PC Educational Japanese Learning Games

SpikeSlania

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I'm 37 and have always wanted to learn Japanese mainly to play obscure untranslated games but have never really put the effort into it. Especially with the older I got the more I'm thinking I'm too old to learn a second language. Have been seeing Wagotabi: A Japanese Journey pop up in Steam so now I'm debating on maybe trying it. Is there any other game options to possibly consider for learning purposes? I see in the similar game recommendations on the page include So to Speak a Japanese learning.
 
Learn Japanese to Survive games on Steam are fun.
I heard Pokemon is a good starting off point in dabbling Japanese since they use Furigana on Kanji. Makes learning Kanji easier.
I see 3 different games in that series. Out of curiosity do you know which one would help me to play Ghiren's Greed? :P I want to guess the Kanji one but google isn't being helpful.
 
help me to play Ghiren's Greed? :P
Whoa, Gihren's Greed is more in line with N3 Japanese level. You'll won't be able to understand or play the game very well if you decided to just pick up Japanese tomorrow.
If you really want to play it there is only 2 options:
1. Play the Menace fan translation version
2. Hook a phone on a tripod and have it auto translate the game in real time.
Or take the long route and learn japanese for a couple years and then you can play it.
 
Whoa, Gihren's Greed is more in line with N3 Japanese level. You'll won't be able to understand or play the game very well if you decided to just pick up Japanese tomorrow.
If you really want to play it there is only 2 options:
1. Play the Menace fan translation version
2. Hook a phone on a tripod and have it auto translate the game in real time.
Or take the long route and learn japanese for a couple years and then you can play it.
My hopes and dreams! Will have to see how well I would take to learning/picking up a second language. Definitely don't see myself using my phone translating thingie. I might have a couple of years left in me to try to learn :P
 
I can read/write all hiragana n katakana, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. I am currently tryin to focus on 2 kanji a day - with mixed results. I can't write them out worth a shit - especially now with everpresent motor control issues... but I have Rosetta Stone for eigo-to-nihongo n a large stack of Japanese learning, reference, n cultural insight books I've accumulated over the years - n I am not gonna stop hittin these books (take THAT, ADHD!!!) until I've made some serious progress n breakthroughs of better clarity n understanding... idk why I said "I won't stop unTIL..." when it's more like "I won't stop, period" ...unless my life stops. but even I'm gonna come out my grave-spot n zombie-shuFFLe my way to hit the books again. ppl screamin n running. DO THEY MIND? I'M TRYING TO LEARN HERE!!

*thus begins Night of the Learning Dead saga... spoilerz: the ending SUX. avoid like if the zombie were tryin to benkyou shimasu on your desk n bloody the desk while unDEADly moaning about the more confusing kanji n multiple meanings/context confusion tail-chasing utter shit*
 
I've played a little of Shashingo: Learn Japanese with Photography, and I think it's more vocabulary and less sentence structure, but it was very mellow and you can go at your own pace.
 
Boy I can only image the amount of speechless and beyond confused children who left their computers pondering their future and existence when all they wanted to do was learn English with this one
IMG_2697.jpeg
 
I can read/write all hiragana n katakana

At one point I had memorized hiragana, due to of all things, the partial fan translation of Tomodachi Collection for DS. The hiragana keyboard was not translated. Forcing me to actually learn it in order to use it and play some mini games like butt writing. Yes that was a mini game. Miis spell out words by wiggling their butts in the shape of hiragana. ::sailor-embarrassed

It helped me with Mystic Ark 2 as I was able to translate the menu and some items. I remember how amazed I was when I could find the pine torch in the inventory.

Maybe you could try it?

