💬Terminology

Is it possible to improve new player understanding by refining the terms we use?

When a player first learns the game, it can be easy to overwhelm them with information. Once overwhelmed all learning stops and the new player can become frustrated and have a bad experience. Thus, it should be the goal for the teacher to limit the number of new things that the new player must learn. However, the teacher must also make sure not to fundamentally change the game (such as with first capture go)

One way to do that is using a simplified ruleset like Chinese. Life and death isn't an issue here because players can continue placing stones until they agree on who owns which territory. In Japanese counting, placing more stones would lead to a loss of points. Another way to lower the barrier of entry to new players is to use terms in English that have an expected meaning better approximating what a new player might naturally assume. Below is such a list.

Ideas for Terms

Goal: Use stones to build walls and fortresses. The player who occupies the most area of the board, with their stones and the intersections between their stones wins.

Group: Fortress

Eyes: Rooms

Dead Stones: Doomed Fortress

Eyes: Rooms

Liberties: Life Lines / Life Points

Atari: Check / Danger

Ko: Infinite Loop

Seki: Dual Life

Ladder: Zig-zag / Stairs

Leagues: Infinite Tournaments / Ongoing Tournaments

Shape Terms

Tigers Mouth / Dogs Face / Horses Face

Iron Pillar / One Space Jump / Two Space Jump

Diagonal / Hane (Bend)

Knights Move / Large Knight's Move / Monkey Jump

Elephant Jump / Elephant Eye