Awesome channel, thanks for the content! Quick note, I believe game2text allows you to use gsmescripts as well which uses OCR to find the most alike result in the script. Some games you can also find the script file in your computer files on Steam
This might feel like such a backwards thing, but hearing how much of a struggle it would still be even after finishing the JLPT is such a motivating thing. I'm about half way through JLPT N3 and every time I think to myself, "I should just start using the language and play some games," There's always a nagging thought that, well I should just finish my studies instead. Going to just do it and start playing through Ni no Kuni and Triangle Strategy like I've wanted to for ages! Thanks Matt!
Had that nagging thought last year. Waiting until I was good enough to immerse with the language. Decided to just take the jump and use resources to bridge the gap in my understanding. Best of luck.
@@AceOfSpades_211 Surprisingly easier than I thought it would be. The only thing that was tough was getting used to looking words up in the dictionary. Thanks to the Takoboto app I had offline access to a dictionary. It also helped to look for things that I could handle. Didn't want to go straight to reading the Bakemonogatari light novels. Books with furigana or things I've already read, watched or played in English eased me into immersion. Started reading some tsubasa bunko novels and Detective Conan manga on Bookwalker. For games, I played Pokemon and Kingdom Hearts.
@@isiah8869 Well that's definitely good to hear! I definitely set myself up for failure trying to start the overlord light novels a few days ago but after 2 years of Anki, being able to see my progress is pretty refreshing!
playing games in japanese is just a translation class (翻訳の授業) but the object is game, in programming it's not backward but maybe backward compatibility. (last uni assignment for me was webtoon), though indeed this is already good cuz ur free time and study times are both about japanese win win i guess.
With the tier list and this guide you aren’t making it easy on my wallet mr! Lol, jokes aside these guides are really inspiring. I learned english by getting the basics through formal education and then learning the other 95% of the language through media immersion, so these videos are really motivating me (and I assume many others) to try and do that but with Japanese. Thank you!
@@GameGengo Reading through the jlpt definitions for each level I think it would be the equivalent of an N4 or advanced N5 yeah. Mostly what helped was getting some very basic vocabulary and sentence structure down from school in order to have some sort of frame of reference. Using that as a jumping off point then helped me get basically everything else from context by watching cartoons and American youtube channels obsessively several hours a day lol. Of course I don’t have the free time that I had as a pre-teen anymore, so I have to be smarter about what content I should consume to learn a language instead of brute forcing it like I did with english. That’s why I appreciate resources like yours that can point us to the most helpful games and shows.
yeah same, I'd go as far as to say I got nearly 100% of my english knowledge out of just media consumption, I never really focused in english class as most of the time they'd be teaching grammar rules that I already knew by intuition at that point. A childs brain is pretty impressive when it comes to picking up new languages, my parents spoke 2 languages so I grew up learning those, and once I got internet I learned english fairly quickly too. Now I'm trilingual with basically having put 0 effort into learning any of those languages lol
I was very bad at English, but I decided to play Danganronpa in this language. It was very difficult, I searched almost for all words, I didn’t understand grammar and some expressions. But at the end of the second game of Danganronpa series I realised that I can understand almost everything. I came up with my own system of learning that comfortable for me. I also used word cards and listened to music and some native speakers. I’m glad I didn’t gave up. I still cant speak and write correctly, but I understand a lot. I’m learning japanese now, it’s tough, but I believe that it will be easer, thanks to my previous experience
Well done dude, that's super impressive! Could you perhaps roughly explain the system you used? For Japanese I'm employing one with flashcards that's working pretty well for me right now, but I'm super intrigued to know what you did. Cheers :)
@@dottuanicuwu7842 Hello! Thank you! I’ll try to explain this to you though I think my way of learning is not impressive, I came up with it myself but I guess this is quite widespread. I switched between flashcards, watching videos with and without subs, and just reading. For me, the most important thing is to switch so that I don’t get bored or tired. I started writing every day after I realized I wasn't making much progress with flashcards and immersion anymore. I wrote down words from cards many times. I wrote the word, pronounced it in English, said the translation in my language, and pronounced it poorly with a strong accent in order to remember all the letters(I write one word for a couple of dozens times). For me flashcards are used to occasional memorization, but writing has almost always helped me remember words for the rest of my life, although it happens much more slowly. I learned at least 3 words a day and did some immersion
I was also totally overwhelmed when I switched from textbook japanese to actual ingame japanese. But what really helped me in the beginning was creating an Anki deck with specific JRPG terminology like for example "hitpoints", "stamina", "crit chance", "invincibility", "elemental resistance" and all the stuff that a textsbook doesn't teach. It really helped me to build a foundation from where I could at least understand the mechanical level of the game, even though I still miss some story pieces here and there.
So! How do YOU like to learn Japanese with video games? I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you find most helpful! And always remember there is no one 'correct' way to study, so just focus on having fun and do whatever gives you the motivation to continue your studies in an enjoyable way
A little under 4 years ago I tried to play Fate/stay night as pretty much a complete beginner. Struggled for days just to get through the prologue with a text hooker and constant dictionary look-ups, then gave up. Tried again last night, got through the prologue in one sitting, no tools, just occasionally alt-tabbing to check if I read a word correctly. Finally I can see what all the hype is with this VN.
Regarding Game2Text: You can actually skyrocket the accuracy by right clicking on the window after marking a text and setting a binary filter + color inversion (if the text is white). It will show a preview text that should be black text on white background. If you set this up properly the experience will be much smoother.
I completely understand where you’re coming from, one of my peers in my maths classes learned English through video games… it makes sense that being exposed to media would improve your comprehension of the topics over time, and the more you want to do something the quicker you will develop the patterns of thinking necessary for the language.
Imagine learning Japanese without any of these tools about 25 years ago. I bought a Japanese ps2 and played ff7 on both my American PlayStation and Japanese one at the same time, it was quite challenging looking up blurry kanji back then (but still a magical journey). Also no game scripts existed, but I still made huge progress by playing both at the same time and figuring it out xD :) It's really cool they have tools to look up kanji fast nowadays, unfortunately I can already read most kanji so I don't need those tools, but I wish they existed back then lol But I really want to emphasize that things like game scripts will help so many people, so for your first games it's going to save you a ton of time (for those just getting into it). This is an amazing video, well done! :)
I didn't use the tools and I don't necessarily think it's good to instantly have a tool tell you what a kanji means, because you become reliant on it. When I saw shit I didn't understand, I had to learn it and remember it (using Anki if needed) and that really helped keep it stuck in my brain.
I tried 20 years ago. Every time I made any progress I'd go ages without studying because I got burnt out and then forgot everything 😂 Only now, with all of the amazing resources available that I'm making any actual progress
@@richardharris9708 Yeah, it takes some suffering for growth sometimes, like Japanese kids writing kanji on genkouyoushi (that type of paper with grids) hundreds of times until their hands hurt to get muscle memory down for writing, and even despite doing that they still forget as adults if they don't write often. Takes a lot of persistence and consistency with whatever method you choose to learn 1. old school methods 2. modern with Anki , etc So I definitely agree over-relying on some tools that just give you all the answers that don't help you memorize the info can make some people too lazy to actually put in the time to memorize stuff... But it's all about how they use the tools and incorporate them into their study routine. Like how you use Anki with new words you are learning or exposed to (maybe just for certain words it seems)? Definitely takes some good habits. But on a lazier note, you could just look up the same word 1000 times without really studying it and learn it too in 1000 different context, think it's possible to learn if the volume you use or are exposed to the language is increased enough that maybe there's alternate ways that don't require Anki or the Old School Methods (sure they might help people learn something more efficiently though) And maybe if Anki existed when I started out I could've learned stuff quicker too, but I just learned from Japanese people to write stuff a lot ,and would make vocabulary notebooks or real flashcards on index-cards. Even nowadays I prefer real paper flashcards since I can digital-detox myself while I study.
@@CakeandCosplay That's so awesome that you're able to make progress now! xD I can relate to burn-out and I've gone through some similar phases before too.
Has no one really commented on your Vegeta + Anki edit?? That was fantastic. It's such a perfect depiction lol Another fantastic video. Thanks for creating such relevant and quality content!
This is one of the best Japanese learning approach that I've ever seen, thank you for your hard work that you put into those videos. They're VERY HELPFUL
I bought Ni No Kuni in July last year to learn Japanese but I found it too overwhelming at the time because I didn't know enough and was looking everything up. So I ended up taking a year long break from it. I completed WaniKani last week and now feel confident enough to start the game again so I'm really excited about that. Grammar is definitely my biggest weakness (and listening) with kanji being my biggest strength. I'm using the bunpo app for grammar and then watching your videos too. I also listen to Japanese podcasts. I'm working towards taking the N1 exam next year. Your videos are so helpful, thank you! 🙂
@@ariellev9185 Hi Arielle. I did get part way through the game but haven't had a chance to play for a while now (I have a five year old). At the moment I try to read every day. I use the Satori Reader app which has loads of stories with different difficulty levels and I also use another reading app called 絵本ひろば which is targeted towards Japanese children where you can read loads of short stories. Unfortunately I haven't progressed as much as I wanted so haven't signed up for the JLPT exam yet. How are you getting on with learning Japanese?