Anyway, after my things were stolen and bad stuff happened to me I never got back into it because I didn't have my DS Lite anymore (although I still have the R4) and I didn't have a PC for several years. I'd like to try again with some of those learn Japanese games. But I think I'm way too old to learn a new language at this point. Not sure how excruciating it would be. My brain might not be as blunted out as I think it is though. 😓
 
No exact game recommendations but I once found a Google Spreadsheet by Game Gengo that goes really in-depth with Japanese game recommendations for learning the language. Found it helpful for games I want to try playing in Japanese. Includes text options, voice acting, and Furigana support: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14TKRFvnDmBsgfxCJzkaNKTKmx4qDcsv7QSmfyzIKxQ4/edit?gid=0#gid=0
Here's also a video embed for an in-depth discussion from the author:
1753590466070.png

Based Hanny
 
I'm 37 and have always wanted to learn Japanese mainly to play obscure untranslated games but have never really put the effort into it. Especially with the older I got the more I'm thinking I'm too old to learn a second language. Have been seeing Wagotabi: A Japanese Journey pop up in Steam so now I'm debating on maybe trying it. Is there any other game options to possibly consider for learning purposes? I see in the similar game recommendations on the page include So to Speak a Japanese learning.
I'm in a similar boat. I want to learn Japanese for a number of reasons (mainly to experience media that have yet to be translated), but I haven't really put much time into studying the language. I looked up "best ways to learn Japanese" and was overwhelmed by how many different methods people have used to learn it relatively quickly.

I'd like to learn Japanese through immersive means as that's regarded the best way to learn a new language. What games support furigana, voice overs, text, etc?

As of now, I can read hiragana, katakana, some kanji, and I know a decent amount of phrases. But that's about it.
 
This one for DS I the only one I know, never play it but maybe it can help you with the basics.
I try to learn Japanese years ago but I get bored, it's a language to complex for this century, all languages evolve but this one is stuck in the 1600.
 
I'm too old to learn a second language
Nobody is too old to learn a language. Babies do it, and they're fucking stupid.
Is there any other game options to possibly consider for learning purposes?
Yes, there's much better resources. Just play normal games in Japanese and look up the words you don't know. If you play them on PC it becomes easier because you can use programs like Textractor to extract the text and send it to a browser window where you can scan it with dictionary tools like 10ten or Yomichan. From there you could make flashcards or whatever you want.

My suggestion is to learn the basic grammar patterns and learn the most common X number of words (some people like to do the 2000 most common words). You can get this from a textbook and flashcard decks or similar. After that, start playing games and look up whatever you don't know; this allows you to learn the language directly from whichever games interest you. Dating Sims and ADV games are the best if you want to learn fast but they require patience in the beginning as will have to look up basically everything at first, but as you continue looking up and learning words it becomes progressively easier in time.

Personally I have kinda moved away from dating sims and ADV games (I got bored) and just play whatever now and read ebooks. That being said, I played the Famicom Detective Club Remake back in May and had an absolute blast with it. Pretty soon I'm planning to play part 2 and the new game also.

My credentials (lmao): I've been living in Japan for 9 years now and play games solely in Japanese. If you listen to anyone's advice, listen to mine.

Also, don't waste your time on stuff like Duolingo.
 
I think wagyan land count as educational, kinda
 
I have warnings and tips regarding it, and in the end I'll recommend which type of games would be helpful:

1) Now there are some programs that translate your screen in-real time. For example Gaminik is one of these programs. Or you can use Google Gemini by putting a screenshot of the Japanese text for quick translation. You may use Bandicam for a quick screenshot.

2) Not many languages are complex, rocket science and forces you to learn the culture to understand the language as much as American English. A person may need to spend 2 decades and constantly learn American English to understand what natives trying to convey among "deeez nuts deez nuts that L take u sus so prob" or something, however a person can learn Japanese in a 1 year because you are not so tied of learning the Japan's culture as much as American English. I've learned 3 languages which one of them is Japanese before learning English so I know how much hard time I had with English lol.

English is hard because how words are depends on time and meaning, English has BS grammar, rules of grammar can change depending on the way sentence is going and all. Japanese is not like that. Words stays same but depending on your usage you modify the word. So you won't deal with these BS like: "See -> saw -> seen" and "did see", "have seen", "was seen" (and learn how the word "seen" changes because of have and was lol).

