So, I've recently finished Core 2k and am now going through Core 3k as my new goal along the kanji reviews, reading up news articles, etc. I've been occasionally watching gameplay videos of JRPGs now, finding that I can understand around 10%-20% of it without the aid of a dictionary. So, I figured that I can try and import a game from Play-Asia now, as a way of enforcing my kanji/vocab.

Now, the question I ask from you wonderful people here is what should I do while playing a game in full-on Japanese? Should I stop and look up every kanji or just let it roll on by if I can understand it based on context? Should I be writing down every single kanji that I don't know? Any other tips that you can offer? Thanks so much!

You'd probably get a lot more benefit out of it once you get a bit more higher level. But I'm pretty conservative--to me 10 to 20% us nowhere near enough. I have double your vocab and I wouldn't even consider it for myself. Others may tell you something different, but I would just keep slamming core.

10-20% understanding is a little on the low side for this to be an enjoyable endeavour. It sounds downright painful to me. There are probably games closer to your level than what you've been looking at - you should probably seek those out.

With 10-20% understanding you're not going to understand anything based on context basically. Which means either looking up everything (incredibly boring and difficult if there's no furigana) or not reading it.

Games that are made with one of the standard visual novel engines are a slightly different matter because people have put in a fair bit of effort into making text hookers and automatic dictionary lookup tools. But still, there's a limit of how much you can not understand before it's just a chore.

What games were you looking at getting?

I'm mainly looking at the Tales of games for now - I've played a fair bit of them in English, so I basically know the plot already, all there's really left for me to do is grabbing kanji or words that I can't really make out. I know Steam games also have a Japanese option in them so I'll look in that too.

Around how long would you guys think do I need to do Core until I can safely play through text-heavy RPGs like the Eiyuu Densetsu series? I was honestly thinking of stopping at 8k but hey...

I say go for it, especially if you've played the games already. RPGs are really text heavy and generally more difficult, but if you can still have fun, it's fine.
Personally, I always tried to play RPGs just because it was a good indicator of growth (and I like them a lot), but some people are of the opinion that you'll get no use out of trying before you can understand 80% or more.

As for Core, I only went up to 6k (and didn't have all of them learned perfectly), though I'm considering doing 10k, since I'm really lazy when it comes to adding cards to Anki (it's been over a month and I have only made sixteen new cards). With 6k I can understand most of what's in Tales of Phantasia (despite never playing it before), though there are times where there are too many unknown words in a sentence to understand it (it's especially bad if it's the main topic or verb that's unknown).

If you're good about adding cards yourself, I'd say Core 6k is enough, maybe even less, if you can find enjoyable i+1 content.

And yeah, even though they usually have much more obscure vocabulary, it's much easier to look up unknown words in VNs on the computer (obviously it won't do you any good if it's on the PSP or something). ITH has gotten to where most games work instantly, since almost all of them use a select few engines; I've only had one occasion where the character repetition problem happened, but it resolved itself somehow (it was an older game too).
Voice acting is nice too (for picking up readings), when it's available, so if you like VNs, I encourage trying one in Japanese (all ages, or at least 12+ games are, obviously, usually easier).

It's not so much about how text-heavy something is as whether you know the vocabulary of the topic they're talking about. I don't know about Core - I guess it would cover a lot, but if the game you're looking at is likely to have a lot of specialist vocabulary you might want to pre-emptively study that from another source.

If it's a Tales game you've already played, at least you'll know the story. You might try the Symphonia PS3 re-release, or the PS3 Vesperia if you played the 360 one. But you didn't say what systems you have.

yudantaiteki Wrote:If it's a Tales game you've already played, at least you'll know the story. You might try the Symphonia PS3 re-release, or the PS3 Vesperia if you played the 360 one. But you didn't say what systems you have.

Ah, my main console is my PS3. I'm looking at Xillia right now - I've finished the first one and I actually haven't played Symphonia yet so I'm waiting out on the English version.

Aikynaro Wrote:It's not so much about how text-heavy something is as whether you know the vocabulary of the topic they're talking about. I don't know about Core - I guess it would cover a lot, but if the game you're looking at is likely to have a lot of specialist vocabulary you might want to pre-emptively study that from another source.

By specialist vocabulary, you mean stuff like the lore, right?

Around what level of Japanese would you guys say I need to be at to comfortably play a game I've never played in English? I'm mainly using Xillia just to see where I am in my studies right now. I'm hoping when I finish Core 6k, I can start looking at more obscure JRPGs that never made it to America.

Also, do you guys have a specific method I should go about in studying if my primary goal is to play games in Japanese? I'm mostly working on my reading skills with bouts of ChokoChoko, articles, manga, etc.

Problem is you won't be able to look for unknown words easily as you won't know their reading. You can form a kanji by their radicals using NJStar or sites like this though http://jisho.org/kanji/radicals/
I believe it's a good idea if you have enough patience to endure the starting phase, as finding out new words and kanji by yourself will leave a bigger impression on you rather than using a pre-made deck.
As for reading RPG comfortably, it depends on the game itself but I would say around N2 level (+1000 kanji) at least. Getting used to the way things are expressed/grammatical patterns is sometimes more important though, you may be able to know all the kanji in a phrase but still not be able to fully understand it because of lack of exposition.
Basically what I want to say is: you will have to read A LOT. Doing so starting with something you are relatively familiar with is always a good choice IMO.

