Episode: 43 · Guest: Mohammed Al-Buwaydi · Full Episode #43
Mohammed Al-Buwaydi taught himself English as a child by playing PlayStation games. He was eight or nine years old. The specific game he cited was Pro Evolution Soccer (PES), from which he learned the word "exhibition" — a term used in the game's menu to describe friendly matches. There was no English tutor, no language institute, no family connection to the anglophone world. There was a console, a football game, and a boy who paid close attention to what appeared on screen.
The story is not merely charming. It illustrates a structural reality: in Libya in the early 2000s, institutional English-language education was poor to nonexistent for most families. The Gaddafi-era education system had not prioritised foreign languages, and private language instruction was available only to those who could afford it. For children like Mohammed, the informal curriculum of video games, satellite television, and — later — the internet became the primary means of acquiring English.
Mohammed's fluency was built entirely from these sources. He moved from game menus to dialogue, from dialogue to subtitles, from subtitles to reading. By the time he applied for a translator position at the British Embassy in Libya — competing against approximately 800 applicants — his English was not merely functional but professional-grade. He had no formal translation degree. His qualification was a fluency assembled game by game, screen by screen, over more than a decade of self-directed learning.
The PlayStation origin story became, for Mohammed, a way of arguing that the path to competence does not require the path that institutions prescribe. The education system had failed him. He had educated himself anyway.