Learning Japanese for the imports?

[MrSparkle]

Hey i know alot of you here both collect and play imports from japan. So my question to you is how/where did you learn japanese, how difficult is it to learn. If any of you have good resources (ie books tapes classes) you could recommend it would be appreciated. Also i'm not too knowledgeable on the subject, is japanese broken down into several dialects, are there different character sets for different regions in japan, is each symbol representative of a letter or a word?

[Aussie2B]

The Japanese use katakana, hiragana, and kanji. Kanji characters originated from the Chinese, and they represent full words or concepts. They're a real pain to learn, as grade school kids in Japan alone need to know 2000 different symbols. Unless you're extremely serious about learning Japanese, I wouldn't bother to try becoming fluent in kanji just for video games, not unless you absolutely must know every bit of a game's story. Instead, you're better off learning the kanji common to video games. Most games that use kanji are text-heavy games like RPGs, in which case they tend to use the same stereotypical settings from game to game. If you learn the kanji for stuff like dungeon, mountain, ocean, forest, castle, king, princess, fire, water, wind, earth, lightning, north, south, east, west, etc., you're set.

As for katakana and hiragana, they're alphabets, but they don't represent single letters like in English except in the cases of vowels and "n". When romanized into English, they're usually pairs of letters - a consonant and a vowel. Examples would be: fu, ka, hi, ro, se, etc. The sets for katakana and hiragana are basically the same, but hiragana is used for native Japanese while katakana is usually used for representing foreign words, which are 9 times out of 10 English. If you Google "katakana chart" and "hiragana chart", you can find many useful charts that you can print out, and you can easily teach yourself the characters just by picking up a game and start romanizing. Katakana is the most useful thing you'll learn in terms of video games because you won't even have to learn the Japanese language itself. English words are extremely common in video games, and as long as you can decipher them from the katakana, you'll be able to play just about anything, even RPGs. You'll miss out on most of the story, but you'll get all the essential information like names of characters, items, moves, locations, etc.

[Nick Goracke]

Some people have the "dedication" to train themselves to traverse menus and pick out very basic, reoccuring words. You could probably accomplish this in a year. I'd pick up this (http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Basic-Japanese-Grammar/dp/4789004546/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213820009&sr=8-1), this series (http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kanji-Complete-Japanese-Characters/dp/0824831659/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213819470&sr=8-1), and an electronic dictionary.

But realistically speaking...

Achieving basic proficiency through living in Japan w/ constant interaction in Japanese + classes: 2 years

Achieving basic proficiency through classes/self study in the US: 6~8 years

Achieving basic proficiency through books/self study in the US: 10+ years

In other words, unless you're willing to take the first option, you will lose interest in understanding some silly RPG's story long, long before it's possible.

[Fuyukaze]

I import all the time, still havent learned much of Japanese. Sure, I'm missing out on the story but eh, the game still plays good enough.

[PapaStu]

**shimmying to Import-mania**

[Spartacus]

I've never attempted to learn Japanese, but I do play Japanese games without any hesitation. I mostly stick to action type games where language isn't much of an issue, but I'll also pick up strategy and adventure games too.
I try NOT to get myself into situations where I'm forced to translate Japanese text in order to start or finish a game. But if the situation becomes unavoidable, I've found some useful tools to help me get by.
THE most useful tool for me is a good Japanese/English word processor. I use a freebie called JWPCE. It can be found here...
http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~grosenth/japanese.html

It's quite a versatile tool and has so many useful functions it's sort of like a Swiss Army knife Japanese word processor. It even contains it's own dictionary. But to make it really functional, you'll need to have more than the Japanese alphabet to work with, you'll need the kanji commonly used in Japan. I found kanjinetworks to be an easy to understand and well organized kanji resource and you can find that here...
http://www.kanjinetworks.com/

Another site I've gleaned a few things from is Jim Breen's Japanese Page. You can find that here...
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/japanese.html

You now have everything you need to copy Japanese from your TV screen or game manual into the word processor and from there you can you can paste the text into Bable Fish or Google language tools for a translation.
Is it easy to do? HELL NO! I only do it because I'm a stubborn son of a bitch who refuses to be stopped from playing a game by foreign gibberish. Is it hard to do? HELL NO! I'm also a dumb son of a bitch and if I can do it, so can you.