This is amazing. I started Japanese learning with Duolingo and now I'm looking to take it to the next level by literally gaining levels in video games.
About to complete my playthrough of Let's GO Eevee, though I focused mainly on catching Pokémon and understanding their Dex Entries. Now I just felt like playing some Sims 4 again and was actually happy to see that they've got a Japanese language option as well. I'm trying that out right now and I think it's a really cool option as well because you choose sth. for your Sim to do and then you see what their actually doing. E.g. you click on your bookcase and choose 何か読む and you'll see them take out a book and read it. And, you'll have to learn to be able to understand some of it so you can choose the right actions to take care of your sims and fulfill certain tasks. And starting a new game, creating a Sim and moving into a new apartment while everything is in Japanese does kinda feel like a virtual moving to Japan and immersing yourself in the language. Not that I know what that's like, but it feels like it would be like that a bit at least ^^;
I ended up learning up to N3 material. Did some courses in college but ended up forgetting a lot without using it. Started studying on my own with Japanese from Zero and using an app called JA Sensei. Started a blog to use my Japanese and do some translations. Didn't even think about immersing until last year. Started immersing with books, manga, video games, etc. In fact this channel inspired me to take on a project. I went through Kingdom Hearts and made a game script (before I heard about game scripts). While doing that project, I usually looked up radicals when I found a kanji I didn't know.
That's really amazing! I am a blogger too, but I'm in the recipe niche. Your blog sounds really cool. :) How many kanji do you think I'd have to know to go through Kingdom Hearts? I only know 550 kanji rn and playing Kingdom Hearts in Japanese is a goal I'm working towards
@@smudge8882 I appreciate it. That should be enough to get through Kingdom Hearts but having a good foundation of grammar and vocabulary will come a long way. The great thing about native material is that you can test how much progress you've made. Nonetheless, when I made majority of it I was barely passing N3 practice exams. Then again, there's probably a bunch of stuff that won't show on the JLPT, so you should be fine. Luckily most of it is voiced so you can read the Japanese subs while looking at the cutscenes. Oh and checking out let's plays 実況 of Kingdom Hearts would be a good idea as well.
@@isiah8869 Thank you for your insight! Grammar's a bit of a weakness of mine so I should probably work on that more before jumping in. I'm definitely not N3 level in that regard - I'm somewhere between N5 and N4. (I've not really been studying the JLPT, hence why I know a lot more kanji than grammar) Thanks for your suggestion to use Let's Plays! I'll definitely have to look into that. Also, what's your website name? UA-cam tends to auto-delete comments with links but I think it should be fine if you give the name with spaces
@@smudge8882 You can find more let's players. Some talk and some don't. I recommend セナ or ジャック・オ・蘭たん. If you want just the game with no commentary then I recommend Paradigm Shifter.
I like to record my gameplay and just play through at first trying to get the gist of everything by what I already know. Then I'll go through the recording and make a study guide with everything I didn't understand and then in my next playthrough I tend to understand a bit more thoroughly than just getting the gist. I think this is a really good way to learn with any media. When I was in college, my Spanish professor taught us the skill of "gisting", which a lot of people don't realize is something you can work on. I had a German professor in college, too, who was always so confused when I could understand a bit more than I should have just by accurately guessing.
I haven't watched the video yet but I just want to say this, and I don't say this much because I think comments like it are a little cliche, however: This guy needs more views and subs like forreal. I only found you a few days ago and I have ditched trying to read a textbook (not giving up, but just taking a break from formal learning) and have been enjoying things I like that happen to also be in Japanese, and I feel as though my Japanese has already improved significantly in only the 4-5 or so days I've taken up this new learning method. I'm able to speak to people on my language learning app more casually/conversationally, and I have a much higher vocabulary just from looking up things that I have to immediately interact with / read on the spot rather than learning 10000000 vocab words for the chance that one day I will see it. THANK. YOU.
So when I tried to start playing paper Mario a few weeks ago it was like you said-I didn’t know where any words began or ended. I did know to look for particles but the verbs especially were throwing me completely for a loop. With the game to focus my learning, though, my progress has jumped DRAMATICALLY in just a couple weeks. I did take a break from playing to look up the things I needed to know and I spent several hours a day studying sentence structure. Returning to the game I can now parse the sentences much more easily. I still have to look up almost every word but at least now I understand masu modifiers, te form, and iru/aru/oru verbs at least enough to understand how it’s impacting the sentence. It’s still painfully slow but I’ve learned so much and so much more quickly because I wasn’t just randomly accruing information through, like, Duolingo.
Love your attitude. Totally agree.. it’s a marathon not a sprint. Whatever keeps you moving forward is the right way to go. A lot of folks like to push their methodology .. which involves pushing their own stuff. This often leads to burnout and frustration.
I take two approaches. One is just a free flow immersion and the other one is active immersion looking up each word and trying to put it all together. From there I make some Anki cards for words that are common in Japanese or the game in general. The other part I think is important is the concepts of domains. I'm currently limiting myself to Slice of Life and Fantasy Adventure domains so I only immerse myself regardless of it being video games or manga or youtube. I will only see certain types of words that common to those domains. Currently playing Crayon Shin-Chan My Summer Vacation and Ni No Kuni on the Switch! Big thanks once again Matt!
I remember I had a friend who passed N1 just by playing ギャルゲー like crazy for 2 years... Never asked in detail how he did it but I'm glad I found this video... I'll test this video's method out and will report back in one month!
Hey Matt, thank you so much for all the content you have created (this one as well). I'm brazilian and my english isn't that good, so one thing that I do is called "Language Stack", because there aren't so many materials in Brazil about japanese, so we have to look in some materials in English. This helps a lot because while I'm studying japanese, I also studying english. Video games are too my passion, and all the english that I have learned was from the games, but I never thought that I could use for japanese too! Its really intimidate at the start, and your brain starts to sabotage itself, like: "Hey man, stop it, you know you don't understand.". But your videos helped me to start playing my first game entirely in japanese, using the right tools and slowly and steadily. My real goal is to finish Final Fantasy VIII in japanese understanding the whole story (I've never finished him before). That's it, thank you again and keep going!
Awesome video! Really pushed me through my learning. I learned a lot of English with videogames and now Japanese will be the next step! Thanks for the advices!😊
kinda funny segment with 2:30 when you talk about words that you will never use and seeing pokemon in the background, I'd hope you won't use Charizzard while talking to shopkeeper in japan >.
Good video! Many thanks to the author of the channel for the recommendations! The problem with many people is that they want to take a "magic pill" or get "secret knowledge" and immediately have skills and abilities. However, the truth of life is that knowledge, skills, and abilities do not come by themselves. You can't learn a foreign language without doing anything, without wasting your time and effort, just like you can't learn to ride a bike lying on a comfy couch, listening to lectures and watching videos about "modern methods of learning" on a bike. To really learn something, you have to really practice every day. You're going to fall down while you're learning, and you're going to get bumps - that's normal! The ups and downs of learning are an integral part of our lives. Motivation from success and depression from failure will always be your study companions. However, every student has problems in his or her studies that he or she lacks the knowledge to solve. It can be: poor memorization of words; no progress in language learning; the student can speak, but does not understand speech by ear; misunderstanding of grammar; incorrect pronunciation, etc. Agree that a problem you don't know how to solve is very demotivating. In order to find the answer to our question we have to spend a lot of time to read videos, articles and books by polyglots. In today's world, we have to solve problems as quickly as possible. I don't have time to study and analyze a huge amount of information. My goal is to master the basic knowledge of a foreign language as quickly as possible and already start earning money effectively in the international arena. I settled on the practical guide by Yuriy Ivantsiv " Polyglot's Notes: practical tips for learning foreign language". This book is always in my bag. If I have a problem while learning a language, I quickly find the answer in this book. There are many different techniques and tips for learning a foreign language in Polyglot Notes. I have made my own individual schedule and plan for language learning. Now I know what I am going to study, how I am going to study, when I am going to study and what results I am going to achieve. No problem could stop me! With an effective language learning plan my professional skills are more and more in demand internationally every day. Friends, don't stop there! Everyone has talents that millions of people around the world need! Learn the language and make your ideas and dreams come true! Thanks to the author of the channel for the informative and useful video! Your videos motivate me.
Saw you on the kera podcast... i've learned english, french and spanish all through video games, so I know they work as a learning tool (C2 level) But I was a bit aimeless thinking about how to approach it in connection with japanese. You're giving me a great outline and I definitely need to check out your grammar series! I'll combine Khatz's AJATT method with your outline for video game immersion. Im 23 right now and hope to be able to speak by age 28. (Slow but steady!) Needless to say, I subscribed.
I just discovered your channel and OMG you are the goat. So helpful with your guides on the channel. This channel is so underrated. Keep up the great work 👍
Playing video games in Japanese has been my dream since I was 10. I’m 26 now and have proficiency in Russian and about B1 level of German. I’m excited to delve into Japanese and be able to finally live this dream :) thank you for making this content! It really feels good to know that playing games will always be difficult no matter when I start.
