Support NeoGAF

[Srider]

Why? Almost all fantasy terms would be in katakana, the easiest kana to learn.

You obviously haven't played any RPGs in japanese. :lol

Not even just RPG's, all kinds of games have special names/game slang and various cultural references that are indistinquishable from normal text if you do not know them.

That's the problem with getting into Japanese games, it's a huge learning curve for beginners at Japanese cause you have a variety of different tone and grammar usage(depending on game/character), and words that you will most likely not find in a japanese or english dictionary to confuse you along the way, and even kanji's that will be very very difficult to look up cause they are not used in everyday language. The only way to understand Japanese games fully is to have a very very good grasp of grammar/vocab/culture/kanji.... which is basically, an enormous amount of knowledge. Learning Chinese somewhere along the way will help alot, but Asian language structures in general takes a good while to have a good grasp of, due to the irregular/inconsistent/varied (compared to english) sentence structure, and the huge amount of synonyms.

I thought we had a thread on this?

 

[GaimeGuy]

Not even just RPG's, all kinds of games have special names/game slang and various cultural references that are indistinquishable from normal text if you do not know them.

That's the problem with getting into Japanese games, it's a huge learning curve for beginners at Japanese cause you have a variety of different tone and grammar usage(depending on game/character), and words that you will most likely not find in a japanese or english dictionary to confuse you along the way, and even kanji's that will be very very difficult to look up cause they are not used in everyday language. The only way to understand Japanese games fully is to have a very very good grasp of grammar/vocab/culture/kanji.... which is basically, an enormous amount of knowledge. Learning Chinese somewhere along the way will help alot, but Asian language structures in general takes a good while to have a good grasp of, due to the irregular/inconsistent/varied (compared to english) sentence structure, and the huge amount of synonyms.

I thought we had a thread on this?

By "synonmyms" you mean "homonyms"

 

[Lyte Edge]

Haven't we had a thread on EVERYTHING at least once by now?

So out of curiousity, are Final Fantasy I and II and FFIV on GBA also devoid of Kanji?

 

[Kobun Heat]

Okay, I think I figured it out.

 

[GaimeGuy]

Haven't we had a thread on EVERYTHING at least once by now?

So out of curiousity, are Final Fantasy I and II and FFIV on GBA also devoid of Kanji?

It's already been said in this thread they put kanji in the GBA version of IV. I would imagine they did the same with 1 and 2.

 

[Speevy]

They made that game in English, so there's really no need.

Spoiler

 

[Red Scarlet]

Haven't we had a thread on EVERYTHING at least once by now?

So out of curiousity, are Final Fantasy I and II and FFIV on GBA also devoid of Kanji?

1, 2, and 4 on GBA have a kanji on/off option, yes.

Okay, I think I figured it out.

:lol mystery almost solved!

 

[Cheesemeister]

Okay, I think I figured it out.

So close!

兵死「背鶴隊地世！

 

[icecream]

Okay, I think I figured it out.

:lol

What about たい for group? And then maybe a double reading of いち for location >_>

 

[Kobun Heat]

Oh, fail. I figured "ichi" had to be location, but I never figured they could overlap. I severely underestimated this guy.

 

[thetrin]

You obviously haven't played any RPGs in japanese. :lol

Did you miss the part where I played VP2, FFXII and Baten Kaitos in JP? oO

Maybe I`m fuzzy on what exactly they mean by `fantasy terms.`

 

[Red Scarlet]

Just don't ask this person for advice: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/member.php?u=11616

 

[BudokaiMR2]

Did you miss the part where I played VP2, FFXII and Baten Kaitos in JP? oO

Maybe I`m fuzzy on what exactly they mean by `fantasy terms.`

Haha it is exactly the opposite man. Just as often as there are fantasy terms in katakana there are always more that are just in random(but not really) kanji throw together to make a mythical weapon/spell.

;p

 

[Tarazet]

:lol Wear your awesome new tag well, you have earned it.

 

[Shouta]

Haha it is exactly the opposite man. Just as often as there are fantasy terms in katakana there are always more that are just in random(but not really) kanji throw together to make a mythical weapon/spell.

;p

Exactly, more often than not, it's a bunch of Kanji tossed together to make up new terms unless it's a borrowed word.

 

[Lee N]

why do they have two alphabets?

why do you?

Spoiler

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

 

[BluWacky]

A really great game for reading practice that I used a while ago was Tomato Adventure for GBA. You should give it a look.

QFT! Tomato Adventure is not only great fun, but the Japanese is very, very easy; I can read most of it, and I'm terrible.

Playing the old FF games is a bad start because it's all hiragana/katakana; kanji help a lot, even when you don't know loads, because you can guess meanings of compound words from them.

