How to Learn Japanese with Video Games (Starter Guide)
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- Опубліковано 28 тра 2024
- In this video we will go through everything you need to know to get started playing games in Japanese! You'll also learn about my learning philosophy when approaching language with video games, what some great first games for learning Japanese with, as well as some great tools to help you on your language learning journey!
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Timestamps
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00:00 - Introduction
00:16 - Learning Philosophy
05:59 - When to Start Playing Games
09:47 - Essential Tools
20:41 - How to Play in Japanese
41:59 - Recommendations
48:58 - Outro
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PERSONA 4 GAME SCRIPT (Made by Yust from the Game Gengo Discord)
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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
👋 👋 👋 👋
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?
2:33 Vegeta doing anki was so accurate 😂
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
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.
I often come back to this video to get motivated again
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 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.
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.
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
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!
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!
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 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?
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.
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.
Your videos are so well done! Love this channel
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 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.
Thanks as always!
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.
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 👍
Very informative. Thank you!
Thank you so much for all your effort you put in all of your videos!😊
Great video! Thanks so much for all the ideas and resources!
By far the most useful and informative video I've found on this subject.
This is incredible. Thank you so much.
this video is FANTASTIC! Thank you so much, as always ❤️ :))
Your UA-cam channel is great. Thank you for all your effort.
This is really useful for me, nice video.
Thanks! very helpful
What a awesome video and channel did I found! Seriously this is amazing! Thank you so much, you gain a sub!
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
Thanks!
I really liked how this topic was broken down. Geat information and motivation.
Insaaaaaane video! thank you bro it will help me so much
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!
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 didn't know about control F you've probably saved me days of time thank you!
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.
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!
Thank you so much for everything
You genuinely have my favorite language learning channel on the internet, after years of studying Japanese and Spanish.
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 didn't know about kanshudo after months of studying, thank you!
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.
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
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
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
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.
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.
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
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!
This might be neither here nor there, but love that Zell is your example of having motivation. 🤣
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
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 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 !
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 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 :) )
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
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i like it vevry much thank you❤❤
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
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.
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.
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!
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
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 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
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。
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 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!
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
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%.
Thanks a lot for this video!
Which 3ds games do you recommend to play in japanese?
I have just bought it, and I want to use it to learn the language 👀
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.
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 😂
Hey ! Sorry for the unrelated question, I came here since it's the latest posted video. I am not able to find the Grammar #3 video for N3, has it been removed?
If so, in the case that it will not be reuploaded, what were the grammar points?
Your channel is absolutely amazing by the way, thank you for your hard work!
How can a video so perfectly deliver what I want? (Little remark: in yomichan there is also an option/extension which tells you the frequency of the looked up words ("Innocent corpus" dictionary))
Great video. What is the game shown between 42:39 and 43:01?
THANK YOU ^^
YAAAAS!
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!
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)
Great video! Thank you very much. :) Would anyone happen to know where i could find a game script for Breath of the wild? Does the Game Gengo discord have it?
If I have a Japanese keyboard extension on my phone, 10ten and Google lens would this be enough to try Yokai Watch 1? Jo Mako’s spreadsheet doesn’t have a game script for it
Amazing guide as always
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 :)
Hello, which tools do you suggest to play Voice of Cards and Zero Escape? Any help would be appreciate
Game2Text simply does not work on my macbook m1 pro. Are there any alternatives to this you would suggest? Or another roundabout I could take?
38:50 I thought it said "here comes a new person" then didn't know the last bit though. 😅
I learned English by video games
Omg that clip of Yokai Watch like 10 seconds in reminds me that game has a language option and I could play thru in japanese if I wanted to
Pokemon too probably
I have one question i see there is link in the description for the script of final fantasy 7 and i want to ask is the Japanese translation there accurate ?
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 >.
2:25 yup. Guilty. 😅😅 I have a very bad habit of needing to know what every single word means, all the grammar points, particles, nuances... So I am working hard to stop doing that. It's mentally exhausting. 😫
Playing ace attorney in japanese maybe very helpful. Since you must understand the story well to proceed, i have played the trilogy and the other after it(in english tho), the story is great. I have the switch version too, but I don't know if it has japanese option...gotta check when i am back home with my switch
The language level maybe hard tho
I realise that the way you described it was the exact same way I learned English
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