Japanese is simple and if we had to understand Japanese in English way the sentence would be like this:

English sentence: "I have just eaten a red apple."

Japanese sentence "Red apple eaten.". Japanese can be understood without being so precise and detailed as much as you gotta be in English, otherwise if you wanna be formal you can fiil all the detail in Japanese sentence for "I have", "just". Perhaps native English speakers can have a hard time understanding Japanese if they had expected how grammar and time and how these effect words and sentence would be valid for Japanese too but it's not like that at all.

So why English is hard?: It's a robotic overly detailed, precise, devoid of emotionality and necessarily formal while Japanese is way easier because you can talk in any way you want and people will get you.

3) People are afraid of there are 3 Japanese alphabets and they fear Kanji is an "alphabet type" that's like "dude this alphabet has like 300.000 letters!!!!". In reality Japanese is very easy to learn, it's just learning to read Japanese takes time to learn. Due to the way how language works is very different than English is you gotta adjust your brain in a way you can think Japanese to understand Japanese otherwise you cannot learn any language that's not similar to English.

As for Kanji, Kanji has "group of letters" that look similar and therefore it likely means they are about the same category. So when you learn few Kanji words you can understand like 3000 other words.

Kanji words have logical shapes. For example word for tree looks like a tree, word for "human/person" looks like a person. And there are other logical stuff eases your education: Word for bird has a dot in the middle, but word for crow doesn't have this dot but rest of the Kanji word is same because "you can't see crow's eye so the Kanki word lacks the dot".

But Kanji is not that simple, some words have abstract shapes that you gotta find that meaning in your own way to understand the art of Kanki. It goes beyond of associating white birds with freedom, you gotta be able to associate some horizontal lines meaning "shop" or "power".

Some Kanji words are made of other Kanji words like some part of it is part of the other Kanji. Gotta notice these.

You need pattern recognation to get the common shapes between Kanji words so you can understand word for physical stuff has certain shapes, and abstract words have another particular shapes, and words for action as in verbs has their own shape styles.

In the end as long as you are open to learning Kanji it can be even fun!!!! For me it seems like meeting with lots of family and their members, and name of these "people" as in Kanji words are how to pronounce them.

Naturally some words have same pronouncing, as how different people can have the same name. That's where Kanji comes in so looking at the Kanji you can differentiate the words.

However when you get used to reading Japanese you realize this: From the start of the sentence you can predict how the sentence will go on. It will make you skip even looking at lots of Kanji words because you will know which Kanji it may be in between.

Other than these in every day Japanese there are lots of English words that written in Japanese alphabet so you gotta be able to notice these words too.

4) Real hardship of reading Japanese text is actually able to see tiny differences in Kanji. I hope you have a glasses!! For video games, their fonts make Kanji words looks so different so you may don't recognize them.

5) Japanese basically have 2 types in the context of what the Japanese is used for. The every day Japanese is different than the Japanese in manga/anime. If you had learn manga/anime Japanese and try to talk to people with that Japanese you'll song like speaking English you learned in American rap songs lolol. In this context what kind of Japanese you gotta learn depends on the game you want.

6) When it comes to learning anime/manga Japanese things get harder and I don't really know much anime/manga to recommend you to ease your education so I guess after getting used to playing games for children you may jump into your favorite anime/manga that doesn't require technical knowledge or something.

7) You may learn Japanese from video games that's not about manga/anime. Slice of life games that targets little kids in general would be what I would recommend. For example you may play Boku no Natsuyasumi games and whatever Nintendo's games on Nintendo Switch due to the way how much dialogue there are that's about every day Japanese language that's written in a way kids can understand. You may play Pokemon Sword, new Zelda games and Animal Crossing games.

However some games for children is not okay to learn Japanese because they tend to use regional dialect to make some characters "interesting and different" therefore you would have a hard time playing, for example, Ni no Kuni. Perhaps after you are good enough and wanna improve you may use Ni no Kuni games.

Lastly I wanna say I'm currently learning Chinese and it's even easier than learning English!!!! lolol
 

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