ロシア語学習についてアドバイスがあれば教えてください。 When you started learning russian how you went about it ? Did you follow any particular steps in your way to proficiency? Does being proficient means that you're fluent in every aspect of the language? P.s.: Sorry for making so many questions... 申し訳ありません
@@ZharRebirth No, it’s okay! I studied it in school for many years and I also made a friend along the way who is from Ukraine, so we hung out like everyday and would speak Russian a lot. I think that’s what helped me the most, honestly. It was like having a tutor and lesson everyday. I loved it. I didn’t follow any particular steps but there were things I did that were very helpful. For one, I managed to incorporate it into my life as much as possible via music, podcasts, lessons, etc. Also, I would translate stuff a lot from Russian into English. Proficient, to me, means that I could be plopped in Russia and be absolutely fine in terms of talking to people about many topics but not super specific things. Like, I can’t have a conversation about science-related topics because I haven’t learned the vocabulary on that… but most normal conversations, sure. I am definitely not fluent in absolutely every aspect, though.
@@culturalist It’s been decent! I wouldn’t say my Japanese is amazing, but I’ve played multiple games through in Japanese by this point. Mostly simple games like LoZ: OoT, LoZ: MM, and Kingdom Hearts :) It’s been on pause for a bit because I started a master’s program in January, but I’ll be back on it soon enough heheh
Thank you so much for your hardwork and advices, as always ! I wanted to learn japanese for ryu ga Gotoku Ishin and Kenzan but it was a bit too fast for my taste. With everything you recommended and this guide I can't fail now. You're the best !
I not long ago experienced the whole ryu ga gotoku series in Japanese (I'd never played it in English before) but I wouldnt recommend it as your first game to learn Japanese with because there's a lot of vocab you may not have seen if you're newer to the language. (Not counting Yakuza specific words, which you will learn through playing them) i had already been learning Japanese for a year and a half, and had played Persona, Disgaea, ace Attorney and a few easier games in Japanese, plus all the manga I read and the anime I watched. It's really hard when to recommend playing it, or what you should start with because everyone has different tastes and interests... However I will say, no matter how hard your immersion material is, the first few months of immersion will be a LOT of banging your head against the wall not being able to understand things, but believe me, the beginner stage is the hardest part and gets way easier past that, if you can make it through that, the Japanese language is basically yours as long as you keep going long enough to get fluent! I wish you the best of luck, just try to have fun!
@@ntrg3248 Ty so much for your input ! Yeah the beginnings are always the hardest. I'm mostly trying to play games I'm very familiar with for now, so I can power through. I'm glad for you that you made it this far ! keep up the good work !
@@megudo yeah, my first few games/anime/manga were ones I already had experience in English, so I didn't have to focus on the story, and I could focus more on the language, which is good for when you're new.
I have learned one year of Japanese back in university and the class was boring, we got a 300 pages textbook from school and teacher just read slides all the time,I can not read katakana even after finished the one-year-course… now I wanna pick it up but I still disguise the textbook hahaha Thank you so much for the videos
There are so many useful tools in this video! Thank you so much for taking the time to make all of this! I'm a huge gamer and I have been trying to figure out a fun way to incorporate the two. Youre a livesaver. 😎
I mostly came to this video to figure out the name of 10ten, which I saw you using in your Chrono Trigger video. I'm trying it out as an alternative to Yomichan, and I think I like it more. Also, I think Kanshudo has edged out Jisho with the Jisho-pitcher extension for my use. I'm buckling down more and more and little tool changes make such a big difference in my motivation. There are bigger things to compliment within your videos, but I wanted to say thanks for making even the little things a bit smoother for me. ETA: I just got to the point in the Chrono Trigger video where you mention 10ten. I've been spacing out bits of that video between work, grammar practice, and reading lol.
I like the Yakuza series because I can take my time walking around experiencing video game versions of real life places and I can immerse myself in the language.
I may have missed this somewhere in the video, but I bought ni no kuni and there's only the option for Japanese audio. If you're looking to learn from this specific game, make sure you get the Japanese version, or a version that is not the switch 😢
@@xalt255xIf it’s on steam, you should be able to right click on the game and there’s an option to change the language to japanese in properties or something like that. If you’re playing it on Game Pass/Xbox for PC, well then you have to set your PC locale to Japan, which is annoying 😂
Another way I do on my laptop is to quickly screen shot the dialogue I want to study and send it to an A.I chatbot to write the text from the image, and create an anki card for me on top of it very quick to do
Love your videos, I saw your video about how you came to Japan as well recently. I was like “this is me!!” The whole time I was watching it lol although now I feel I’m too old at 34 and don’t really have a skill other than my mediocre art skills and Illustration degree that I could bring to japan 😭 It’s still a dream and I want to move there regardless though.
honestly this video gives me the motivation to start, however with the fact that im still considering if this is a good idea stops me, but still if i ever decide to start, this video will be the reason why i started learning on another note i would appreciate more game recommendations to help me start, if i would start with the current selection of the games i own, i will pick octopath traveler, the option to change the language is available and voice acting also exist (only for important scenes however) so yeah im conflicted on whether or not i wanna start learning a new language, considering i probably won't use as much as English or my native language it makes not wanna try learning yet
A thing that I really like about jisho and that I haven't seen pretty much anywhere else (to the extent that jisho does it) is their Kanji Lookup by Drawing Yes, you do have to know the stroke order (mostly) to get good results, but if you've never encountered a kanji before and you don't have a game script or something like that to hand and there is no furigana or voice acting (for example in Pokémon), then i've had tremendous success with the drawing method. Works really well and is quite fast. Excellent video, as always! Soon I'll try to play my first full game in japanese too :D
Thank you so much for this guide! I always wanted to play games to learn more Japanese, but I always worried they would be too inefficient or something. This lays things out more clearly to me!
Awesome! Thank you so much :D All of your content has helped me so much in my learning development. So thank you for your hard work. You should have so much more followers and likes. I hope your channel gets to grow a lot more. I find that I do enjoy learning Japanese, but sometimes I can get really frustrated. I like to play games, read books/manga, listen en watch Japanese content. I try to get a lot of input. But a lot of the time it takes a lot of effort and I don't get a lot of what's going on. I don't notice much improvement and that annoys me. So I've been going back to study material like workbooks, but it's less fun haha. Maybe this video will help me pick a game better suitable for my level.
Well, if I were to choose something I really love, I would choose the Zero/Project Zero/Fatal Frame series... And that is a very VERY tough challenge. But with these tools it seems more doable. Awesome recommendations, thank you so much
Been playing disco elysium in Japanese. I played it in English and it’s very dense with philosophy, politics and psychology. I thought it’d be difficult but the majority of it is rather simple. I recommend it. Using an OCR with the game in windowed mode allows you to look up words instantly. Very good work flow
That was my concern too haha, I saw somebody recommend the dual language mode and booted it up and everything (I already beat it in english) only to start with the monologue at the beginning. Like I struggle to understand it in English so I'm not sure how well I'll do in a language I am actively learning haha
@@jukeub1187 You can leave the English voices on so you can hear what’s being said to you and just read your responses/answers (because your character’s dialogue has no voice acting). That’d be a good way of baby-stepping into the game
It's possible it's relatively simple in jp because I've heard translations/dubs for media tend to be simplified since it's nigh impossible to translate all nuances in a readable/entertaining manner
Amazing beginner's guide! I wish I had this when I started playing games! (My first game was Ace Attorney I - a 17 hour game to beat. I maxed out the game clock at 99 hours because I was looking up kanji by radical lol) I feel like if I had this advice when I started, I probably could have gotten to where I am now 1.5-2 years ago lol
That's cool. Wish that I knew about that. Yeah it's a shame. I heard it had something to do with how they set up the user interface for the west. Glad they have it on Nintendo Switch's Japan store. It was cheaper to buy when it went on sale.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but I love you ;w; I have dyslexia and migraines. 10 years of studying and I've learned virtually nothing, the only stuff I have learned I picked up from spoken media, because I just cannot read words (more phrases) I don't know- especially Kanji. I literally can't see it. If I think too hard, usually because of the clinical style of lessons, the characters disappear. And eventually my narcolepsy will kick in from my brain over heating, so I literally pass out if I try too hard. I have manage to somehow almost get the hang of Kana.
the way i learned English was to simply borrow a tiny dictionary book with me home from school that we had everywhere, then i played runescape, i still remember being utterly stuck on a quest when i first did this, turns out........ the game wanted me to go find a needle in a haystack, no joke. i want to learn like that again for japanese, but unlike English, thats also a entirely new alphabet to learn.
