are the ideal profile, and they bring their own students.
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Boss 6Medium danger
Too much noise, too much potion
A packed bar destroys comprehension. A low dose of alcohol improved the pronunciation of 50 students in one experiment, and the authors themselves don't recommend the technique.8 In high doses, alcohol gets in the way of speech and reasoning. The bar also shuts out minors, companies and people who don't drink.
How to winSlow nights and a reserved area. The potion is optional. An alcohol-free version for cafés, schools and companies.
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Boss 7Medium danger
The novelty wears off
Attendance commonly drops after the first month when every night is the same.
How to winSeasons with a finale. A shelf that rotates. A league between tables and a season scoreboard on the bar wall.
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Boss 8Medium danger
This is not a course
Absolute beginners can't play. Nobody here teaches grammar, and the research on games measures short-term gains.7
How to winSay so at the door. English Games is the gym where you train; school is where you learn the basics. That turns schools into a sales channel.
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Boss 9Low danger
Eurogame silence
The organizer's favorite game may be the worst one for the table. Heavy games produce concentration and little conversation.
How to winCuration by talk per minute. Every new game goes through a test table before it reaches the shelf.
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Boss 10Low danger
Generic name, other people's art
English Games describes the service, and a descriptive name is hard to protect on its own. The games on the shelf have owners.
How to winRegister the trademark with its logo at INPI, Brazil's trademark office, and build a vocabulary of our own. Cheat codes without the publishers' artwork. Worth a conversation with an intellectual property lawyer.
Business model
Base game and expansions.
A base game wins the table over, and the expansions add new ways to play it. Game night builds a city's community. The expansions take the format to other tables.
Game Night
Two and a half hours of play with a host, cheat codes and a character sheet. Every member has their own fixed night of the week.
Three hours of class at a language school cost about R$ 118 a week.3 15 In the Guild, a whole night of conversation comes to less than R$ 30.
| Product | Price | How it works |
|---|---|---|
| Tutorial | Free | Anyone's first night. |
| Guild | R$ 119 / month | One fixed night a week, with a reserved table and a character sheet.That is less than R$ 30 a night. |
| Founder | R$ 89 / month | The first 20 members of each house, for as long as they stay. |
| Season Pass | R$ 189 | Eight nights and the Season Finale.For those who don't want a monthly fee. |
| Drop-in | R$ 50 | A single night, when there's an open seat. |
| Guest player | Free | Native English speakers.They make the table better for everyone. |
The six expansions
The same method and the same games, in other formats.
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Expansion 1
Houses
For: anyone who wants the club in their own cityComing soonNo English Games where you live? A house is born when a trained player opens a table in their own city, with the club's games, method and app.
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Expansion 2
Junior League
For: teens aged 11 to 17R$ 89 per monthSaturday mornings, in an alcohol-free setting. The same lives and cheat codes, with shorter games.
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Expansion 3
School Mode
For: schoolsOn requestA weekly session inside the school, with a host and the club's games. It is the conversation class students ask for.
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Expansion 4
Private Party
For: companies, parties and birthdaysR$ 590 per eventTwo hours of play for up to 12 people with two hosts, wherever you choose. In English or in bilingual mode.
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Expansion 5
GM Academy
For: teachers and advanced playersR$ 997 per courseThirty hours to learn how to run a table: the method online, an immersion weekend and four nights of apprenticeship alongside an experienced host. Includes the playbook, a cheat code deck and a certificate.
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Expansion 6
Loot
For: playersR$ 120 per deckCheat code decks by function: negotiate, bluff, cooperate. Made with the finish of a real game, for training at home between one night and the next.
Endgame
What if the world learned English by playing?
The format doesn't depend on a city or on a language. English Games in Lima and in Seoul. Spanish Games in São Paulo. Games in Portuguese for foreigners in Lisbon. Four precedents show that formats like this one travel.
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14,000 clubsToastmasters, since 1924
A manual and a ritual are enough for a practice club to multiply. More than 270,000 members in 150 countries practice public speaking at regular meetings run by the members themselves.12 English Games wants to be that for conversation in English, with dice in place of the lectern.
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17 citiesMundo Lingo, since 2011
Bars and languages make a pair that crosses borders. Mundo Lingo was born in Buenos Aires, reached 12 countries and charges neither admission nor commission.9 It proves the demand. English Games adds a method, progress tracking and revenue of its own.
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58.7 millionDuolingo, per day, in 2026
Language that looks like a game is a mass market. Streaks, leagues and XP get tens of millions of people to practice every day.13 The app trains you alone; the table trains you with people. The two complement each other.
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1.5 billionpeople speak English
The problem the table solves exists in every country that doesn't speak English at home. Spanish-speaking Latin America is the first stop after Brazil.14
The English Games
Once a year, the houses face off. Each city sends a table, the way the districts send tributes, with the difference that here everyone goes home.
The matches are broadcast in the format Critical Role made popular: people playing and talking, with subtitles. Every final yields dozens of clips for social media, and every clip calls new players to the table in their own city.
- Table
- Video
- Players
- Game Masters
- Houses
- Tournament