Do YOU speak Japanese?

[Genesaturn]

Hey guys, I've imported my fair share of games. Most of them are fighting games, or ones I don't need to read much of to understand...I do own a few RPG's I wish I could read. So my question...

Do any of you speak Japanese? and did you do it so you can understand imported games?

I recently received a copy of Japanese Rosetta Stone, in order to learn...my reason...to play awesome Japanese games we can't get here :P

[Guyra]

I wish I did understand and could read Japanese. Both for games and a lot of other stuff. Online shopping, manga, music, etc. But it's not easy learning on your own.

[NE146]

I've been visiting and shopping in Japan multiple dozens of times since the 70's. However I do not know a lick of japanese except for maybe "onara" (fart).

My older sister and grandparents however, are fluent.

[Sunnyvale]

I speak a little. Not much. I can't read it for shit anymore, except Katana. For some reason, my Gaijin brain can remember the Gaijin writing.

Edit: Erm... Katakana

[SpaceFlea]

I also speak very little. Rosetta Stone is AMAZING!!! I went through the first couple units of Japanese level 1. And after 1.5 years of not working with it (I plan to get back to it soon - hopefully) I still remember practically on the spot what it taught me, at least for the earlier stuff in it, the latter stuff not so much. Though I can only make some basic statements and queries like "I have a green bicycle", "the boy and girl are drinking milk", "is there a dog under the table" and stuff like that.

Reading it... now that's a whole other can o' beans.

[Ludwig]

In the middle of learning it, it really helps to have japanese friends.
Against the general consensus, reading doesn't appear to be that difficult after all, i'm starting to get my stuff together, but it takes time and practice, but i expect that everyone is aware of that.

I started because the english speaking folks keept ruining translations of books, games and motion pictures of all sorts. I couldn't care less about what you people do, but the issue i was facing was: The germans often just used the faulty english translation to translate it into german which sucks big time. I have no choice but to learn japanese if i want a version that makes sense.

[Breetai]

Speak? Yeah, sure, I coulc get by just fine last time I checked.
Listen? Yeah, but speaking is easier.
Read? Eh, not really. Just stuff you'd use in daily life. I'm too lazy to actually study, so I don't know too much kanji.

I don't know anything about any study programs. I never studied it. I just lived there for a bunch of years and got used to it. My Japanese is pretty crude I think.

haha pretty funny that no one speaks japanese on the import games forum.

fluent btw.

Pretty funny how you aren't fluent enough in reading web-forums to have bothered actually reading the posts in the two pages of this thread. Not to mention that a lot of people here who know Japanese of various levels won't even bother to post in this thread.

Burn!

[Aussie2B]

It's not like it matters anyway. It's not like there's some import gaming police who requires people to learn Japanese before they're allowed to enjoy games released in Japan. There are also plenty of gamers who stick only with import games that are more action-based and have very little text in them, so it's no surprise to me that a lot of people in this forum enjoy imports without knowing Japanese.

Also, I think it helps to realize that as English speakers and/or Japanese speakers, we're in a fortunate and unusual position. Those are the dominant languages for games, so it's easy to take for granted having most games in your mother tongue. Most of the world has to either learn one of those fluently or adapt to playing games in a language that they don't understand well or at all. Like in Europe, if a game is released in multiple languages, it's usually, what, 4 or 5 languages? If you're from one of the less powerful/populated European countries, you have to get by on whatever you may have learned as a second language. It's not uncommon at all for people to play games in English even though their English is pretty weak or nonexistent, so why is it strange for people to play games in Japanese without being totally fluent?