Wow, what a great channel. I love your approach, and agree with a bunch of the points in your personal philosophy of learning. - JLPT is good, but not the ONLY thing that will help you with games (or manga, or ... anything that is not "textbook Japanese") - JLPT is great for _grammar_ I'd say. - Quantity vs quality is an interesting topic, for sure. There's the idea of extensive vs intensive reading for example. I think a bit of both is necessary. Follow your mood..! Not feeling like a deep dive -- cool, just get a surface level of understanding and move on. It's all input! I've been learning and teaching Japanese with games for a long time, and have recently started going through Tactics Ogre as a language learning experience of my own. Not as polished as your own work, but I'm enjoying it. I'd love to sit down and chat with you about your background and process in more detail at some point..! お互いに頑張っていこう！ 👋 ちーぷ / James
I started learning from games a few months after I started JP at about N4. It was much tougher than necessary and I'd like to mention some of my mistakes in case it helps someone else: -Your first games really should have voice acting. There's so many words to look up, you don't want to waste time on having to lookup new kanji to find a new word. -Interesting games>"Good for learning JP" games -If you can't find it in a dictionary, it's either slang, a conjugation, or both. -The less text on the screen at once, the better. But don't play a game with too little text. Tales of Vesperia is good for however long you can keep playing. It's really long. -Breath of the Wild is a very bad first game for JP.
@@TheBlueGoldenHawk I think her insistence on "understanding Japanese as Japanese, and not English but backwards" is why her videos work. Saved me so much trouble.
And here I am just now starting lesson 3 in Genki 1. Lol looks like ive got a while. I really want to get to a point where I can play games in Japanese though. My favorite game ever is Persona 4 Golden and I really want to play it in Japanese eventually. I played Persona 4 for the first time over the course of 5 days back in high school. 70 something hours total and I cried when it ended because i didn't want to say goodbye to the characters.
I started learning Japanese a month ago first I tried to know all the Hiragana and Katakana (still working on learning Katakana). Then I just started undertale on Japanese because I saw it's only written in Hiragana and katakana so I tried to learn it by playing the game and everytime I was unsure I looked up to be sure if I read it right. Yeah it is really easy Japanese you can understand the most things as a beginner in my opinion. But after I watched this video I think in going to play final fantasy on Japanese.
i just started learning japanese through video games, i did it cause it worked years ago when i started learning english, and yeah music and video games make the trick, for japaanese i just started and i only know starting hiragana and basic grammar
Great video. In my case I prefer to use news or articles (along yomichan and Deepl) as my main source to learn Japanese. As a second option I use Netflix paired with Netflix Reactor. I leave videogames as my last option.
i kinda just dove in day 1 11 months ago with literally 0 knowledge of anything including the kana, surprisingly have made pretty decent progress. Being completely lost forever is fun and maybe it forces your brain to adapt to certain things i think a downside is you have no real way to track your progress theres still N5 level stuff i dont understand (mostly vocabulary) but then its like, theres N3 and N2 stuff, and even a decent vocabulary of N1 stuff that i've picked up on so far i think my way is for those who dont care about a methodical approach, and perhaps arent afraid of being totally lost in whatever they play its probably way slower too, but the biggest benefit is fun and freedom to do what you want and wake up everyday with no clue as to what you'll learn
Ryu ga gotoku Ishin It's a spin off game from the Yakuza series, with the same actors/characters playing as different characters in that setting. They also have a an older samurai game called Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan.
Language is so insanely expansive and malleable. I've been studying for 3 years off and on as I have time. I've got about 300 kanji under my belt and thousands of words because I study mostly words (combinations of kanji)... I still have to look up every sentence just about because of colloquialisms, informal language, hyper formal language, etc... I've recently just moved to trying to read manga, but a lot of that seems so informal I would never get to use it in travels... it's tough out here. lol I also want to add, I hate Furigana because i've found I can't "block it out" and try to read the kanji, so when the same kanji comes up without furigana later... I can't read it.
i wish i saw this video 5 years before, then my university time at japanese major might would have been a little more fun and relaxed. i was exactly doing that burning-out process you mentioed, this whole time! i guess it's time to relax... xd still now, thank you for is very much! (and you have awesome-beautiful eyes :) )
your videos are really motivating and awesome. going to pass N4 and you are helping a lot. one question : what book are you showing an image of at 12:09 ? thanks, and keep up the good work !
What an amazing video man! I wish you could have more recognition. I've been studying with Yo-kai watch and FF7 using game scripts and it's just fantastic. what I did extra was download an anki deck of both games and study i+1 cards of segments that I already played. I set my anki to suspend the cards after 3 months so they don't get too clustered and because if I don't see that vocab after 3 months, probably it's not worth learning it now. I use the game2text with yomichan for parts that don't have in the script(like side quests, random npc dialogues, menus, items and etc..), I'm also using it with the DS/3DS kanji games that you recommended in one of your videos and works beautifully. Another tool that is really helpful together with game2text is the shareX ocr. I find it more accurate when the subs background is not one color block. I want to thank you for your amazing job, I discovered your channel recently and it served me as an encouragement to start playing games in Japanese and see that is not that complicated if you really like what you're doing. Your tier list video gave me a lot of ideas for games to play and I'm really excited to play a bunch of them. and lastly (like a good Brazilian) sorry for my bad English, I don't really talk or write that much haha. (posting again because yt bot deleted my comment)
Not sure if anyone else said it in the comments but you could use the Google translate app too on your phone just use the camera feature to grab text that way too.
This is all amazing stuff really! The only thing that I think is missing is the name of the games shown. For example I know that the first one is yokai watch, which one though I have no clue and I would've like to check it out!
Hi Gengo! Been watching loads of your videos and decided to go out and buy Ni No Kuni on Steam and was just wondering where to find the game scripts, I had a look at the link in the description to the list and I found Ni No Kuni on there but I couldn't find any script attached to it and was just wondering if you know how I could find one since they're really hard to come by and it's my first 日本語 game and I'm probably around Low N4 level. Thanks a ton, love your videos they're really upbeat and introduce new vocabulary and grammar in such a fun way and you seem genuinely passionate about the content but just wondering on that small hickup on my end! Thanks a ton
I have a question, how do you use the game to text for switch games? The switch and 3Ds will be what I am using to learn. It looks like at one point you used the game to text thing for a switch game. Thank you for all the hard work on this video and for all the work you’ve done so far!
Can you do a video on best retro games to learn japanese with? Ive heard stuff on rhe famicom and snes games are good for learning and would like wome recommendations
Hi Gengo, I just chanced upon this video and I really want to learn how to play video games in Japanese! I've been fascinated with the language and I actually learned a few phrases while watching hundreds of One Piece episodes. May I know where you usually import your titles?
Hey there! Well because I live in Japan I dont need to import any titles. However if I did places like Amazon, Mericari, Buyee would be your best bet! However many games you can buy digitally with a Japanese account, it just depends which console youre playing on :)
i am fluent in english, i speak alot of slangy words and allat, and i just played sum english videogames, didn't even touch any books, and there it is!
Disco Elysium has this great feature - you can toggle the game’s language by pressing a single key at almost any moment. I wish some Japanese games supported this, for example to skim through Igor sections in Persona
PERSONA 4 GAME SCRIPT (Made by Yust from the Game Gengo Discord)
jwayn.github.io/persona-4-game-script/
Awesome channel, thanks for the content!
Quick note, I believe game2text allows you to use gsmescripts as well which uses OCR to find the most alike result in the script. Some games you can also find the script file in your computer files on Steam
👋 👋 👋 👋
This might feel like such a backwards thing, but hearing how much of a struggle it would still be even after finishing the JLPT is such a motivating thing. I'm about half way through JLPT N3 and every time I think to myself, "I should just start using the language and play some games," There's always a nagging thought that, well I should just finish my studies instead. Going to just do it and start playing through Ni no Kuni and Triangle Strategy like I've wanted to for ages! Thanks Matt!
Had that nagging thought last year. Waiting until I was good enough to immerse with the language.
Decided to just take the jump and use resources to bridge the gap in my understanding. Best of luck.
@@isiah8869 How'd it go for you taking the plunge? I'm expecting a long trudge for the first few months
@@AceOfSpades_211
Surprisingly easier than I thought it would be. The only thing that was tough was getting used to looking words up in the dictionary. Thanks to the Takoboto app I had offline access to a dictionary.
It also helped to look for things that I could handle. Didn't want to go straight to reading the Bakemonogatari light novels.
Books with furigana or things I've already read, watched or played in English eased me into immersion.
Started reading some tsubasa bunko novels and Detective Conan manga on Bookwalker. For games, I played Pokemon and Kingdom Hearts.
@@isiah8869 Well that's definitely good to hear! I definitely set myself up for failure trying to start the overlord light novels a few days ago but after 2 years of Anki, being able to see my progress is pretty refreshing!
playing games in japanese is just a translation class (翻訳の授業) but the object is game, in programming it's not backward but maybe backward compatibility. (last uni assignment for me was webtoon), though indeed this is already good cuz ur free time and study times are both about japanese win win i guess.
With the tier list and this guide you aren’t making it easy on my wallet mr! Lol, jokes aside these guides are really inspiring. I learned english by getting the basics through formal education and then learning the other 95% of the language through media immersion, so these videos are really motivating me (and I assume many others) to try and do that but with Japanese. Thank you!
Oh wow that's super awesome! what kind of level did you get before immersing in media? Like the equivalent of a N4 level or something?
