Do you play retro games in their native language
>Love Ganbare Goemon series
>Have autism
>Want to play every game
>Find out that a lot of them are RPG
>Autism won't let me back off
>End up playing it with an online dictionary and translate every word I find
>Do this for 3 games
>End up learning how to read japanese but can't speak or write it at all
Yeah last couple of years I've played most games in their native language.
>>3119836
what does 奈美 mean?
>>3119845
Nami.
>>3119847
Proper noun?
only if the game is either spooky or creepy.
I plan to play this gem once I feel confident enough.
>>3119860
It's fan translated.
>>3119836
I play Czechoslovakian dungeon crawlers on Amiga.
>>3119836
Of course I do. I just wish more people spoke normal as their native language and not moonrune bullshit.
Yes, I'm fed up with translations.
Old games helped me learn English and now I'm doing the same with Japanese. Other languages like Chinese or French might follow.
>>3119860
The translation is surprisingly not so bad, but you'd be better off playing it in japanese anyway, Mystic Ark is not a game you'd play for the gameplay anyway, it's a rather boring DQ clone much like its grandfather, unless you really like boring DQ clones in which case be my guest, you'll have lots of fun.
It also has beautiful art by based Yamada and the game's graphics and general setting(s) are bretty gud, possibly one of the most atmospheric RPGs on SNES.
>>3119845
>>3119847
>you will never remember how to read japanese names
Yeah, I use a Japanese 1.0 Ocarina of Time cart for speedrunning because there's less text and it scrolls faster.
>>3119836
Someday I will. Progress is going as good as it can without a partner of some kind.
If I'm playing a text heavy game I'll probably opt to play a translation if I can, and the second time around I'll play it in Japanese. If it's not text intensive I'll see what I can do without a translation. But I know I won't make real progress until I can communicate or think in Japanese regularly.
>>3119850
It is but I think in the picture it's someone's name.
>>3120250
Well I could take what I could get. Do you have resources for learning, especially ones that involve speaking/typing Japanese? ones I know:
>Anki
Haven't used but probably will try
>Memrise
same
>http://jp.morpheem.com
This is really helping my Kanji and comprehension a lot
>Lang-8
I like the concept a lot, but it's kinda clear I can't type casually enough to enjoy it, and I'm not the most normally social person so I never know what to post about.
Speaking of which, where do Japanese people talk about (preferably retro) games? I would think most I talk to would know SOMETHING about the most normal games from over there but it seems that stuff doesn't really catch their interest much more than it does for normies here anymore.
>>3119836
I only do this for hidden gems.
>>3119843
That's pretty amazing anon. Also good taste.
I played through half the DS Goemon game but lost the save on my acekard, but what I played was lots of fun. I can only understand a bit of japanese though, and Goemon games are hard to translate due to lots of slang and mix of modern and ancient dialects and words.
Recently I played through all of the Super Robot Wars F game on Saturn, it was the first SRW game I completed (played a translation of SRW3 before but didn't got far). I got motivated to play the game and ended up getting really hooked on it, I could read most of the commands without problem, even managed to convince some enemies to join me and stuff, though I only understood a little bit of the plot, and a lot of that was due to deduction.
Yep, native language only.
I know how to read hiragana and katakana, will playing Japanese games help me? I imported Dragon Slayer Gaiden for like 3 bucks and when it arrives, I plan on reading the text and typing it into Google Translate. Or is this tedious and won't help me learn at all?
>>3121779
Games have tons of kanji brah.
Also you could try using ocr.
>>3121784
DSG is nearly all in hiragana from what I've seen.
It should translate into c3po.
>>3121784
Games from the 80s and early 90s often don't have kanji because they needed a lot of space.
In my opinion it makes them harder to understand since you have to deal with a lot of homophones and lack of structure. I also avoid them since they don't help me train my kanji skills.
I'd recommend learning vocabulary and kanji together since they're tied together. You'll eventually have to learn Kanji either way if you want to get anywhere.
I play games in latin langoos o do t know yet. French, mexican, spaghetti.