[EX-Soldier]

watching alot of anime in japanese but english subtitles can help u glean SOME level of understanding...however minute it may be =(

"ryo, bibbity kun" lol

[The 1 2 P]

At one time I had the whole Katatana alphabet memorized so that I could understand all main menus and save screens in my import games. Beyond that, I only know a few commonly used words in Japanese video games. However, out of my 200 plus import games, I haven't had hardly any problems playing them. You really don't need to learn Japanese to play import games, unless your main form of gaming is rpg's. And for that you can always get the US and Japanese version and use the US manual to help you thru. If it's a game that only came out in Japan, then learning Katakana and using gamefaqs.com can be a great resource for help.

[ErmangelnSeelen]

hmm.. it's like the others said, takes a lot of dedication. I've been studying about, maybe a year? I know around 200-250 kanji. although there were days where I'd slack off, I study about an hour a day average.

It's important that you learn to speak as you learn the kanji though, so you can learn proper sentence structure and pronunciation.

If you are going to be serious about it, you will need a kanji dictionary and a jap-to-english, english-to-jap dictionary (WITH furigana/rubi! This means subscript for every kanji so you can read it!) I suggest you pick up neither until you can read AND write both hiragana and katakana.

If you have a DS, get this! No regions, so it will play (http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-9g-49-en-15-kanji-70-198v-43-99.html)

My Kanji Dictionary (http://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Learners-Dictionary-Japanese-People/dp/4770028555/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214040049&sr=8-1)

My Dictionary (http://www.amazon.com/Kodanshas-Furigana-Japanese-Dictionary-Japanese-English/dp/4770024800/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b)

GREAT practice site. Teaches hiragana and katakana as well I believe. You must have a dictionary still, as you will NEED to know stroke order (www.kanjisite.com)

That should help get you started...I'm sure there are plenty of people who are fluent/vastly more experienced than me, but I'll help you out whenever you need it if you PM me!

[Lord Contaminous]

There's also a Myspace type site called "The Japanese Page"
www.thejapanesepage.com

And a Japanese word processor just like Notepad called JWPce
http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~grosenth/c_main.html#DOWNLOAD

In most cases, though I'm learning hiragana, katakana and common sense are getting me through.

Sometimes the best way to pick up some words is to just do a cannonball in ice cold water and play a RPG straight up.

Though I didn't finish Fu'un Kabuki Den for the PC Engine due to accidently erasing my save data, I made alot of play videos of it on YouTube, with the aid of JWPCE.

I was amazed how many words I picked up along the way.

In the PC Engine Tengai Makyo/Far East of Eden games, when you equip or buy weapons and items, it may mainly have a kanji equivalent which may look scary at first, but the description of the item is a kana/gana equivalent of it.

Despite that, there are some RPG's that are way too involved and are just drenched in kanji and to appreciate the game has to be on an advanced native level. That's why I hardly touched Romancing SaGa 3 (though I'm still keeping it) because you frequently have to make choices that change the course of the game and affect the ending.

[DJ Daishi]

......and to save you some time, do not use Rosetta Stone!!...their learning structure is terrible for learning Japanese

[smork]

But realistically speaking...

Achieving basic proficiency through living in Japan w/ constant interaction in Japanese + classes: 2 years

Achieving basic proficiency through classes/self study in the US: 6~8 years

Achieving basic proficiency through books/self study in the US: 10+ years

In other words, unless you're willing to take the first option, you will lose interest in understanding some silly RPG's story long, long before it's possible.

Nick, I think you're way overstating how long it takes to achieve basic proficiency. I assume you mean being able to hold a conversation and read and write a bit -- that would be far less than a year living in Japan, and definitely less than two years with classes not in Japan.

It's actually much easier of a language than people give it credit for; the intimidating part is the sheer number of kanji, but if you want to get to, say, a 5th grader's level then that's only a few hundred.

But I agree that you don't REALLY need much in the way of Japanese skills to play most imports. I think memorizing the hiragana and katakana (only a bit over 100 symbols, not so difficult, and can be done in less than a week) is very helpful, but beyond that, not so necessary.

