Top Five... Games for Learning Japanese
Disclaimer: The title of this article is a bit misleading so a disclaimer is necessary. Firstly, you will not learn Japanese through playing games alone but they can be a great tool when used to supplement regular study and also great fun to boot. If you really want to learn Japanese to any significant usable level then you need to study some textbooks (Genki textbook* is a good place to start), go to a class and/or visit Japan for a significant period of time. A more appropriate albeit less catchy title would have been “The Top Five… Games to Supplement the Gruelling Years of Japanese Study Required to Play Most Story Heavy Games… with difficulty… whilst referring to a dictionary regularly”, but perhaps that’s a little harsh. Even something quite basic, accomplishable in a weekend, such as memorising Katakana* (Japanese letters used to write foreign loan words usually English) will enhance your experience with Japanese games. With that said, let’s get started!
5. Arcade Style Games
This includes any game that isn’t reliant on story or excess text to be playable; Fighters, Puzzlers, Racers, Platformers etc. You can jump right into these games without knowing a single Japanese word or character and still have a blast. Where you can often run into difficulty however, are in the menus. Despite being Japanese region, many games have their menus and option screens written in English, but there are just as many where this is not the case. Knowing Katakana* will go about 70% of the way to making them understandable and can be memorized in a weekend or two. During or after they’ve been memorized, decoding the menus and options is a great way to improve your Katakana* reading ability.
4. Final Fantasy X (or any game that you’ve already completed in your native language)
Playing a game that you’ve already played in English and know relatively well is a great compromise before jumping straight into an unknown Japanese game.
Playing games in Japanese may be your end goal, but it’s no fun sitting there looking up words and kanji every five seconds while struggling to understand the meaning of each and every sentence. Trying to play a game too far beyond one’s level is an exercise in frustration and in my experience at least usually leads to giving up within an hour or two.
With a game you already know well in English, you can easily pick up the odd word here and there at your own leisure. The odd recognisable word should jog your memory about the current events in the story. Sure, there’ll be the odd moment of difficulty, but this is when a dictionary can be referred to. The key point though, is that you already know the story and depending on your mood and patience, at any moment can choose to either study or just press on without fully understanding everything in detail.
Any story based game could have been chosen, but Final Fantasy X is a good choice for many reasons. For one, it has not only text to help your reading but also voiceover throughout most of the game for your listening ability. Having Japanese subtitles as well as voiceover is the best way to learn in my opinion; if you miss something in the speech, you can check the text or vice versa. Aside from the relgious and political themes, it also has a fairly simplistic story and not so many instances of difficult kanji. Then there’s the turn based battles which allow you to play at your own pace, stopping to translate words without any penalty. Finally, despite what some say, it’s a great game with decent enough story and characters. Even the voice acting, while still cheesy, isn’t half as cringe worthy as the version we got in the west.
3. Zelda: The Phantom Hour Glass (and many other Nintendo Games)
As a gamer with a somewhat limited knowledge of kanji, it can often be extremely tedious, you can find yourself spending more time with your head in a kanji dictionary than playing the actual game. This is where I take off my hat to Nintendo for their approach at designing games to be playable for the entire family.
Almost all Nintendo games have been designed with children in mind (especially that dodgy looking Tingle character); the dialogue is simplistic and there are plenty of non-linguistic clues as to where your next objective or goal can be found. What’s more, pretty much every Nintendo game is either written completely in hiragana*/katakana* or has furigana* (hiragana* below the kanji* for the reading). However, there are some games that employ an even better method.
Zelda: The Phantom Hour Glass has it’s entire story written in regular Japanese (albeit in the usual easy to read Nintendo style) with hiragana*, katakana* and kanji* used appropriately. Now here’s the feature that distinguishes it from the rest of the pack, one that I wish ALL Japanese games would use; clicking on any kanji* will cause the word to flip round into hiragana*, showing the reading and saving you the time wasted on looking up said kanji*. Of course, it won’t translate the word into English for you, but it cuts out one step allowing the user to play through the game more fluidly. Its sequel, Spirit Tracks, has the same feature and I recommend them both in equal measure.
Do you know any other games to use this feature? Golden Sun has it and I have a feeling Okami on the DS did? Can anyone confirm this?