It woks too
>>3119843
I'm interested in learning to read japanese because of Ganbare Goemon too. I started learning japanese last year through an online course. Had to stop because of reasons, but know I'm about to continue studying.
Could you elaborate on your learning process please? Did you literally search word by word, or did you follow a course at some point? Even if you did go word for word, how did you take characters from the game into the dictionary -- did you draw them yourself?
>>3119860
>Be 11, year 99. Spanish is my native language. Still don't know any english.
>Just started emulating SNES games.
>Played Terranigma, whose protagonist is called Ark.
>Don't know that Ark is a common word.
>Find Mystic Ark. Start playing it in japanese.
>Swear to god that it's either a sequel or prequel of Terranigma.
Yeah.
>>3120536
>Do you have resources for learning, especially ones that involve speaking/typing Japanese?
What I did was finding people to talk with through places like skype channel where japanese people post their own skype IDs and type a small description of who they are, so they can make new friends. There are also a few IRC channels on Rizon like #japanese.utf8 or #jlpt where you can talk in japanese or watch people communicating at least.
>Anki
I'd start using it as soon as possible, especially for vocabulary and kanji. I'd start first with the 常用 and move to vocabulary with the core decks.
>Lang 8
>I like the concept a lot, but it's kinda clear I can't type casually enough to enjoy it, and I'm not the most normally social person so I never know what to post about.
I never used it but I'd just write random crap that comes into my mind. The correction function of it looks very useful because you can ask the person what did you get wrong in the first place.
>Speaking of which, where do Japanese people talk about (preferably retro) games? I would think most I talk to would know SOMETHING about the most normal games from over there but it seems that stuff doesn't really catch their interest much more than it does for normies here anymore.
2channel has a retro games board but they use even more slang than 4chan, so I would only recommend after you feel more familiarized with japanese.
>>3120052
Always reached the tower in the pirate cat world, used the fan translation but I want to play it in japanese...of course I need to learn a lot from now.
Hell, I wish I had some kind of comfy vacation only playing and learning jap, less I can do is to play it on my phone for now.
>>3119864
game?
tantei detective club 2?
Is there a body of video games produced for non English speaking audiences that aren't Japanese? I'd like to think I'm wrong, but I don't know a whole lot of games that aren't originally in English or Japanese. Especially pre 2000.
>>3119836
no I cant read moonrunes
The only languages I know are English and Japanese and I can't be arsed to learn another, so if it's not in one of than those, like it's a German retro farm simulator or something, then I want a translation to English or Japanese.
>>3123530
Eastern Europe has a fuckload
>>3123530
Console or arcade games not so much but there's plenty for various computer systems from Europe, South Korea and the various Chinese speaking territories.
I figure it's a waste of time trying to learn a (rather difficult) language to play a game that most likely already has a competent English translation. The amount of time I would need to sink into learning Japanese to see any benefit with my retro gaming would be at least two years, I'm guessing. I'm already learning German and while I'm at the C1 level, I still think it'd be better to just read Kafka in English than in German.
>>3123580
Now this I could be interested in...
>>3119843
I feel like I did this too. When I first decided to translate game dialogue for my own use, I wrote every line of dialgue down, then a rewrite underneath it with furigana, then english with highlighters all over it.
Being raised on a radical search-based dictionary completely changed how I look at kanji now besides the fact that Ive got a better vocabulary.
But Im also fucking terrible at writing in Japanese. How did I do this to myself.
>>3124090
>that most likely already has a competent English translation.
A lot of translations aren't competent and even for competent translators there are limitations.
Don't think of it as learning a language to play a game, you play a game to learn a language.
If you find Kafka is too much for your current abilities you should postpone him and read other stuff to improve your skills, reading a translation is just wasted time in the long run.
>>3121896
Alright that's pretty cool, I guess I can move to Anki now. Yeah I remember it being a little confusing to me at first glance.
>>3124169
That's obvious, you don't communicate with people in the language. Just like how I suck at listening because I rarely talk, I just communicate by writing.