[MrSparkle]

You really don't need to learn Japanese to play import games, unless your main form of gaming is rpg's.

unfortunately almost all of the japanese games that make me want to learn japanese are infact rpgs. Take the story out of a JRPG and you have one hell of a boring grindfest on your hands. It stinks because they have SO many more rpgs than we do. these days rpgs are a pretty popular genre in the states, but we missed out on alot of early greats because they figured american gamers wouldnt go for them.

[Aussie2B]

It depends on the RPG. Most of the imports I play are RPGs, and I enjoy them just fine even without understanding most of the script. You'd be surprised how much of the story you can understand just from the visuals alone. I can imagine something very traditional getting boring without a story backing it up, but I mostly play RPGs with interesting gameplay, like strategy RPGs and ones with real-time battles. In those cases, even if I was playing them in English I'd still be playing them more for gameplay than anything else.

[The 1 2 P]

unfortunately almost all of the japanese games that make me want to learn japanese are infact rpgs. Take the story out of a JRPG and you have one hell of a boring grindfest on your hands. It stinks because they have SO many more rpgs than we do. these days rpgs are a pretty popular genre in the states, but we missed out on alot of early greats because they figured american gamers wouldnt go for them.

Like I said above, just learn the Katakana alphabet to help you thru the menu screens and then use gamefaqs.com for walk-thurs in case you get stuck. Althought knowing Japanese will help when playing import rpg's, it isn't completely required considering all the other helpful options you have.

[ice1605]

I am entering into my 4th year of studying Japanese at my high school, and I still have difficulty with Kanji. My spoken Japanese and reading skills are good enough to survive in Japan, but reading newspapers and videogames without hurigana is a challenge. To be able to play text-intensive RPGs, you are looking at a lot of effort, even if you can use a Kanji dictionary well. Super Mario RPG is an example of an RPG with furigana, but it is not Japan-exclusive. Japanese isn't as hard as a lot of people think, but learning it on your own can be a challenge.

[Kyle15]

I would be fluent in Japanese if I could get all of those extra characters memorized.
Speaking it would be no problem for me, as I have all of the rules down.

Learning how it works and how to pronounce everything is not hard, but the character part is hard, namely kanji.

Funny thing is, I wasn't even trying to teach myself anything: I picked it all up by translating katakana and hiragana with my mini japanese dictionary, and watching Anime in Japanese.

Basically, learning katakana and all of that was a mere accident for me.
I was looking at it and hearing it so much that it all sunk in!

[GrumpyTF]

You need surprisingly little Japanese to understand most JRPGs. There are some obscure words (mostly stuff related to political heirarchy, weapons, etc) but that aside nearly all the kanji is from early elementary school. If you stick to mainstream JRPGs a beginner in Japanese who knows how to use a Kanji dictionary will have no problem.

That said, some games are tough. I'm struggling my way through Nobunaga's Ambition for the DS now and it uses a lot of obsolete words and kanji that make it difficult for some Japanese people. Anything targetted to an older audience is probably going to be challenging.

[mobiusclimber]

I've bluffed my way through several RPGs in Japanese, a language I do not understand at all. It's not that hard. I wouldn't be surprised if the language used in most of them is grade school level, either, since that seems to be the level of language in RPGs that we get in North America. But even tho I don't understand the plot, a lot of these games are not "boring grind fests" at all. I just make up a storyline for them as I go along. I've even worked my way through a couple that don't have walkthrus online.

Having said that, I did pick up a copy of My Japanese Coach for the DS to try to learn Japanese. My advice tho, is DON'T. This could be a semi-useful tool to augment Japanese learning, but as a primary teaching method, it sucks. I just really don't like how things are laid out, for one. I think learning all the hiragana first is what's most important, but they break it up w/ tons of lessons on other stuff. I've kinda given up on it and need to find a good course or maybe something online to use.

[GrumpyTF]

I'd recommend taking a course in person - half the fun of language-learning is getting out and talking to new people, all of whom are way out of their comfort zones.

[smork]

I think learning all the hiragana first is what's most important, but they break it up w/ tons of lessons on other stuff. I've kinda given up on it and need to find a good course or maybe something online to use.

Ooh, definitely! Especially for conversation. If you know how to read/speak the kana you'll pronounce Japanese correctly (as it's invariant, unlike English). Plus, you'll understand the tones of spoken Japanese easier.