Shenmue III, Shenmue III…Shenmue III, Shenmue III. We’re getting Shenmue 3 people! Ahem…now that’s out the way, we can begin. With the recent Shenmue III hype and arrival of the game in the next few years, there’s never been a better time to play Yu Suzuki’s masterpiece…but how about trying something different and challenging yourself a bit by playing through the original Japanese versions instead?
Shenmue is the perfect game for learners of the Japanese language. It heavily focuses on everyday life and so the vocabulary isn’t at all obscure and more often than not has every day uses that are essential to know for life in the land of the rising sun. Greetings, shop transactions, making requests, honorifics*, casual speech*, these are just some of the topics you’ll have more than enough opportunities to see (and hear) during your play through.
“But I bet it has a lot of difficult to read kanji in it”, well yes, it does to an extent, but lurking in the options menu is an option called kids mode. This changes all of the more difficult ones into hiragana*, so that children (or in this case, ignorant Jack foreigner) can more easily understand the text. It’s invaluable when it comes to deciphering Ryo’s notebook to find out where or what to do next.
It even has this bloke named Tom and a host of other foreigners that give a fantastic example of how NOT to speak Japanese if you DON’T want everyone around you to think you’re a complete twat. You thought the way Tom spoke in the western version was bad and perhaps borderline racist? Well, you’ve heard nothing yet. In fact every single foreigner (with the exception of a couple Chinese characters) speaks like some kind of retarded sub human. Anyway, racism in Shenmue is a topic for another day…
…and that opening in Japanese, sends chills down my spine every time「来い！最後は武術家らしく死なせてやる」. Just go and play right now for Pete’s sake.
There are four aspects of learning any language; reading, writing, listening and speaking. We’ve covered two of those four multiple times already but what about speaking and writing? Well, for writing I recommend you use specialised DS games designed for Japanese children to teach the Jouyou Kanji* (everyday use kanji) and pass the various kanji kentei* tests such as the Kanken series on DS…
For speaking… there’s Seaman. Does sitting in front of television for hours at a time for days on end trying to get a creepy looking fish to understand your piss poor gaijin* accent sound like your idea of fun? Japanese people patronising your pathetic attempt at speaking their “too complex for foreign idiots” language doesn’t satisfy you like it used to? Well then, this my friend is the game you’ve been looking for! Like many others who struggled to get Seaman to understand our accents while playing the western version, after a period of time, I just no longer found it challenging (frustrating) or long (boringly tedious) enough anymore. If you can relate to that feeling then, boy is this the game for you. Spend hours repeating the same simple phrases over and over until you’re lucky enough to be understood by a rude patronising fish who will regularly insult you and make no effort whatsoever to understand your foreign accent. He’ll often just give up completely and ignore your attempts at interaction. Trying to get over that language plateau? Play this and you’ll be put off for life and never have to!
*In case you lack a sense of humour, this entry was a joke. Go play Professor Layton or Ni no Kuni instead.*
So what games have helped you to learn Japanese? Please post your comments below or preferably on the R84 Facebook group.
Katakana: A set of Japanese characters used for foreign words imported from other languages.
Kanji: Characters imported from China that represent not only sounds but also meanings.
Hiragana: A set of characters used mostly for grammar and words for which you the kanji is not known or one doesn’t exist. Hiragana are also often written in replace of kanji for products designed for children.
A kanji’s reading refers to its pronunciation, not meaning. Most kanji have multiple reading
Hiragana (see above) is written below kanji to show the reading.
A shorthand word for foreigner which often has rude connotations.
Kanji Kentei: A test designed to gauge people’s ability to read and write kanji.
The 1945 Japanese characters that are required to accomplish everyday tasks such as reading a newspaper. Children are expected to learn all of these by the time they finish school.
An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese is the name of a set of two textbooks that I strongly recommend to anyone beginning their Japanese language Journey.
Verb conjugations and other language used when speaking to someone deemd above the speaker in certain situations.
Verb conjugations and other language used when speaking to someone in non formal situations.
Super Mario Galaxy Professor
Panzer Dragoon Azel (Saga in west)
Dating games such as Real Love Plus