@@GameGengo Reading through the jlpt definitions for each level I think it would be the equivalent of an N4 or advanced N5 yeah. Mostly what helped was getting some very basic vocabulary and sentence structure down from school in order to have some sort of frame of reference. Using that as a jumping off point then helped me get basically everything else from context by watching cartoons and American youtube channels obsessively several hours a day lol.
Of course I don’t have the free time that I had as a pre-teen anymore, so I have to be smarter about what content I should consume to learn a language instead of brute forcing it like I did with english. That’s why I appreciate resources like yours that can point us to the most helpful games and shows.
yeah same, I'd go as far as to say I got nearly 100% of my english knowledge out of just media consumption, I never really focused in english class as most of the time they'd be teaching grammar rules that I already knew by intuition at that point. A childs brain is pretty impressive when it comes to picking up new languages, my parents spoke 2 languages so I grew up learning those, and once I got internet I learned english fairly quickly too. Now I'm trilingual with basically having put 0 effort into learning any of those languages lol
pirate them
@@RenUnderscoreemulators
🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶😇😇😇😇
I was very bad at English, but I decided to play Danganronpa in this language. It was very difficult, I searched almost for all words, I didn’t understand grammar and some expressions. But at the end of the second game of Danganronpa series I realised that I can understand almost everything. I came up with my own system of learning that comfortable for me. I also used word cards and listened to music and some native speakers. I’m glad I didn’t gave up. I still cant speak and write correctly, but I understand a lot.
I’m learning japanese now, it’s tough, but I believe that it will be easer, thanks to my previous experience
Well done dude, that's super impressive! Could you perhaps roughly explain the system you used? For Japanese I'm employing one with flashcards that's working pretty well for me right now, but I'm super intrigued to know what you did. Cheers :)
@@dottuanicuwu7842 Hello! Thank you! I’ll try to explain this to you though I think my way of learning is not impressive, I came up with it myself but I guess this is quite widespread.
I switched between flashcards, watching videos with and without subs, and just reading. For me, the most important thing is to switch so that I don’t get bored or tired. I started writing every day after I realized I wasn't making much progress with flashcards and immersion anymore. I wrote down words from cards many times. I wrote the word, pronounced it in English, said the translation in my language, and pronounced it poorly with a strong accent in order to remember all the letters(I write one word for a couple of dozens times). For me flashcards are used to occasional memorization, but writing has almost always helped me remember words for the rest of my life, although it happens much more slowly. I learned at least 3 words a day and did some immersion
¿Cuál fue tu metodología para aprender inglés con los juegos?
What's your first language?
@@KnowledgeVid Russian
You genuinely have my favorite language learning channel on the internet, after years of studying Japanese and Spanish.
I was also totally overwhelmed when I switched from textbook japanese to actual ingame japanese. But what really helped me in the beginning was creating an Anki deck with specific JRPG terminology like for example "hitpoints", "stamina", "crit chance", "invincibility", "elemental resistance" and all the stuff that a textsbook doesn't teach. It really helped me to build a foundation from where I could at least understand the mechanical level of the game, even though I still miss some story pieces here and there.
I often come back to this video to get motivated again
So! How do YOU like to learn Japanese with video games? I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you find most helpful!
And always remember there is no one 'correct' way to study, so just focus on having fun and do whatever gives you the motivation to continue your studies in an enjoyable way
Can you make a recommendation video for 3DS games? There's a lot of people coming back to 3DS after they announced to shut down servers...
What is that flying game there at the beginning it looks awesome as hell!
2:33 Vegeta doing anki was so accurate 😂
A little under 4 years ago I tried to play Fate/stay night as pretty much a complete beginner. Struggled for days just to get through the prologue with a text hooker and constant dictionary look-ups, then gave up. Tried again last night, got through the prologue in one sitting, no tools, just occasionally alt-tabbing to check if I read a word correctly. Finally I can see what all the hype is with this VN.
Regarding Game2Text: You can actually skyrocket the accuracy by right clicking on the window after marking a text and setting a binary filter + color inversion (if the text is white). It will show a preview text that should be black text on white background. If you set this up properly the experience will be much smoother.
Thank you, Some Guy!
I'm having trouble downloading it on windows how did you do it?
I completely understand where you’re coming from, one of my peers in my maths classes learned English through video games… it makes sense that being exposed to media would improve your comprehension of the topics over time, and the more you want to do something the quicker you will develop the patterns of thinking necessary for the language.
By far the most useful and informative video I've found on this subject.
Imagine learning Japanese without any of these tools about 25 years ago. I bought a Japanese ps2 and played ff7 on both my American PlayStation and Japanese one at the same time, it was quite challenging looking up blurry kanji back then (but still a magical journey). Also no game scripts existed, but I still made huge progress by playing both at the same time and figuring it out xD :)
It's really cool they have tools to look up kanji fast nowadays, unfortunately I can already read most kanji so I don't need those tools, but I wish they existed back then lol
But I really want to emphasize that things like game scripts will help so many people, so for your first games it's going to save you a ton of time (for those just getting into it).
This is an amazing video, well done! :)
I didn't use the tools and I don't necessarily think it's good to instantly have a tool tell you what a kanji means, because you become reliant on it. When I saw shit I didn't understand, I had to learn it and remember it (using Anki if needed) and that really helped keep it stuck in my brain.
I tried 20 years ago. Every time I made any progress I'd go ages without studying because I got burnt out and then forgot everything 😂
Only now, with all of the amazing resources available that I'm making any actual progress
@@richardharris9708 Yeah, it takes some suffering for growth sometimes, like Japanese kids writing kanji on genkouyoushi (that type of paper with grids) hundreds of times until their hands hurt to get muscle memory down for writing, and even despite doing that they still forget as adults if they don't write often. Takes a lot of persistence and consistency with whatever method you choose to learn 1. old school methods 2. modern with Anki , etc
So I definitely agree over-relying on some tools that just give you all the answers that don't help you memorize the info can make some people too lazy to actually put in the time to memorize stuff...
But it's all about how they use the tools and incorporate them into their study routine. Like how you use Anki with new words you are learning or exposed to (maybe just for certain words it seems)? Definitely takes some good habits.
But on a lazier note, you could just look up the same word 1000 times without really studying it and learn it too in 1000 different context, think it's possible to learn if the volume you use or are exposed to the language is increased enough that maybe there's alternate ways that don't require Anki or the Old School Methods (sure they might help people learn something more efficiently though)
And maybe if Anki existed when I started out I could've learned stuff quicker too, but I just learned from Japanese people to write stuff a lot ,and would make vocabulary notebooks or real flashcards on index-cards. Even nowadays I prefer real paper flashcards since I can digital-detox myself while I study.
@@CakeandCosplay That's so awesome that you're able to make progress now! xD
I can relate to burn-out and I've gone through some similar phases before too.
Has no one really commented on your Vegeta + Anki edit?? That was fantastic. It's such a perfect depiction lol Another fantastic video. Thanks for creating such relevant and quality content!
This is one of the best Japanese learning approach that I've ever seen, thank you for your hard work that you put into those videos. They're VERY HELPFUL
I bought Ni No Kuni in July last year to learn Japanese but I found it too overwhelming at the time because I didn't know enough and was looking everything up. So I ended up taking a year long break from it. I completed WaniKani last week and now feel confident enough to start the game again so I'm really excited about that. Grammar is definitely my biggest weakness (and listening) with kanji being my biggest strength. I'm using the bunpo app for grammar and then watching your videos too. I also listen to Japanese podcasts. I'm working towards taking the N1 exam next year. Your videos are so helpful, thank you! 🙂
Hey! I was wondering how that went? :) it’s been 8 months now so I’m excited to hear about your progress!
@@ariellev9185 Hi Arielle. I did get part way through the game but haven't had a chance to play for a while now (I have a five year old). At the moment I try to read every day. I use the Satori Reader app which has loads of stories with different difficulty levels and I also use another reading app called 絵本ひろば which is targeted towards Japanese children where you can read loads of short stories. Unfortunately I haven't progressed as much as I wanted so haven't signed up for the JLPT exam yet. How are you getting on with learning Japanese?
This is amazing. I started Japanese learning with Duolingo and now I'm looking to take it to the next level by literally gaining levels in video games.
About to complete my playthrough of Let's GO Eevee, though I focused mainly on catching Pokémon and understanding their Dex Entries. Now I just felt like playing some Sims 4 again and was actually happy to see that they've got a Japanese language option as well. I'm trying that out right now and I think it's a really cool option as well because you choose sth. for your Sim to do and then you see what their actually doing. E.g. you click on your bookcase and choose 何か読む and you'll see them take out a book and read it. And, you'll have to learn to be able to understand some of it so you can choose the right actions to take care of your sims and fulfill certain tasks.
And starting a new game, creating a Sim and moving into a new apartment while everything is in Japanese does kinda feel like a virtual moving to Japan and immersing yourself in the language. Not that I know what that's like, but it feels like it would be like that a bit at least ^^;
I ended up learning up to N3 material. Did some courses in college but ended up forgetting a lot without using it.
Started studying on my own with Japanese from Zero and using an app called JA Sensei.
Started a blog to use my Japanese and do some translations.
Didn't even think about immersing until last year. Started immersing with books, manga, video games, etc.