Some of my coworkers are studying Japanese with a romanized textbook, which to me is just a big fat waste of time. Spend the few days to learn the kana, and go from there. You'll be able to read at least, and as Aussie2B points out in games (and in real life in Japan) huge percentages of words are actually foreign words, which are written in katakana (though not all words written in katakana are foreign, it's frequently used for effect, or as a kanji transliteration).

Personally, I think it's worth the time for self-study in Japanese if you intend on playing much Japanese games. Even a little bit of understanding goes a long way to adding enjoyment, IMO. After living here for a while I can read/speak Japanese at a decent level and I still don't enjoy playing RPGs in Japanese. So for me, better understanding of the language will help me to enjoy alot of games more... But YMMV.

[Breetai]

Hey i know alot of you here both collect and play imports from japan. So my question to you is how/where did you learn japanese, how difficult is it to learn. If any of you have good resources (ie books tapes classes) you could recommend it would be appreciated. Also i'm not too knowledgeable on the subject, is japanese broken down into several dialects, are there different character sets for different regions in japan, is each symbol representative of a letter or a word?I've been studying Japanese for about three years, and have lived in Japan for the same amount of time. I speak Japanese at home sometimes with my wife and I have to with my in-laws, since they don't speak English.

That being said, I consider myself barely conversational. It's not too difficult to become functional in the (or any) language, but to be good enough to get through most modern RPGs as you would an English RPG would take a lot of effort.

In general, just learn katakana, probably hiragana, and some basic kanji, as has already been said in this thread, use a faq to supplement your RPGs, and you'll be fine.

You can get katakana, hiragana and a few dozen kanji down in a month or two with good study.

[Mimi Nakamura]

I'm 100% bi-blingual (Japanese/English) and I would say that Japanese is a very difficult language for English speakers to master, simply because of the structure and the difference in the use of vocabulary.

People fluent in Spanish will find Japanese easier to learn because the pronunciation is of Spanish and Japanese is very similar.

Forget about learning Kanji though, most of us Japanese can't read Kanji either!

[Lord Contaminous]

Also another neat thing about Japanese, because there's only one phonetic style, you can get THE accurate pronunciation of words that an English speaker would get stumped on trying to pronounce

For instance in my case, before I learn to read katkana, I used to bang my head over how the name "Xevious" pronounced...

heh, it also reminds me of "Karateka", but once you're exposed to Japanese it makes all the difference.

English would say " Karra-tay-kuh", when it's really "Ka Lah Teh Kah" (I put the L in cause of the tongue control when saying a Japanese R)

[Ed Oscuro]

People fluent in Spanish will find Japanese easier to learn because the pronunciation is of Spanish and Japanese is very similar.
And they'll also know that there are languages that have sane verb conjugation patterns (something I would not say English does, really).

Who was it who said, some years ago here on DP, that Japanese pronunciation is the same as Italian? Could be mistaken, but I think that was here. I find myself using that rule now and then though!

Japanese doesn't seem all that hard to me, this far out (but I haven't gotten into the informal stuff, and also some of the apparently grammatically nonsensical colloquial greetings and whatnot; it's mainly a matter of just learning everything - there's quite a bit to figure out. I've been taking a lot of courses focused on Japanese culture and history concurrently with my language studies, so some of the "mysteries" don't bother me much.

Kanji turn out to be pretty nice because you can read them quickly with practice - much more so than trying to sound out hiragana.

[DonMarco]

Some of my coworkers are studying Japanese with a romanized textbook, which to me is just a big fat waste of time. Spend the few days to learn the kana, and go from there.
After I got back from Japan I fell in to tutoring a few college kids on Japanese. What I found out is that learning (more so than actual reading) the kana is a huge waste of time for beginners. When they are starting out, there's always the chance that 3- or 6-months down the road they will have lost all interest. So why waste time with little squiggly lines which will be the first thing they'll forget anyway? Load them up with the basics (time, numbers, places) and some grammar and IF they last more than a few months and really learn the language then bring in the kana.

But! In a total immersion, where everything you eat and read and buy has hiragana and katakana, the opposite is true. Learning to read them pays off immediately and you'll never accidentally buy salt when you are looking for sugar.

However! If you/they learn kana early on, by all means force them to practice it. Read a manga, play a pokemon game, write all their study notes in kana...