>>3120145
You don't have you, you just need to have a sense of what's likely to be a name and what isn't. From there you either learn the specific name or look it up. There's no other way to really go about it. If you know that 「奈」is commonly a name kanji and are aware of names that use 「美」 then given the context it used it should be clear that 「奈美」 is someone's name in this instance.
>>3121779
>typing it into Google Translate
Nigga
http://www.edrdg.org/cgi-bin/wwwjdic/wwwjdic?1C
>>3120246
>If I'm playing a text heavy game I'll probably opt to play a translation if I can
Great way to not get anywhere. Force yourself through them walls of text.
>But I know I won't make real progress until I can communicate or think in Japanese regularly.
Not really, it's kinda the other way around, you won't be able to communicate on the level above a 5 year old until your reading/listening comprehension is on point, so focus on reading as much shit as you can for now.
>>3125756
Or jisho.org, it uses the same dictionary but with a decent interface.
Right now I'm playing through the original freeware version of La-Mulana in Japanese. This is a weird kind of hell.
>>3119836
I'm too lazy/stupid to learn moon.
>people who can play japanese games because they can actually read japanese
It makes me mad at myself I dropped moon two years ago and right now I could be playing Baroque but I'm not because I'm a lazy piece of shit. How long did it take for you to be able to understand moon? How did you learn it? How did you not drop it from frustration? I did the Anki thing, maybe got all the way to half the core 2000 (not very far, I know) and then slowly stopped doing the reviews until eventually dropping it altogether.
>>3126091
Well that's what I use Japanese books for. If I'm playing a game honestly I want to enjoy it first. I've sat in front of VNs and RPGs translating word by word, but by that point I'm not playing a game. I'd rather use either a non-fiction or fiction book for this purpose.
>so focus on reading as much shit as you can for now.
Last I tried mentioning this, I was told "No, you gotta jump headfirst into it and learn it all up with immersion" and now I'm being told what I once said WAS my preferred method. I've heard so much from everyone, it feels like nothing feels like the right thing to do.
>>3126138
>How did you learn it?
I posted it in a similar thread some time ago.
Basically after learning kana and going through some beginner books I did nothing but played PC98 games with a text hooker, adding every word I wasn't able to read to anki. Took me about a year to drop the hooker for games completely, now I raised the bar and reading literature, which is way harder than /vr/ games.
>How did you not drop it from frustration?
I have fun doing it. Anki can be annoying, but it's so effective I learned to deal with it, now it's like brushing my teeth or taking a dump.
>>3126151
Thanks for the response. I should try to find something to go along with anki and the regular Genki for basic grammar.
>>3126151
I use Kanjitomo for most things. It's an OCR program with a build in dictionary and convenient way to save words for Anki imports.
http://kanjitomo.net/
I either use it directly on the emulator/game or take a screenshots of a word I didn't know.
Sometimes I also just use is as a dictionary.
>>3125748
>>3120145
With names I often just take a mental note that it's a name and don't bother with the correct pronunciation.
I don't see a point in learning names at the moment
>>3126338
Does kanjitomo works well with games? I thought anything that isn't black and white trips it up but if it works then it's a second best choice after the hooker.
>>3126139
>"No, you gotta jump headfirst into it and learn it all up with immersion"
'Immersion', in the sense of diving in unaided and hoping osmosis will work, isn't needed. What's needed is you to expose yourself to as much shit as you can, the more you get out of it and the more you enjoy it or find it useful the better. Go for Aniki decks + RTK if you find that works (the creative picture memory aid stuff is by far the most useful aspect of that, you can drop aniki if you want as long as you keep re-reading old texts frequently instead of just moving on to new stuff all the time if you find the former too boring).
I actually disagree with the other guy though, reading a text in English and going through it again in Japanese is a great way to pick up a language, as long as you are once again actually committed to that and don't just use it as an excuse to skip reading stuff.
>>3126341
It depends. Different colors are not an issue, transparent backgrounds can be but not necessarily, there are configurations to adapt that.