In fact this channel inspired me to take on a project. I went through Kingdom Hearts and made a game script (before I heard about game scripts).
While doing that project, I usually looked up radicals when I found a kanji I didn't know.
That's really amazing! I am a blogger too, but I'm in the recipe niche. Your blog sounds really cool. :) How many kanji do you think I'd have to know to go through Kingdom Hearts? I only know 550 kanji rn and playing Kingdom Hearts in Japanese is a goal I'm working towards
@@smudge8882 I appreciate it. That should be enough to get through Kingdom Hearts but having a good foundation of grammar and vocabulary will come a long way. The great thing about native material is that you can test how much progress you've made.
Nonetheless, when I made majority of it I was barely passing N3 practice exams. Then again, there's probably a bunch of stuff that won't show on the JLPT, so you should be fine.
Luckily most of it is voiced so you can read the Japanese subs while looking at the cutscenes. Oh and checking out let's plays 実況 of Kingdom Hearts would be a good idea as well.
@@isiah8869 Thank you for your insight! Grammar's a bit of a weakness of mine so I should probably work on that more before jumping in. I'm definitely not N3 level in that regard - I'm somewhere between N5 and N4. (I've not really been studying the JLPT, hence why I know a lot more kanji than grammar)
Thanks for your suggestion to use Let's Plays! I'll definitely have to look into that. Also, what's your website name? UA-cam tends to auto-delete comments with links but I think it should be fine if you give the name with spaces
@@smudge8882 oh and...
nihongonorenshuu
learnjapanesewithgames
also let me know about yours. I'll check it out.
@@smudge8882 You can find more let's players. Some talk and some don't. I recommend セナ or ジャック・オ・蘭たん.
If you want just the game with no commentary then I recommend Paradigm Shifter.
I like to record my gameplay and just play through at first trying to get the gist of everything by what I already know. Then I'll go through the recording and make a study guide with everything I didn't understand and then in my next playthrough I tend to understand a bit more thoroughly than just getting the gist. I think this is a really good way to learn with any media. When I was in college, my Spanish professor taught us the skill of "gisting", which a lot of people don't realize is something you can work on. I had a German professor in college, too, who was always so confused when I could understand a bit more than I should have just by accurately guessing.
I haven't watched the video yet but I just want to say this, and I don't say this much because I think comments like it are a little cliche, however:
This guy needs more views and subs like forreal. I only found you a few days ago and I have ditched trying to read a textbook (not giving up, but just taking a break from formal learning) and have been enjoying things I like that happen to also be in Japanese, and I feel as though my Japanese has already improved significantly in only the 4-5 or so days I've taken up this new learning method. I'm able to speak to people on my language learning app more casually/conversationally, and I have a much higher vocabulary just from looking up things that I have to immediately interact with / read on the spot rather than learning 10000000 vocab words for the chance that one day I will see it. THANK. YOU.
So when I tried to start playing paper Mario a few weeks ago it was like you said-I didn’t know where any words began or ended. I did know to look for particles but the verbs especially were throwing me completely for a loop. With the game to focus my learning, though, my progress has jumped DRAMATICALLY in just a couple weeks. I did take a break from playing to look up the things I needed to know and I spent several hours a day studying sentence structure. Returning to the game I can now parse the sentences much more easily. I still have to look up almost every word but at least now I understand masu modifiers, te form, and iru/aru/oru verbs at least enough to understand how it’s impacting the sentence. It’s still painfully slow but I’ve learned so much and so much more quickly because I wasn’t just randomly accruing information through, like, Duolingo.
Love your attitude. Totally agree.. it’s a marathon not a sprint. Whatever keeps you moving forward is the right way to go. A lot of folks like to push their methodology .. which involves pushing their own stuff. This often leads to burnout and frustration.
I take two approaches. One is just a free flow immersion and the other one is active immersion looking up each word and trying to put it all together. From there I make some Anki cards for words that are common in Japanese or the game in general. The other part I think is important is the concepts of domains. I'm currently limiting myself to Slice of Life and Fantasy Adventure domains so I only immerse myself regardless of it being video games or manga or youtube. I will only see certain types of words that common to those domains. Currently playing Crayon Shin-Chan My Summer Vacation and Ni No Kuni on the Switch! Big thanks once again Matt!
Oooo very nice choices! Both Crayon and Ni No Kuni are some of the very best!
Do you follow the Refold method?
@@Retog yes I do! I got a bit burnt out with the 1k deck so I'm moving on straight to immersion
I remember I had a friend who passed N1 just by playing ギャルゲー like crazy for 2 years... Never asked in detail how he did it but I'm glad I found this video... I'll test this video's method out and will report back in one month!
hope it's been going well
Hey Matt, thank you so much for all the content you have created (this one as well). I'm brazilian and my english isn't that good, so one thing that I do is called "Language Stack", because there aren't so many materials in Brazil about japanese, so we have to look in some materials in English. This helps a lot because while I'm studying japanese, I also studying english. Video games are too my passion, and all the english that I have learned was from the games, but I never thought that I could use for japanese too! Its really intimidate at the start, and your brain starts to sabotage itself, like: "Hey man, stop it, you know you don't understand.". But your videos helped me to start playing my first game entirely in japanese, using the right tools and slowly and steadily. My real goal is to finish Final Fantasy VIII in japanese understanding the whole story (I've never finished him before). That's it, thank you again and keep going!
Awesome video! Really pushed me through my learning. I learned a lot of English with videogames and now Japanese will be the next step! Thanks for the advices!😊
kinda funny segment with 2:30 when you talk about words that you will never use and seeing pokemon in the background, I'd hope you won't use Charizzard while talking to shopkeeper in japan >.
Good video! Many thanks to the author of the channel for the recommendations! The problem with many people is that they want to take a "magic pill" or get "secret knowledge" and immediately have skills and abilities. However, the truth of life is that knowledge, skills, and abilities do not come by themselves. You can't learn a foreign language without doing anything, without wasting your time and effort, just like you can't learn to ride a bike lying on a comfy couch, listening to lectures and watching videos about "modern methods of learning" on a bike. To really learn something, you have to really practice every day. You're going to fall down while you're learning, and you're going to get bumps - that's normal! The ups and downs of learning are an integral part of our lives. Motivation from success and depression from failure will always be your study companions. However, every student has problems in his or her studies that he or she lacks the knowledge to solve. It can be: poor memorization of words; no progress in language learning; the student can speak, but does not understand speech by ear; misunderstanding of grammar; incorrect pronunciation, etc. Agree that a problem you don't know how to solve is very demotivating. In order to find the answer to our question we have to spend a lot of time to read videos, articles and books by polyglots. In today's world, we have to solve problems as quickly as possible. I don't have time to study and analyze a huge amount of information. My goal is to master the basic knowledge of a foreign language as quickly as possible and already start earning money effectively in the international arena. I settled on the practical guide by Yuriy Ivantsiv " Polyglot's Notes: practical tips for learning foreign language". This book is always in my bag. If I have a problem while learning a language, I quickly find the answer in this book. There are many different techniques and tips for learning a foreign language in Polyglot Notes. I have made my own individual schedule and plan for language learning. Now I know what I am going to study, how I am going to study, when I am going to study and what results I am going to achieve. No problem could stop me! With an effective language learning plan my professional skills are more and more in demand internationally every day. Friends, don't stop there! Everyone has talents that millions of people around the world need! Learn the language and make your ideas and dreams come true! Thanks to the author of the channel for the informative and useful video! Your videos motivate me.
Saw you on the kera podcast... i've learned english, french and spanish all through video games, so I know they work as a learning tool (C2 level)
But I was a bit aimeless thinking about how to approach it in connection with japanese.
You're giving me a great outline and I definitely need to check out your grammar series!
I'll combine Khatz's AJATT method with your outline for video game immersion.
Im 23 right now and hope to be able to speak by age 28. (Slow but steady!)
Needless to say, I subscribed.
I just discovered your channel and OMG you are the goat. So helpful with your guides on the channel. This channel is so underrated. Keep up the great work 👍
Playing video games in Japanese has been my dream since I was 10. I’m 26 now and have proficiency in Russian and about B1 level of German. I’m excited to delve into Japanese and be able to finally live this dream :) thank you for making this content! It really feels good to know that playing games will always be difficult no matter when I start.
ロシア語学習についてアドバイスがあれば教えてください。
When you started learning russian how you went about it ? Did you follow any particular steps in your way to proficiency? Does being proficient means that you're fluent in every aspect of the language?
P.s.: Sorry for making so many questions...
申し訳ありません
@@ZharRebirth No, it’s okay! I studied it in school for many years and I also made a friend along the way who is from Ukraine, so we hung out like everyday and would speak Russian a lot. I think that’s what helped me the most, honestly. It was like having a tutor and lesson everyday. I loved it.
I didn’t follow any particular steps but there were things I did that were very helpful. For one, I managed to incorporate it into my life as much as possible via music, podcasts, lessons, etc. Also, I would translate stuff a lot from Russian into English.