[s1lence]

All I figured I need to know for most of the games is what is "Save" "Yes" "No" and what represents what is what in a menu. I've determined with most of the games, MINUS Rpgs, you don't need to know or understand any of the language to actually play and enjoy the game.

[ubersaurus]

And jisho.org is there for any oddball menu translations that happen to be in kana :P It's how I got through Famicom Maniac Mansion like a year back!

[super nes]

well if anyone's interested in leaning kanji i use http://kanji.koohii.com/ great site. as for katakana and hiragana i printed this (http://henagaijin.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/hiragana_katakana_list.gif) and just study off it and in about a week i had memorized it

[SaturnT]

I know a lot of people have said it, but learn katakana and you'll be in pretty good shape. I studied abroad in Japan for a while and learned Japanese that way, but many of the games I've bought use a great deal of katakana. If you can learn all of the symbols you'll be dealing with a lot of English words.

[slapdash]

Here's a post from Usenet full of URLs about Japanese in games; I figured I'd repost here since he didn't specify x-no-archive...

Newsgroups: sci.lang.japan
Subject: Nintendo DS Lite and its games for Japanese language learning
From: Juhapekka Tolvanen <SNAFU.juhtolv.POW@MIA.iki.RIP.fi.FUBAR.example.com .invalid>
Message-ID: <87aba64zbp.fsf@juhtolv.dyndns.org>
Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:59:38 +0200
Xref: number1.nntp.dca.giganews.com sci.lang.japan:211010

I have been considering buying handheld console called Nintendo DS Lite
for learning Japanese language. Because of that I have stumbled accross
many more or less interesting Japanese learning games during my endless
journeys in fastests superhigways, narrowest foothpaths and darkest
alleys of information.

I have collected these notes for my personal use, but I think others may
find these notes useful, too. Doozo!

Nintendo DS Lite and its games for Japanese language learning

Author:
Juhapekka “naula” Tolvanen
ユハペッカ・「ナウラ」・トルワネン
http://iki.fi/juhtolv
juhtolv (at) iki (dot) fi

Version: 2008-01-04

This text is public domain. There is no warranty.


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Maybe the best:

正しい漢字かきとりくん「今度は漢検対策だよ!」

Tadashi Kanji Kakitorikun
Kageyama Method - Dennou Hanpuku: Tadashii Kanji Kaki to Rikun
Perfect Kanji ~ Kakitori Kun vol. 1

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/software/a8kj/index.html

http://www.gamespot.com/ds/puzzle/kageyamamethod/index.html

http://naruhodojapan.blogspot.com/2007/04/new-kanji-game-for-beginners.html
http://naruhodojapan.blogspot.com/2007/05/japanese-learners-perspective-review-by.html
http://www.jlist.com/PRODUCT/DS0405
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=1544
http://www.nihongojouzu.com/2007/04/nintendo_ds_kan.html


Kondo wa Kanken Taisaku
Perfect Kanji ~ Kakitori Kun 2
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/software/yk8j/index.html
http://www.gamespot.com/ds/puzzle/kageyamamethodtadashiikanji/index.html
http://www.jlist.com/PRODUCT/DS0429


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漢検DS2+常用漢字辞典

http://www.kankends.jp/
http://www.rocketcompany.co.jp/kanken2/

Kanken DS
http://naruhodojapan.blogspot.com/2007/04/kanken-ds.html

Kanken DS 2
http://naruhodojapan.blogspot.com/2007/10/kanken-ds-2-review.html

************************************************** **************************

Said to be weird:

250まんにんのかんけんしんとことんかんじのうIE-institute
DS: 250 Mannin no Kanken

http://www.iek.jp/

http://www.thejapanshop.com/product.php?productid=17069


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Other:


漢字そのままDS楽引辞典
Kanji Sono Mama DS Rakubiki Jiten
(Dictionary)

http://www.thejapanshop.com/product.php?productid=17035&cat=333&page=1

http://www.jlist.com/PRODUCT/DS3516

http://www.gamespot.com/ds/puzzle/kanjisonomamarakubikijiten/index.html

http://ds.ign.com/objects/740/740439.html

http://www.nihongoperapera.com/japanese-english-dictionary-software.php
http://www.nihongoperapera.com/nintendo-ds-japanese-dictionary-guide.html
http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/ds/file/932301/48385