Re: Venus and Braves; it's actually quite tricky if you're weaksauce at Japanese because only very important story scenes are voiced, so you can't check if you're right or not, and the prophecies you get are quite obscure; however, most of the text repeats (it's an SRPG, after all) and the first few chapters of the game are translated on GameFAQs so you can at least get started. I was kind-of stumbling through it for a long time and completely failed to realise how to manipulate the Gestalt Board (despite it being one of the main reasons I bought the game!) which has put me at a distinct disadvantage in battles, so I'll probably restart it at some point...

 

[Cheesemeister]

Spoiler

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Don't forget

Spoiler

cursive writing

! :lol

 

[Red Scarlet]

why do you?

Spoiler

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Well, shuri is french canadian, so he has all those weird letters and stuff too.

 

[tambourine]

If you are to play an RPG in japanese, you should play one that has never been made available in english at all.

 

[Lufiaddict]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3b/Otaku.jpg

I want his poster ;_;

 

[thetrin]

Haha it is exactly the opposite man. Just as often as there are fantasy terms in katakana there are always more that are just in random(but not really) kanji throw together to make a mythical weapon/spell.

;p

Well, that is a good point. I have run into that a few times. Never really thought about it that way.

 

[tahrikmili]

:lol

 

[duckroll]

I know I'm a little late, but here's my contribution.

You obviously haven't played any Xenosaga games in japanese. :lol

Fixed!

 

[RevenantKioku]

Okay what the **** is SMM? Cause I'm racking my brain trying to think of what that could stand for.

Mikazuki - Check out this website. I think it might give you some help with grammar. You seem to have at least hiragana/katakana down.
Oh, and Wind Waker is kinda nice to play in Japanese on account of the furigana and all.

 

[demi]

Slime Mori Mori

 

[MrDaravon]

Anybody happen to know what the difficulty of the text in Chrono Trigger and FFVI are? I've got import copies of both.

 

[dark10x]

Anybody happen to know what the difficulty of the text in Chrono Trigger and FFVI are? I've got import copies of both.

Do you have a picture/screenshot?

 

[MrDaravon]

Do you have a picture/screenshot?

I'm at work, gimmie a sec.

Maybe not, can't find crap for pics online.

 

[Trident]

I can't get over how funny this picture is.

 

[RevenantKioku]

Anybody happen to know what the difficulty of the text in Chrono Trigger and FFVI are? I've got import copies of both.

CT was really easy for me and I played that a year ago. FFVI wasn't too bad either but seemed to be a little more heavy on the wtf kanji combinations. They've both nice sized fonts and easy to read kanji. Only once or twice I was all WTF IS THAT BLURRY KANJI. But then I just skipped it.

 

[Beezy]

So like, how many years did it take you guys to start understanding Japanese? And how old were you when you started learning? I'm 18 right now and I'm wondering if I should try learning it or is it just a waste time.

 

[Deadly Monk]

So like, how many years did it take you guys to start understanding Japanese? And how old were you when you started learning? I'm 18 right now and I'm wondering if I should try learning it or is it just a waste time.

3 years and I still had trouble with DQ7.

Then again, DQ7 is very intense. I have a massive notebook I used to translate items and terms for later use. Fun times. FF12 wasn't so bad at all. Having Japanese voices makes life very very easy.

 

[robo_robo]

is it just a waste time.

Not any more then playing games, that's for sure.

 

[dark10x]

I'm at work, gimmie a sec.

Maybe not, can't find crap for pics online.

Heh, I totally misunderstood your question. I thought you were asking about something specific. Whoops. I've never really tried those titles in Japanese, so I really don't have a clue. I did play Star Ocean on the SNES, though, and that was fairly easy to handle (though the font is terrible).

So like, how many years did it take you guys to start understanding Japanese? And how old were you when you started learning? I'm 18 right now and I'm wondering if I should try learning it or is it just a waste time.

I started when I was around 18, actually (I'm 24 now). I didn't study hard throughout those years either. I dabbled around on my own off and on for a while. College classes were too simple, but I did take a couple. I managed to reach a decent point by last year, but I still struggled with games and the like (probably around JLPT level 3). While spending some time in Japan last year, I finished a pretty intensive language class (4.5 hours a day, 5 days a week, no English speakers, upper-intermediate level class). That, plus everything else really helped and I worked really hard on reading with games and such. I think I learned several times more in the last year than I had in all previous years of study. Games really aren't a problem anymore and are great practice. You probably won't be able to handle anything like that for years, though (unless you can get intensive right away).