Proficient, to me, means that I could be plopped in Russia and be absolutely fine in terms of talking to people about many topics but not super specific things. Like, I can’t have a conversation about science-related topics because I haven’t learned the vocabulary on that… but most normal conversations, sure. I am definitely not fluent in absolutely every aspect, though.
how's it been going for you? i did something close to this with japanese many years ago and am always curious about others journeys
@@culturalist It’s been decent! I wouldn’t say my Japanese is amazing, but I’ve played multiple games through in Japanese by this point. Mostly simple games like LoZ: OoT, LoZ: MM, and Kingdom Hearts :) It’s been on pause for a bit because I started a master’s program in January, but I’ll be back on it soon enough heheh
Thank you so much for your hardwork and advices, as always !
I wanted to learn japanese for ryu ga Gotoku Ishin and Kenzan but it was a bit too fast for my taste. With everything you recommended and this guide I can't fail now.
You're the best !
I not long ago experienced the whole ryu ga gotoku series in Japanese (I'd never played it in English before) but I wouldnt recommend it as your first game to learn Japanese with because there's a lot of vocab you may not have seen if you're newer to the language. (Not counting Yakuza specific words, which you will learn through playing them)
i had already been learning Japanese for a year and a half, and had played Persona, Disgaea, ace Attorney and a few easier games in Japanese, plus all the manga I read and the anime I watched. It's really hard when to recommend playing it, or what you should start with because everyone has different tastes and interests...
However I will say, no matter how hard your immersion material is, the first few months of immersion will be a LOT of banging your head against the wall not being able to understand things, but believe me, the beginner stage is the hardest part and gets way easier past that, if you can make it through that, the Japanese language is basically yours as long as you keep going long enough to get fluent! I wish you the best of luck, just try to have fun!
@@ntrg3248 Ty so much for your input ! Yeah the beginnings are always the hardest. I'm mostly trying to play games I'm very familiar with for now, so I can power through. I'm glad for you that you made it this far ! keep up the good work !
@@megudo yeah, my first few games/anime/manga were ones I already had experience in English, so I didn't have to focus on the story, and I could focus more on the language, which is good for when you're new.
I have learned one year of Japanese back in university and the class was boring, we got a 300 pages textbook from school and teacher just read slides all the time,I can not read katakana even after finished the one-year-course… now I wanna pick it up but I still disguise the textbook hahaha Thank you so much for the videos
Your UA-cam channel is great. Thank you for all your effort.
Thank you so much for all your effort you put in all of your videos!😊
You are a legend. Great video as always
Your videos are so well done! Love this channel
i didn't know about control F you've probably saved me days of time thank you!
Thanks!
I really liked how this topic was broken down. Geat information and motivation.
This might be neither here nor there, but love that Zell is your example of having motivation. 🤣
Thank you so much! ❤❤❤ This was really much work for you, I think. Now I want to learn like that to after I am at N3. ❤
There are so many useful tools in this video! Thank you so much for taking the time to make all of this! I'm a huge gamer and I have been trying to figure out a fun way to incorporate the two. Youre a livesaver. 😎
I mostly came to this video to figure out the name of 10ten, which I saw you using in your Chrono Trigger video. I'm trying it out as an alternative to Yomichan, and I think I like it more. Also, I think Kanshudo has edged out Jisho with the Jisho-pitcher extension for my use. I'm buckling down more and more and little tool changes make such a big difference in my motivation. There are bigger things to compliment within your videos, but I wanted to say thanks for making even the little things a bit smoother for me.
ETA: I just got to the point in the Chrono Trigger video where you mention 10ten. I've been spacing out bits of that video between work, grammar practice, and reading lol.
What a awesome video and channel did I found! Seriously this is amazing! Thank you so much, you gain a sub!
I like the Yakuza series because I can take my time walking around experiencing video game versions of real life places and I can immerse myself in the language.
I may have missed this somewhere in the video, but I bought ni no kuni and there's only the option for Japanese audio. If you're looking to learn from this specific game, make sure you get the Japanese version, or a version that is not the switch 😢
I'm late but try switching (haha) the system language of your Switch to Japanese. It worked for me with some other games.
@@xalt255xIf it’s on steam, you should be able to right click on the game and there’s an option to change the language to japanese in properties or something like that.
If you’re playing it on Game Pass/Xbox for PC, well then you have to set your PC locale to Japan, which is annoying 😂
I didn't know about kanshudo after months of studying, thank you!
Another way I do on my laptop is to quickly screen shot the dialogue I want to study and send it to an A.I chatbot to write the text from the image, and create an anki card for me on top of it
very quick to do
Insaaaaaane video! thank you bro it will help me so much
Love your videos, I saw your video about how you came to Japan as well recently. I was like “this is me!!” The whole time I was watching it lol although now I feel I’m too old at 34 and don’t really have a skill other than my mediocre art skills and Illustration degree that I could bring to japan 😭 It’s still a dream and I want to move there regardless though.
honestly this video gives me the motivation to start, however with the fact that im still considering if this is a good idea stops me, but still if i ever decide to start, this video will be the reason why i started learning
on another note i would appreciate more game recommendations to help me start, if i would start with the current selection of the games i own, i will pick octopath traveler, the option to change the language is available and voice acting also exist (only for important scenes however)
so yeah im conflicted on whether or not i wanna start learning a new language, considering i probably won't use as much as English or my native language it makes not wanna try learning yet
A thing that I really like about jisho and that I haven't seen pretty much anywhere else (to the extent that jisho does it) is their Kanji Lookup by Drawing
Yes, you do have to know the stroke order (mostly) to get good results, but if you've never encountered a kanji before and you don't have a game script or something like that to hand and there is no furigana or voice acting (for example in Pokémon), then i've had tremendous success with the drawing method. Works really well and is quite fast.
Excellent video, as always! Soon I'll try to play my first full game in japanese too :D
Thank you so much for this guide! I always wanted to play games to learn more Japanese, but I always worried they would be too inefficient or something. This lays things out more clearly to me!
Awesome! Thank you so much :D
All of your content has helped me so much in my learning development. So thank you for your hard work. You should have so much more followers and likes. I hope your channel gets to grow a lot more.
I find that I do enjoy learning Japanese, but sometimes I can get really frustrated. I like to play games, read books/manga, listen en watch Japanese content. I try to get a lot of input. But a lot of the time it takes a lot of effort and I don't get a lot of what's going on. I don't notice much improvement and that annoys me. So I've been going back to study material like workbooks, but it's less fun haha. Maybe this video will help me pick a game better suitable for my level.
Great video! Thanks so much for all the ideas and resources!
tried learning with games the other day and it didnt go as well as i hoped, so im looking forward to this video
Oh no! I hope this video can help! How long have you been studying Japanese for btw?
@@GameGengo about 2-3 months i think, took a bit of a time-off because of games that came out and now i want to get back to learning again
Well, if I were to choose something I really love, I would choose the Zero/Project Zero/Fatal Frame series... And that is a very VERY tough challenge. But with these tools it seems more doable. Awesome recommendations, thank you so much
Been playing disco elysium in Japanese. I played it in English and it’s very dense with philosophy, politics and psychology. I thought it’d be difficult but the majority of it is rather simple. I recommend it. Using an OCR with the game in windowed mode allows you to look up words instantly. Very good work flow
That was my concern too haha, I saw somebody recommend the dual language mode and booted it up and everything (I already beat it in english) only to start with the monologue at the beginning. Like I struggle to understand it in English so I'm not sure how well I'll do in a language I am actively learning haha
@@jukeub1187 You can leave the English voices on so you can hear what’s being said to you and just read your responses/answers (because your character’s dialogue has no voice acting). That’d be a good way of baby-stepping into the game
It's possible it's relatively simple in jp because I've heard translations/dubs for media tend to be simplified since it's nigh impossible to translate all nuances in a readable/entertaining manner
@@TheBlueGoldenHawk Disco Elysium was originally in Estonian though. Although the creator does have a good grasp of English
@@Retog Oh wow, really? Didn't know that haha
this video is FANTASTIC! Thank you so much, as always ❤️ :))
Amazing beginner's guide! I wish I had this when I started playing games! (My first game was Ace Attorney I - a 17 hour game to beat. I maxed out the game clock at 99 hours because I was looking up kanji by radical lol) I feel like if I had this advice when I started, I probably could have gotten to where I am now 1.5-2 years ago lol
dragon quest 11 doesn't have Japanese text on steam outside of Japan; however, someone made a mod for it to convert it to Japanese. Look it up.
That's cool. Wish that I knew about that.
Yeah it's a shame. I heard it had something to do with how they set up the user interface for the west.
Glad they have it on Nintendo Switch's Japan store. It was cheaper to buy when it went on sale.
You can always play the game on a Switch emulator like Yuzu if you do not like steam.
Japanese version full with voiced dialogues is available on Xbox store and gamepass
why there is Japanese voice but no text
@@lexasusopra8704 text is available in japanese version in gamepass
Please don't take this the wrong way, but I love you ;w;
I have dyslexia and migraines. 10 years of studying and I've learned virtually nothing, the only stuff I have learned I picked up from spoken media, because I just cannot read words (more phrases) I don't know- especially Kanji. I literally can't see it. If I think too hard, usually because of the clinical style of lessons, the characters disappear. And eventually my narcolepsy will kick in from my brain over heating, so I literally pass out if I try too hard.