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DS Bimoji Training

Beautiful Kanji Training
(Comes with “brush”)

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/avmj/
http://www.jlist.com/PRODUCT/DS6449


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Gakken DS Otona No Gakushu Kindaichi Sensei No Nihongo Resson

http://ds-nihongo.gakken.co.jp/

http://www.gamespot.com/ds/puzzle/gakkends/index.html

http://www.gamespot.com/ds/puzzle/gakkends/index.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssimilargames&tag=similargames;title;1

http://naruhodojapan.blogspot.com/2007/05/gakken-ds-otona-no-gakushu-kindaichi.html

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大人の漢字練習
Otona no Kanji Renshu
Kanji Training for Adults

http://www.amazon.co.jp/ナウプロダクション-13306371-なぞっておぼえる-大人の漢字練習-完全版/dp/B000VT56MW?ie=UTF8&s=gateway&qid=1202551534&sr=8-12

*********************************

Otona no Joushikiryoku Training DS
Kanshuu Nippon Joushikiryoku Kentei Kyoukai: Imasara Hito ni wa Kikenai Otona
no Joushikiryoku Training DS

http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/ds/data/934040.html

*********************************

Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshu

http://www.nowpro.co.jp/products/game/kanji/index.html
http://www.nowpro.co.jp/products/game/kanzen/

http://www.gamespot.com/ds/puzzle/nazotteoberuotonanokanjirenshuu/index.html

http://naruhodojapan.blogspot.com/2007/05/nazotte-oboeru-otona-no-kanji-renshu.html

*********************************

AIUEO Study with Anpanman
(Kana chars only)

http://www.jlist.com/PRODUCT/DS0031

*********************************

Dora Gana ~ Doraemon Hiragana Study for Nintendo DS
(hiraganas only)

http://www.jbox.com/PRODUCT/DS0594

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シカクイアタマをマルクする
DS漢字の章
Kanji no Shou
Nintendo DS game for learning kanji

http://www.thejapanshop.com/product.php?productid=17076&cat=333&page=1

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脳を鍛える大人のDSトレーニング
nou o kitaeru otona no DS tore-ningu

http://www.thejapanshop.com/product.php?productid=17039&cat=333&page=1

*********************************

Perfect Kanji Power

http://www.jlist.com/PRODUCT/DS7757

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問題な日本語
Mondai na Nihongo

http://www.hudson.co.jp/monnichi/
http://naruhodojapan.blogspot.com/2007/09/mondai-na-nihongo-review.html

*********************************

Tsugawa Method DS

http://www.ertain.com/ja/
http://tsugawa_ds.ertain.com/

http://naruhodojapan.blogspot.com/2007/07/tsugawa-method-ds-review.html

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Obunsha Deru-jun Kokugo DS

http://naruhodojapan.blogspot.com/2007/06/obunsha-deru-jun-kokugo-ds-review.html

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Kanji no Wataridori

http://www.success-corp.co.jp/software/ds/kanji/index.html

http://www.gamespot.com/ds/puzzle/kanjinowataridori/index.html

http://naruhodojapan.blogspot.com/2007/04/kanji-no-wataridori.html

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Kanpeki Kanjiryoku

http://www.min-semi.com/

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美しい日本語の書き方・話し方DS
Utsukushii Nihongo no Kakikata - Hanashikata DS

http://www.amazon.co.jp/アイイーインスティテュート-13306371-美しい日本語の書き方・話し方DS-特典-さらすら感覚特製12cmタッチペン付き/dp/B000O9ZHVE?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1178466652&sr=8-1

http://www.gamespot.com/ds/puzzle/kakikatahanashikatads/index.html

http://naruhodojapan.blogspot.com/2007/05/two-more-nintendo-ds-titles-on-way.html

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旺文社 でる順 国語DS
Obunsha Derujun Kokugo DS

http://www.amazon.co.jp/旺文社-でる順-国語DS-特典-さらすら感覚特製12cmタッチペン付き/dp/B000O9ZHZU?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1178466707&sr=8-3

http://naruhodojapan.blogspot.com/2007/05/two-more-nintendo-ds-titles-on-way.html