There's no question that you can do it. Whether or not you'll be able to see it through and keeping working on it depends entirely upon your interest. It's something I've really enjoyed and have passion for...but if you don't feel that way, it could be a whole lot more difficult.

 

[RevenantKioku]

So like, how many years did it take you guys to start understanding Japanese? And how old were you when you started learning? I'm 18 right now and I'm wondering if I should try learning it or is it just a waste time.

I started in....2002? So I was 19 at the time.
I'm not fluent but I'm getting better everyday. I do things every day though. Play a game, listen to music, watch a movie, read some manga, or study grammar or kanji. Not the same thing every day or I'd get bored with it. Sure right now my reading/listening is much better than my speaking, but I take what I can get because it's fun. I enjoy doing it, and that's why I continue to do it.

 

[Diablos]

Yeah, sorry for being a jerk but I wasn't sure if you were joking or serious since you said you knew 900 words and I would assume someone whose spent that much time would know their katakana like the back of their hand.

So here I'll explain it.

SESHIRU taichou <- note that the first word is in Katakana. This means you sound it out and it's either a foreign word or a name/proper noun. In this case it is a name (CECIL in the US version IIRC) so then you look up taichou which could mean several things but coming after a name the most appropriate fitting would be "captain". So now you have "Captain Cecil" (well you have CECIL CAPTAIN actually but the taichou is modifying the CECIL and err at this point just use logic to make it sound normal).

mamonaku BARON ni tsukimasu <- first you would look up mamonaku (you would know where the word ends because the katakana BARON would mark the start of the next word) and you'd find that mamonaku means "momentarily or soon" so then you have BARON which because it's in katakana you assume it's probably the name of something. so you look what follows. Next is a nitsukimasu. You seperate this after the ni because letters like "ni/de/wo/e/ga" tend to mark divders between words. It could be nitsukimasu, but you probably won't find anything in the dictionary under that, yet you'll find "to arrive/land" under tsukimasu. So for now forget the ni (which in this case means "in") and you have

"Captain Cecil, Soon/Baron/To Arrive/land" and then using logic you make "Captain Cecil! We will soon be landing in Baron!"

Basically if this is confusing then I would say at this point you need to stop memorizing words and learn the grammar of the language because that's 100x more important at this point.

Based on this post and others in this thread, all I can say is, wow. What a complex and cryptic language. I respect Mikazuki's efforts to try and learn the language, but I don't think I could ever do that.

Sure, "Captain Cecil, Soon/Baron/To Arrive/land" you could easily make sense of (after being smart enough to first translate it of course) because it's a pretty simple line. Imagine doing this for some really complicated manual or something, it would take forever unless you knew the language inside out.

And, yeah, we have ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ and abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz. But they're the same letters, just in a different case. The same thing can be explained and implied in English regardless; even if it is grammatically incorrect, you can still get the point across. But in Japanese, it appears you can't make not even the slightest spelling and grammatical errors, be it while you write or when you're reading something else, as this thread demonstrates.

But, if I may ask, as shuri did... why does it seem that there are so many alphabets throughout Asian languages? Yeah, we have cursive... but it's the same 26 letters.

And, furthermore, why do the different alphabets weave in and out of each other in the same line? What's the point? Why not go with the one that's the most modernized (and easiest) and just use that?

 

[Beezy]

Thanks for the replies. I guess its not too late for me then. Next semester I'll find out if my college has any Japanese classes.

 

[Deadly Monk]

But, if I may ask, as shuri did... why does it seem that there are so many alphabets throughout Asian languages? Yeah, we have cursive... but it's the same 26 letters.

Japanese have three. Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Kanji is borrowed from the Chinese in order to simplify the ideas being written. Kana (Hiragana and Katakana) serve a few purposes. Katakana "sounds" out words that are of a different origin or names, nouns. Hiragana is used mostly for grammar (verbs etc.). Some games, mostly older GBA game, don't use a lot of Kanji and instead just use Hiragana. The Kanji helps by combining the idea or actions into a single character.

 

[Mandoric]

And, yeah, we have ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ and abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz. But they're the same letters, just in a different case. The same thing can be explained and implied in English regardless; even if it is grammatically incorrect, you can still get the point across. But in Japanese, it appears you can't make not even the slightest spelling and grammatical errors, be it while you write or when you're reading something else, as this thread demonstrates.

Hiragana and katakana are effectively the equivelant of cursive and blockscript; there's a few that were simplified from different characters, but not really a higher proportion than heavily stylized cursive characters.
There are also the modern orthographic uses of hiragana as for simple writing, grammar, and words either completely desinified or natively Japanese to begin with, and katakana as a near-exact equivelant for bold or italics, but in general writing in the wrong one will appear stylistically rather than gramatically off.