I have manage to somehow almost get the hang of Kana.
I learned English by video games
the way i learned English was to simply borrow a tiny dictionary book with me home from school that we had everywhere, then i played runescape, i still remember being utterly stuck on a quest when i first did this, turns out........ the game wanted me to go find a needle in a haystack, no joke.
i want to learn like that again for japanese, but unlike English, thats also a entirely new alphabet to learn.
Wow, what a great channel.
I love your approach, and agree with a bunch of the points in your personal philosophy of learning.
- JLPT is good, but not the ONLY thing that will help you with games (or manga, or ... anything that is not "textbook Japanese")
- JLPT is great for _grammar_ I'd say.
- Quantity vs quality is an interesting topic, for sure. There's the idea of extensive vs intensive reading for example. I think a bit of both is necessary. Follow your mood..! Not feeling like a deep dive -- cool, just get a surface level of understanding and move on. It's all input!
I've been learning and teaching Japanese with games for a long time, and have recently started going through Tactics Ogre as a language learning experience of my own. Not as polished as your own work, but I'm enjoying it.
I'd love to sit down and chat with you about your background and process in more detail at some point..!
お互いに頑張っていこう！
👋
ちーぷ / James
I started learning from games a few months after I started JP at about N4. It was much tougher than necessary and I'd like to mention some of my mistakes in case it helps someone else:
-Your first games really should have voice acting. There's so many words to look up, you don't want to waste time on having to lookup new kanji to find a new word.
-Interesting games>"Good for learning JP" games
-If you can't find it in a dictionary, it's either slang, a conjugation, or both.
-The less text on the screen at once, the better. But don't play a game with too little text. Tales of Vesperia is good for however long you can keep playing. It's really long.
-Breath of the Wild is a very bad first game for JP.
Oh, and Cure Dolly's Japanese from Scratch for grammar. Save yourselves with good resources like this.
@@technic1285 Cure dolly's videos are such a useful grammar guide that explains what's actually happening in jp grammar
@@TheBlueGoldenHawk I think her insistence on "understanding Japanese as Japanese, and not English but backwards" is why her videos work. Saved me so much trouble.
@@technic1285 I can't watch her videos cause that fake voice is unbearable. How much could you understand at a N2 level when playing a game % wise.
@@southcoastinventors6583 Oh I fucked up lol, I meant N4. Backwards. Only around 10%. Being at N3 now, I can understand more than 50-60%.
And here I am just now starting lesson 3 in Genki 1. Lol looks like ive got a while. I really want to get to a point where I can play games in Japanese though. My favorite game ever is Persona 4 Golden and I really want to play it in Japanese eventually. I played Persona 4 for the first time over the course of 5 days back in high school. 70 something hours total and I cried when it ended because i didn't want to say goodbye to the characters.
ぼくはだいがくせいです。
I started learning Japanese a month ago first I tried to know all the Hiragana and Katakana (still working on learning Katakana). Then I just started undertale on Japanese because I saw it's only written in Hiragana and katakana so I tried to learn it by playing the game and everytime I was unsure I looked up to be sure if I read it right. Yeah it is really easy Japanese you can understand the most things as a beginner in my opinion. But after I watched this video I think in going to play final fantasy on Japanese.
i just started learning japanese through video games, i did it cause it worked years ago when i started learning english, and yeah music and video games make the trick, for japaanese i just started and i only know starting hiragana and basic grammar
This is really useful for me, nice video.
Great video. In my case I prefer to use news or articles (along yomichan and Deepl) as my main source to learn Japanese. As a second option I use Netflix paired with Netflix Reactor. I leave videogames as my last option.
Very informative. Thank you!
i kinda just dove in day 1 11 months ago with literally 0 knowledge of anything including the kana, surprisingly have made pretty decent progress. Being completely lost forever is fun and maybe it forces your brain to adapt to certain things
i think a downside is you have no real way to track your progress
theres still N5 level stuff i dont understand (mostly vocabulary)
but then its like, theres N3 and N2 stuff, and even a decent vocabulary of N1 stuff that i've picked up on so far
i think my way is for those who dont care about a methodical approach, and perhaps arent afraid of being totally lost in whatever they play
its probably way slower too, but the biggest benefit is fun and freedom to do what you want and wake up everyday with no clue as to what you'll learn
What is the book from 12:09 ?
It's Kanji Look and learn. :)
42:40 what's that samurai game in the background?
Ryu ga gotoku Ishin
It's a spin off game from the Yakuza series, with the same actors/characters playing as different characters in that setting.
They also have a an older samurai game called Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan.
@@maxh8574 Oh cool, thanks! I thought it looked similar to Yakuza lol
Language is so insanely expansive and malleable. I've been studying for 3 years off and on as I have time. I've got about 300 kanji under my belt and thousands of words because I study mostly words (combinations of kanji)... I still have to look up every sentence just about because of colloquialisms, informal language, hyper formal language, etc... I've recently just moved to trying to read manga, but a lot of that seems so informal I would never get to use it in travels... it's tough out here. lol
I also want to add, I hate Furigana because i've found I can't "block it out" and try to read the kanji, so when the same kanji comes up without furigana later... I can't read it.
i wish i saw this video 5 years before, then my university time at japanese major might would have been a little more fun and relaxed. i was exactly doing that burning-out process you mentioed, this whole time! i guess it's time to relax... xd still now, thank you for is very much!
(and you have awesome-beautiful eyes :) )
This is incredible. Thank you so much.
your videos are really motivating and awesome. going to pass N4 and you are helping a lot.
one question : what book are you showing an image of at 12:09 ?
thanks, and keep up the good work !
Thanks! very helpful
I’m English but actually learned to read as a kid from Runescape
What an amazing video man! I wish you could have more recognition.
I've been studying with Yo-kai watch and FF7 using game scripts and it's just fantastic. what I did extra was download an anki deck of both games and study i+1 cards of segments that I already played.
I set my anki to suspend the cards after 3 months so they don't get too clustered and because if I don't see that vocab after 3 months, probably it's not worth learning it now.
I use the game2text with yomichan for parts that don't have in the script(like side quests, random npc dialogues, menus, items and etc..), I'm also using it with the DS/3DS kanji games that you recommended in one of your videos and works beautifully.
Another tool that is really helpful together with game2text is the shareX ocr. I find it more accurate when the subs background is not one color block.
I want to thank you for your amazing job, I discovered your channel recently and it served me as an encouragement to start playing games in Japanese and see that is not that complicated if you really like what you're doing. Your tier list video gave me a lot of ideas for games to play and I'm really excited to play a bunch of them. and lastly (like a good Brazilian) sorry for my bad English, I don't really talk or write that much haha. (posting again because yt bot deleted my comment)
Not sure if anyone else said it in the comments but you could use the Google translate app too on your phone just use the camera feature to grab text that way too.
This is all amazing stuff really! The only thing that I think is missing is the name of the games shown. For example I know that the first one is yokai watch, which one though I have no clue and I would've like to check it out!
38:50 I thought it said "here comes a new person" then didn't know the last bit though. 😅
I didn't catch what the name of the game at 31:51 was :(
Hi Gengo! Been watching loads of your videos and decided to go out and buy Ni No Kuni on Steam and was just wondering where to find the game scripts, I had a look at the link in the description to the list and I found Ni No Kuni on there but I couldn't find any script attached to it and was just wondering if you know how I could find one since they're really hard to come by and it's my first 日本語 game and I'm probably around Low N4 level. Thanks a ton, love your videos they're really upbeat and introduce new vocabulary and grammar in such a fun way and you seem genuinely passionate about the content but just wondering on that small hickup on my end! Thanks a ton
I have a question, how do you use the game to text for switch games? The switch and 3Ds will be what I am using to learn. It looks like at one point you used the game to text thing for a switch game. Thank you for all the hard work on this video and for all the work you’ve done so far!
Great video. What is the game shown between 42:39 and 43:01?
日本語を勉強したから日本のゲームが大好き。先生、ありがとうございます!
Can you do a video on best retro games to learn japanese with?
Ive heard stuff on rhe famicom and snes games are good for learning and would like wome recommendations
Hi Gengo, I just chanced upon this video and I really want to learn how to play video games in Japanese! I've been fascinated with the language and I actually learned a few phrases while watching hundreds of One Piece episodes. May I know where you usually import your titles?
Hey there! Well because I live in Japan I dont need to import any titles. However if I did places like Amazon, Mericari, Buyee would be your best bet! However many games you can buy digitally with a Japanese account, it just depends which console youre playing on :)
Thank you so much for everything
i am fluent in english, i speak alot of slangy words and allat, and i just played sum english videogames, didn't even touch any books, and there it is!
Trying to learn how to sentence mine when playing video games while still being a beginner N5.
Disco Elysium has this great feature - you can toggle the game’s language by pressing a single key at almost any moment. I wish some Japanese games supported this, for example to skim through Igor sections in Persona
If you play higurashi with the 07th mod you can switch between Japanese and English with the L key
Attempted dragon quest V on the super famicom