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読めそうで読めない漢字ＤＳ
yomesoude yomenai kanji

http://moura.jp/lifeculture/kanji2000/index-top.html

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Nihongo Kentei DS

http://www.gamespot.com/ds/puzzle/nihongokenteids/index.html

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My Japanese Coach

http://www.gamespot.com/ds/puzzle/myjapanesecoach/index.html

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Yomesou de Yomenai Kanji DS

http://www.gamespot.com/ds/puzzle/yomesoudeyomenaikanjids/index.html

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Nandoku Kanji DS

http://www.gamespot.com/ds/puzzle/nandokukanjids/index.html

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Let's Play in Japanese ~ Nihongo de Asobo

http://www.jbox.com/PRODUCT/DS1565

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100 Great Works of Japanese Literature

http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/catalog/100-Great-Works-of-Japanese-Literature-p-16531.html

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Buying places and their sub-pages:

http://www.thejapanshop.com/
http://www.thejapanshop.com/home.php?cat=333

http://www.jlist.com/
http://www.jlist.com/SEARCH/nintendo_ds/1/

http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/
http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/catalog/Gamesofts-orderby0-p-1-c-252.html

http://www.amazon.co.jp/

http://www.tenso.com/

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Lists:

http://www.nihongoperapera.com/nintendo-ds.html

http://naruhodojapan.blogspot.com/search/label/nintendo%20ds


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Some other games for Nintendo DS Lite:

(OR: Something to play after learning enough Japanese for that day)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Invaders
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Invaders_Extreme
http://www.retrothing.com/2008/07/30-years-of-spa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_DS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetHack
http://stuartp.commixus.com/nhds/
http://frodo.dyn.gno.org/~brettk/NetHackDS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_(video_game)
http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/DsDoom
http://www.dsdoom.com/


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Competitors outside the realm of Nintendo DS Lite:


Canon Wordtank C50 (Super low-price!)

http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/catalog/Canon-Wordtank-C50-Super-low-price-p-16147.html

Pros:

- Many many dictionaries
- Cheaper than Nintendo DS Lite and its dictionary (Kanji Sono Mama DS
Rakubiki Jiten) combined.

Cons:

- It has nothing else but dictionaries. There is no language learning
games or other edutainment software and you can not install that kind of
software to it.
- You can not play any games after you have learned enough Japanese for that
day.

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Talkman: Talking Global with PSP (two versions: Asia and Euro!)

http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/catalog/TalkmanTalking-Global-with-PSP-two-versions-Asia-and-Euro-p-16156.html

Pros:

- If you already have Sony PSP, this may be good alternative

Cons:

- Sony PSP is generally more expensive than Nintendo DS Lite
- That Talkman… is the only Japanese language learning game for PSP I
have found, yet.

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Yet another idea: subnotebook ot netbook

1) Buy some cheap subnotebook or netbook with GNU/Linux (for example
ASUS Eee PC or OLPC)
2) Port some software that runs on GNU/Linux of desktop-computers for that
subnotebook or netbook (for example mnemosyne, Anki and GJiten)
3) Enjoy!

Pros:

- You can use that notebook for many other tasks in addition to learning
Japanese language.
- Real keyboard.
- Very inexpensive software: Free software (AKA open-source software) is
free also as in “free beer”.

Cons:

- Most subnotebooks are still more expensive than Nintendo DS Lite (but after
that initial investment all software is free as in “free beer” and “free
speech”).
- Not many software-titles for Japanese language learning and there is not
many of them for children.
- Everybody can not do that software porting and packaging for subnotebooks.
There may be ready-made packages available somewhere, though.

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--
Juhapekka "naula" Tolvanen * http colon slash slash iki dot fi slash juhtolv
"ore wo mitsumeteiru anata sama wa ossharu bakari. kesshite dakiyosete wa
kurenai ooki na anata no te. ore no tanjoubi ni wa ai wo kai ataeru. kyou wa
kumori nochi ame." Dir en grey

[boogiecat]

Wow that's nice infos you've got there....\\^_^/

[Azraelscross]

as a person who imports RPGs mostly i hate not knowing the story as i go. I love a good story.

this thread has made me think the road is not as hard as i thought initially. but its still gonna be hard. But finnish*which i'm learning slowly atm* is a hard road as well

Perkele....