It's, on a side note, entirely possible to make grammatical errors and still be understood; just different errors than English. Replacing "ni" with "e" in the example, for example, would be wrong but comprehensible. Knowing where words begin and stop is just a difficult point of phonetically-written Japanese, as opposed to the weakness of English in knowing how to pronounce a word given its spelling, say.
The use of kanji trades this weakness for the pronunciation issues of English, but eliminates homonyms in the written language.

 

[Gio_CoD]

I've been playing Rondo of Blood lately and the only thing I know is that Death has a sweet top hat and sounds a bit like the Japanese Solid Snake. Oh, and I think Dracula says something that must be really funny because he starts laughing at his own joke at the end. And then Richter rides away on a horse. Best game ever.

 

[MrDaravon]

I've been playing Rondo of Blood lately and the only thing I know is that Death has a sweet top hat and sounds a bit like the Japanese Solid Snake. Oh, and I think Dracula says something that must be really funny because he starts laughing at his own joke at the end. And then Richter rides away on a horse. Best game ever.

:lol

 

[dark10x]

Sure, "Captain Cecil, Soon/Baron/To Arrive/land" you could easily make sense of (after being smart enough to first translate it of course) because it's a pretty simple line. Imagine doing this for some really complicated manual or something, it would take forever unless you knew the language inside out.

Whoa now, it isn't as complex as you'd think. It's not as you actually have to translate and figure out every line. Once you've reached a certain point, you just read it as it is and will understand it. Translation is slow and akward. When actually playing games, reading, speaking or whatever, you shouldn't be thinking in English. I can think to myself perfectly find in Japanese and do while engaging in those activities (or just throughout the day in order to stay sharp). The grammar really isn't as bad as you'd think.

And, yeah, we have ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ and abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz. But they're the same letters, just in a different case. The same thing can be explained and implied in English regardless; even if it is grammatically incorrect, you can still get the point across. But in Japanese, it appears you can't make not even the slightest spelling and grammatical errors, be it while you write or when you're reading something else, as this thread demonstrates.

You really don't make spelling errors in Japanese, though (I mean, I suppose you could by missing a character or using an incorrect kanji...but it's not the same thing as English). The language is phonetic, you see. The actual composition of words and such is piss easy compared to English. What you hear is what you get.

 

[RevenantKioku]

You really don't make spelling errors in Japanese, though (I mean, I suppose you could by missing a character or using an incorrect kanji...but it's not the same thing as English). The language is phonetic, you see. The actual composition of words and such is piss easy compared to English. What you hear is what you get.

Of course you can make tons of errors when learning.
Like going up to a girl in a conbini and asking for manko instead of anko.

 

[dark10x]

Of course you can make tons of errors when learning.
Like going up to a girl in a conbini and asking for manko instead of anko.

Did she comply?

 

[Stormbringer]

Talking about Japanese RPG, my last RPG in Japanese was Tales of Phantasia, and I was pretty surprised that, despite the fact that I am a kind of beginner (I have been studying Japanese for 3 years for now), I was in fact understanding approximatively 50% of the texts. This kind of exceeded my expectations. TOP certainly does not have the most difficult dialogues to understand, but I was still surprised.

 

[Dsal]

I was going to laugh at the OP, but then I remembered being in the exact same situation 14 years ago with my cart of Phantasy Star 3 I brought back from Japan. So as a great man once said, if I diss him I diss myself. :lol Gambatte ne.

I do think it's harder without the kanji and having just kana, especially for the beginner who won't even know the words in kana or the natural breaking point for words yet.

As far as software for translating while in game, JWPce is awesome. Even better is having a PocketPC with JWPce and some sort of kanji handwriting input panel like Decuma Japanese.

Definitely, the best thing to do is to learn lots and lots of grammar, including the informal forms of it. Otherwise you'll be looking up shika as a deer ;D.

 

[Stormbringer]

JWPce is awesome.

Oh yes. Great software.

 

[Howard Alan Treesong]

Of course you can make tons of errors when learning.
Like going up to a girl in a conbini and asking for manko instead of anko.

I've seen young ruffians modify Denny's' chalkboard menu from &#12510;&#12531;&#12468;&#12503;&#12522;&#12531; to &#12510;&#12531;&#12467;&#12503;&#12522;&#12531;.

Taste the rainbow!

 

[speedpop]

So aside from the basic Japanese crap that I know.. I've never bothered with kanji.

The thing is, I'm studying Mandarin now and most likely will for the rest of my life. Will this probably help me get over kanji later on in life if indeed I do bother to learn Japanese later on?