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.

[FoxNtd]

Ha, funny thread with funny replies so far. I've been doing this for a few years now. I'm doing ok too I guess. Games are not the source of inspiration, they're just another reason it's valuable to have the knowledge. (It's also my fourth language, I still have room up there to cram more words in yet another language...) I will tell you this: once you have some foundation, playing things like RPGs help you because of the exposure, the reading practice, and if you have a dictionary on hand you can start picking up new words.. It's funny to me sometimes because I can remember a word not just from the past but also how I learned it. For example I can look at 熟練度 and remember learning it because of Final Fantasy 2.

My language skill only improves so I'm basically fearless when I buy a new title. I don't care how much text there is, I can handle my way through.

[Gapporin]

I took two years of Japanese in college, but I'll be damned if I remember any of it now. I still have the katakana and hiragana tables memorized, however. I probably could take a decent stab at some basic sentence structure as well.

[xelement5x]

I took 3 semesters of Japanese in college and lived there for a bit in 2005 (great conversion rate, wooo!). But haven't really used it much since then. I can still read relatively basic stuff and recognize some kanji, but I'd definitely need a refresher if I wanted to play an RPG. Audio wise I can understand a fair amount of stuff since I still watch anime, but my wife is much better at it since she has better hearing than me and also watches a lot of Japanese Dramas still.

I've got a fair amount of import games though, so my hope is to get some time eventually to polish up my comprehension using the old games.

[Ludwig]

(It's also my fourth language)

And which are those? (just curious)

[FoxNtd]

And which are those? (just curious)

Russian and French.

[Ludwig]

I thought about Russian once, i would love to travel through Siberia, but in the end i didn't see enough practical applications in my life. I speak a bit of Swedish and German.

[slapdash]

I'm with Gapporin -- studied a bit in college (never quite to fluency), but don't remember much now. The way I see it, the last thing I'll be able to say is "Boku no Nihongo wa, jouzu ja nai", or "Nihongo ga dekimasen".

[FoxNtd]

I'm with Gapporin -- studied a bit in college (never quite to fluency), but don't remember much now. The way I see it, the last thing I'll be able to say is "Boku no Nihongo wa, jouzu ja nai", or "Nihongo ga dekimasen".

I laughed reading those sentences. (Particularly 上手じゃない hahaha.) I'm honestly confused how you can study actively for a notable amount and forget almost everything. I haven't studied French for over 8 years and I can still read and write almost as much as I remember knowing about it. Sure I remember some more advanced grammatical lessons but have forgotten their rules since then but overall, it's certainly far from lost. As for Japanese, kanji are a curious thing. Besides how amazing they are, the nature of their function and all, I swear some of them are permanently memorized. For example I don't think I can look at 水 and not know that it is water and how to say it as well. I cannot forget it. I have never forgotten it. There are many words I just know.

Of course I haven't abstained from exposure to the language for a long period of time to see what I forget... I don't want to either.

言語を毎日使ったら忘れられないと思う

[StealthLurker]

Ha, funny thread with funny replies so far. I've been doing this for a few years now. I'm doing ok too I guess. Games are not the source of inspiration, they're just another reason it's valuable to have the knowledge. (It's also my fourth language, I still have room up there to cram more words in yet another language...) I will tell you this: once you have some foundation, playing things like RPGs help you because of the exposure, the reading practice, and if you have a dictionary on hand you can start picking up new words.. It's funny to me sometimes because I can remember a word not just from the past but also how I learned it. For example I can look at 熟練度 and remember learning it because of Final Fantasy 2.

My language skill only improves so I'm basically fearless when I buy a new title. I don't care how much text there is, I can handle my way through.

It's funny you mention this, I'm fluent in 3 languages however Japanese is NOT one of them.

I took 1 year of japanese in order to fulfill a requirement but that was almost 15 years ago. So when it comes time to actually speak japanese, in my mind sometimes sentences get jumbled up with words from 3-4 different languages lol. Listening and understanding is easier though. In actuality I'm really surprised how much I remember. I can hold a decent conversation with my japanese neighbor. We also watch dramas together from time to time and I'm surprised by how much I can understand. She'd turn to me to translate and before she even speaks I tell her what just happened and what they said.... she'd look at me in astonishment and say I thought you weren't fluent in japanese, lol. However I still need help from her with certain colloquialisms, especially very, very modern ones.

I guess it's a testament to the class and teacher I studied japanese under. She was the author of a japanese textbook that was used in Universities all across the United States at the time. After completing that class, I felt that I could basically say anything in japanese. It may not be the normal, everyday way of speaking but it would have been technically correct. She really made sure we got a strong foundation in the grammar and she really drove us to gain a significantly large vocabulary in comparison to other japanese classes. I remember comparing notes and progress with other first year students in several other schools at a comparative academic level and I was amazed at how little grammar, vocabulary and kanji they had to deal with on a weekly basis.

Now in terms of kanji forget about it. I can still recall the overall meaning of some characters but stroke order and combinations has all gone to crap. It reminds me of western tattoo guys... yeah by itself that character means that, but if you put those two kanjis together it doesn't mean anything! I remember giggling behind some tattoo guys with my mandarin/cantonese friends about some ridiculous tattoos. However I can still do the simple hiragana and katakana forwards and backwards.

In terms of games I actually have very little desire to use it to play things such as RPGs. Growing up, I had a lot of japanese friends either recently from japan or second generation going to japanese school everyday/once a week. I wanted to learn to be able to understand when they spoke with their parents lol. I also grew up watching a lot of live action japanese tv shows/movies... understanding those was probably my biggest motivation. Gaming is kinda just icing on the cake. For gaming, I use what japanese I know to aid me in searching for stuff I want to collect.

.

[FoxNtd]

StealthLurker that sounds amazing. I'm probably on my 3rd year of self-study, and watching a TV show and trying to understand dialogue is only starting to open up to me. I am going to need many more hours of exposure as well as acquisition of new vocabulary before I make marvelous improvement in this department. "Icing on the cake" regarding Japanese games, I would agree with this. The language should be used as if it is the natural one, and anywhere language has a presence, you should be able to interact with it in Japanese. That is my intention; I would like for it to be second-nature as my hearing skills are for Russian.

[Genesaturn]

Everyone holds information differently...I took spanish from 6th grade until 12th , thats 6 years and I had straight A's. The problem is I don't have ANY hispanic friends or friends that speak spanish...so after going 12 years without using an ounce of spanish..I only remember a handful. I've been using rosetta stone to learn Japanese with my gf, and my best friends takes it in college. I'm doing ok..but even if I go months on end without speaking or writing it..I still remember..mostly because I watch quite a bit of subtitled anime and Japanese live action films.

[Shulamana]

It's one of my pipe dreams to be able to play Super Famicom games in the original language and understand the text, but I don't have nearly enough drive to do so. I probably have the memory to get a good grasp but none of the determination.

[The 1 2 P]

Outside of a few words and giberish sentences I don't speak very much Japanese. But the Katakana alphabet has come in handy for many import gaming sessions.

[SEGA_Queen]

Outside of a few words and giberish sentences I don't speak very much Japanese. But the Katakana alphabet has come in handy for many import gaming sessions.

This is exactly where I stand as far as my Japanese language skills are concerned. I just don't have the time to study Japanese extensively.