[Iron Draggon]

All I figured I need to know for most of the games is what is "Save" "Yes" "No" and what represents what is what in a menu. I've determined with most of the games, MINUS Rpgs, you don't need to know or understand any of the language to actually play and enjoy the game.

That's mainly what I need to know too. I own a few JRPG's & JSRPG's, which would be nice to understand, but mostly I just need to know what all the buttons in all the menus of all my import strategy games are for. However, if Koei is really that big on using obscure grown-up words in all their games, then I'm in big trouble, because I own 4 different games in the Nobunaga's Ambition series alone. Then there's all my other Japanese historical sims.

[boatofcar]

Who was it who said, some years ago here on DP, that Japanese pronunciation is the same as Italian? Could be mistaken, but I think that was here. I find myself using that rule now and then though!


I've heard all kinds of crazy theories like that. I've also heard that Korean is much more similar to Flemish than Chinese or Japanese, though I've never had any occasion to compare the two. Vocabulary-wise, though, 60% of Korean comes from Chinese, so I don't know how much truth there is to that, not to mention that that particular theory was set forth by PJ O'Rourke in a rather racist account of Koreans in his "Holidays in Hell" book.

[optic_85]

Hey, there's this little RPG game starring Knuckles that somebody made to help you learn Jap. I haven't really played it, but it seems to run fine. If anyone's interested you can find it at the link below. Anybody know of anything else like this?

http://www.mininova.org/tor/377872

[layzee]

漢字そのままDS楽引辞典
Kanji Sono Mama DS Rakubiki Jiten
(Dictionary)


Does there exist any newer and better Japanese dictionaries for the Nintendo DS?

[optic_85]

So, I just got a blackberry storm. Does anybody know of any language learning apps for that?

[NayusDante]

I've long wanted to learn the language, but I just don't have the drive to go the "book study" route.

Suppose I wanted to jump in with an RPG. What's something relatively easy to read that's also not too difficult to play? Basically, I need something where the story is the focus, with lots of (simple) dialog, but minimal grinding and difficulty curve. My logic is to pick up on the vocabulary and writing as much as I can, then gradually move up to more complex games.

It probably doesn't help that my main draw to JRPGs is story. Still, I've always seen it as an obtainable goal if I start from low enough.

[slapdash]

@layzee: No clue; I posted that list exactly as I got it and haven't seen any updates since.

[Zing]

I picked up the Rosetta Stone Japanese about a month ago and I am halfway through level 1. It's by far the best method I have seen to learn a language. It is more conversational than written, however it does have sections on writing/reading. The interesting part is there is ZERO english. NO translations. You learn by hearing, reading, and seeing pictures.

[Red Earth]

i pick up a lot of import games, i've played through several over the years and never found it too difficult. i did take basic japanese in high school some years ago and mostly what i remember is katakana/hiragana and how to pronounce them. i find knowing katakana is pretty good help overall.

after enough time with a game, you start to understand what's going on without being able to read much. no reason to be afraid, just start picking options, pressing buttons and experiment in-game :)

[The 1 2 P]

Theres a book called "How To Play Japanese Imports Without Knowing A Word Of Japanese" that came out right around the time that the PS2 launched in Japan. I picked it up on ebay a few years after that because it's long out of print. Anyway, it's a very inciteful book on playing import games at a very basic level. It also has the entire katakana alphabet in it and that helped me alot.

I couldn't find anything on google except a place that rents/sells it but they didn't have a picture. I'll take one and will post it later.

[bombman]

If you're going to do this, I recommend not buying a dictionary... I use JWPCE for unknown words, if I can't find it there I use the Daijirin. Also go to Kodansha International's website and buy all the reference books you can. Also a book on Kansai dialect.

I'll just say this...

After about 5 years of on and off study, picking apart manuals and action games and anime with my dictionary, and playing games in Japanese almost exclusively, I moved on to a couple RPG's, and finally I was able to play a Koei simulation with about 30% dependence on a dictionary. And I have a really good memory. Take that for what you will.

[smork]

Also a book on Kansai dialect.

Hmm? Kansai-ben is fun and great to use for a laugh when you live in Japan, but for the life of me I can't figure out how that helps anyone play imports. If there's any Kansai-ben in a game it's going to be so minimal as to cause no confusion.

[bombman]

I've played quite a few rpgs and digital novels where one or more characters speak chiefly in kansai. trust me, it helps.