this is mostly intended for anyone here who is Japanese fluent. All my life I've really enjoyed video games (mostly the Japanese ones) and anime, but there have been many things that have bothered me over the years. my tastes in games and anime are "unique" (not sure what to call it). the anime i find interesting are shows that have never been seen in the U.S. from the 70s, 80's and early 90's-, we almost never see these shows in the U.S. because apparently todays naruto crowd find anime like these too old and inferior to the mediocre garbage they wacth on the cartoon network. as far as video games go i mostly enjoy games on older platforms like the nes, msx, genesis, etc., as well as games that involve cute and colorful design (parodius, megaman) and obscure series that most people outside of japan don't know much about (hiryu no ken series, kunio kun series). and now my biggest issue-the poor localization and sometimes bastardization of said games that DO come here. say what you will about working designs but i cant stand them at all (though i will give them credit of being one of the very first of few companies to serve a VERY niche market) i am NOT a fan of their localizations nor methods, such as changing dialogue to use American pop culture references and making the games harder. for many years tons of companies that bring most japanese games and anime to the us have been sticking with these horrible policies and it just makes me sick thinking about it. anime and manga has been suffering just as much like viz media's disappointing english version of the dr. slump manga and pokemon manga, witch were both censored out the ass. and lets not forget funimation's godawful english adaptation of shin-chan (i must be a minority on hating this version). i said all that to say this-i want to learn japanese so i can peacefully(?) enjoy these games and shows the way they were meant to be. wishing to see these companies get their act together is a waste of my time.:banghead: i apologize about this running on to long i have problems about keeping these types of things short and simple. so how did you go about learning japanese? and how were your experiences on playing these games in its original japanese compared to the english versions? i was thinking on Rosetta stone, college or hopefully both. so what do you suggest?
I agree with most of what you say. In Europe we have the same 'problems' with cruddy translations, poor ntsc to pal conversion etc... Hell, a lot of Pal games are just less-than-perfect versions of your US versions. Luckily not many Japanese products are censored in Europe, things aren't so politically or morally sensitive here (a cultural thing ofcourse). I agree with you that it's probably best to buy the original Japanese product, be it manga, anime, movies or videogames. I'm not so hardcore 'Japanese only' when it comes to videogames or anime but when it comes to manga, I've been collecting those for about 15 years, nearly all my manga are in Japanese. I've studied Japanese in college for 2 years where I picked Japanese as an extra language. It's important to study and practice hard when learning Japanese and to keep up a certain amount of training throughout the years, especially if you only learnt the language for your hobby (I did) and don't use it on an everyday basis. Either take a decent evening course or learn it in college I'd say :thumbsup:
I started learning Japanese to play games. Simple as that. After even 1 year it had really paid off, and in two or three RPG were a realistic possibility. Go for it, you will never look back.
I was thinking of trying to learn Japanese as well, but I have a few questions. How much do you actually learn during your first year of learning it in college? Do you spend more time learning grammar or vocabulary? And is it difficult to speak it fluently in everyday speaking after only a small amount of time learning the language (like a year, not like a week)?
My history of learning Japanese is - 4 years on my own 2 years at Oxford University learning classical and some modern Japanese 1 year as Sheffield university doing modern Japanese 1 year at Meiji university in Japan doing the same classes as normal Japanese student. So that is 7 years of learning to get me to the level where I could understand classes at university level Japanese. All though I was in no way able to follow it all! Still I graduated! Anyhoo, what I am getting at is you have to be in it for the long term. Do not expect too much in one year. I taught myself to a point where I could play RPG in Japanese before going off to uni, so you do not need to rely on the pace of a class or college. Japanese is just a lot of spade work, there is nothing so hard you cannot learn it on your own. Some grammer can be a bit mad, and often it is best not to try and understand grammer too much (Japanese's is a mess), just trying to use it is not so bad. Just remember to put your effort in the right place. Learn to read Kanji, not write them. Learn useful words. Learn normal Japanese, not how to speak Osaka-ben or like an Anime character. And yes you will get by sooner rather than later. Also I went to Japan on my own for the first time was I was 17 for 3 weeks (worked 3 months to afford it!). I learnt more conversation skills in one night, than studying on my own for 1 year!
Well in my case (Belgian state university), in the first year you were given two months to learn both 'Hiragana' and 'Katana', the 'normal' Japanese alphabets. After two months you were supposed to able to read and write without too much effort (easy when you're into Jap manga ofcourse). You learn the basic grammar as well, which I never found too difficult actually. Within 2 years of study you were supposed to master about 2000 'Kanji', enough to read a (simple) Japanese newspaper. In Europe at least, the handbook 'Kanji & Kana' by Wolfgang Hadamitzky and Mark Spahn is used a lot at universities that have a course in Japanese. Get this book and keep it close, learn a few Kanji every day (write 'em, memorize 'em, etc...). It's my personal opinion that if you master the above, you can play most Japanese games. The big challenge are the RPG's ofcourse, that's when a good, compact dictionary comes in handy. In due time and with experience you'll know the basic amount of Kanji to get by ;-). When it comes to speaking the language, nothing beats visiting Japan and interacting with people. No college course beats that for sure.
There has been a thread recently about these piss-poor translations and localization I had about 3 years worth of japanese language classes but I learned kana and some kanjis by myself before I started, by using the Slime Forest RPG. It was awesome, I learned the full kana set in 2 hours! I wish I could continue my study but I cant find classes anywhere near my city and that teach at my current level of japanese It really makes me sad, Im starting to forget lots of stuff...
Just a little advice: - Learn words, not single kanji. Most Japanese words come as combinations of two or more kanji (=jukugo). Thus you will be able to actually understand texts plus you only have to remember one reading. - Learn words in context. Read, play games, etc. - Old games (MSX, NES) didn't use Kanji but would display only Kana, making it more difficult to understand which word is actually meant. You'll have to know the reading plus understand the context.
for a few years Ive been studying Japanese in my spare time, learning words, reading characters, phrases, etc. nothing major, but at least something to help me get started. so far what helps, ive been playing import games on older platforms, such as the famicom, pc engine, megadrive, etc. i can read SOME katakana, enough to reconize some english words and names.