In essence it depends on trying and thinking on what makes sense.
>>3119836
Way I see it, if a game has a localization, it's best to go with that over attempting to decode a foreign language. Reason being, the further it is from your native language, the less you're likely going to "understand".
Sure, languages all have words to describe specific nouns and verbs, but unless you grow up learning it somewhere where's it's spoken primarily, you're not going to view the connotations and "feel" of the words just right, because you'll apply your own cultural bias to them. Instead, it's best to have a translation that can preserve the spirit and meaning of a game instead of simply translating words one to one.
>>3126448
Do you know any foreign language at all?
It doesn't take you a lifetime to "get" a language, and any kind of translation, especially localization, places you way further from feeling what the actual author wrote than not being completely fluent.
Great resources, it's been a weirdly useful thread.
I just started with moon too. I learned to read Hiragana and Katakana (well, at least I did last year, now I'm working my way back to the point were I was...)
After that...
- I'm using japanese101 audio classes to get some vocabulary, grammar and context (I'm just starting, so I can't really tell how efficient it is compared to other sources. But I feel like I'm learning.) I review the lesson notes after each listening so that's my basic daily hiragana/katakana reading practice. Anything else (videogames and websites) is a bonus.
- I'm doing WaniKani on my phone to start to learn some kanji.
I feel like I'm doing ok for the time being... but still, I'd appreciate any tips. (I'm adding KanjiTomo to my toolbox thanks to this thread)
Btw, for people not interested in learning the language itself, here's a decent guide for common videogame menu reading.
http://www.bordersdown.net/content/63-Basic-Guide-To-Japanese-For-Video-Games
Always remember, when prompted for YES/NO, the one with two characters is YES (ha-i), and the one with three characters is NO (i-i-e)
>>3126507
>japanese101
>WaniKani
Damn, a real snake oil connoisseur.
>I feel like I'm learning
That's what they want you to feel.
>>3126530
>snake oil connoisseur.
So, what's you suggestion? Stick to Anki?
>>3126448
Stop with the armchair sociolinguistics, buddy. The bias only comes into play if you let them.
>>3126568
I would, yeah, WK is way sloweron purpose, to get more money out of youand doesn't have the same flexibility as anki does. If you absolutely can't go without their spoonfeeding order you can search around for an anki deck containing all WK content. Just keep in mind that all their content isn't nearly enough vocab to play games, so sooner or later you'll have to make your own cards anyway.
Japanese pod is alright if you need something to pass time during commute or workout, but less useful than just reading something, even a textbook.
>>3126596
Thanks for the suggestions.
I actually consider moving up to other material once I feel a bit more comfortable.
I still am on the lower levels of WaniKani and have been for awhile without paying anything (I think it's because I signed up while it was still on beta). It has helped me as an easy approach to kanji and to start making an habit, specially since it's reminding me to review cards on the phone. But once it starts charging me, I will most likely drop it in favor of Anki.
As for JapanesePod, I agree it feels more like a complement than a main source of study... at least the audio classes. It's been a good as a start though.
Right now I'm downloading some textbooks to check (not a good moment to make the investment for a legit copy, might do it later on). Atm I feel very inclined to print the whole Genki I workbook and start from there.
>>3126630
No point in being picky with beginner textbooks, they all teach you the same shit. Might as well get Tae Kim's app if you need stuff to do on your phone.
>>3126448
>Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt.
>The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. (5.6)
>Variant translations:
>The limits of my language stand for the limits of my world.
>The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for.
>>3126138
I watched a lot of Japanese series and movies subbed and learned the kana years ago.
I did the Anki thing with Core 6000 in four months while taking some slight steps at reading manga.
After that I started playing games for real, read more manga, started reading websites, magazines, manuals etc. More recently I picked up light novels and started watching with Japanese subtitles.
Never been frustrated with learning since I quickly realized how much progress I made by reading manga.
My main regret is that I got lazy with the Core 10k and took to long to start with learning mined words.