Quote:By specialist vocabulary, you mean stuff like the lore, right?

More like - if it's set in a desert, you need to know a lot of words that tend to pop up in deserts. If the characters are in the military, there's a lot of military-specific vocabulary. Or if there's feudal politics, or aviation, or whatever.
If you've finished Core2k, it might be a good idea to subs2srs some fantasy (or whatever genre, but I guess fantasy?) movies/anime. It will get you the words you need more promptly and in a more relevant context.

Do it! If all else fails you can use it as a break from study and pick out words here and there to learn as you go along. If you've already played and enjoyed it in English then you know that you can at least enjoy the gameplay. I've never looked at Core but I had about 2 - 3k vocab..? maybe? Plus all of Tae Kim and some various textbookage when I first played FF13. I understood more than I thought I would because voices and action and kanji and yeah.. context. But still wayyy less than I would have liked. I think I replayed it twice (over the years) before finally getting all the finer points out of the story. But it was fun. :]

Odin89 Wrote:Problem is you won't be able to look for unknown words easily as you won't know their reading.

Fortunately the Tales games are fully voiced for the plot events, so you can get the readings of the kanji from there.

-Listen to every Voice provided and read it along with the kanji.
-Watch lots of anime prior as you can naturally pick up grammar structure and the spoken japanese
-If your getting a visual novel/galge/eroge

I do play lots eroge but I use translation software......I also did order Oregairu game on PSVita knowing I would not yet understand the whole thing but it is good motivation. Bu maybe it will be the end of next year until I can understand it.hahahaha

saikkun Wrote:Around what level of Japanese would you guys say I need to be at to comfortably play a game I've never played in English? I'm mainly using Xillia just to see where I am in my studies right now. I'm hoping when I finish Core 6k, I can start looking at more obscure JRPGs that never made it to America.

I am at around 6.5k words right now (in core, I know words I haven't learned in core as well but not sure how many) and I feel comfortable enough importing most games. Though I have been playing all my games exclusively in Japanese for a year now which has helped a lot, so really the best option for you is probably to start playing games as soon as you can to get used to reading.

saikkun Wrote:Also, do you guys have a specific method I should go about in studying if my primary goal is to play games in Japanese? I'm mostly working on my reading skills with bouts of ChokoChoko, articles, manga, etc.

I have the same primary goal as you. I started playing my first games the same time as I started doing core, and it worked out pretty well (though it felt a bit like a chore in the beginning). But seriously, if your goal is to play games then the best way to get started is probably to actually play games (while boosting vocab on the side). Don't wait any longer, start right now. The tales games can be a bit tricky though, I played Xillia 1 and 2 recently and personally I found them to be among the harder games that I've played with a lot of bullshit words and weird concepts and stuff.

EDIT:
I should just add that obviously you don't have to play games specifically which it kind of sounds like in my post, you could just as well learn to play games by just learning to read the Japanese language in general through other media. But I'm guessing you play games on your spare time if you are interested in learning Japanese for the games, so my point is to stop playing those games in English as soon as possible if you want to learn quickly.

yudantaiteki Wrote:Fortunately the Tales games are fully voiced for the plot events, so you can get the readings of the kanji from there.

Indeed, but as you know, reading and hearing require a different approach. It's quite hard for a beginner to correctly identify the sounds an unknown word uses (short/long vowels for instance). I mean, sometimes even knowing the word by itself doesn't guarantee you can filter it out of the remaining noise. Also he only gets one chance at the audio unless he's watching a gameplay video or something.

On a related note, I don't know about the Xillia games, but i've played Abyss and Vesperia and they can get quite messy with their unique terminology (which normally uses ateji). Maybe starting with a simpler one within the series would save a headache or two (looks at Phantasia).

Odin89 Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:Fortunately the Tales games are fully voiced for the plot events, so you can get the readings of the kanji from there.

Indeed, but as you know, reading and hearing require a different approach. It's quite hard for a beginner to correctly identify the sounds an unknown word uses (short/long vowels for instance).

Yes, the voicing won't help as much for a beginner; I was thinking more at the intermediate stage.

Even though conversation (or listening to speech) requires a different approach, I think that reading something while you are hearing it read or spoken is very helpful in developing your reading ability. It helps train you to improve your reading speed, process the symbols as Japanese words rather than English, and learn where the natural pauses and rise and fall of sentences are. Of course an RPG video game where the majority of the text is dialogue is different from reading written prose, there's still general skills that carry over.

(It can also help your listening if you're at the level where your reading is better than your listening since you can start to process long vs. short sounds better if you know what you're supposed to be hearing.)

Since you're playing Tales games, I assume you have a PS3. IMO, Vesperia PS3 is worth the import cost, 100x over (although I got lucky and got it shipped from the US). I was at 1-2k words when I started it. And to be frankly honest, I was using 5 or 6 different English guides to get me through it (story script, sidequest script, artes, skit translation, walkthrough, translated/original material lists, etc.) With that amount of vocab, there's not way you're going to able to understand much, if anything. But it's great if you're using Kore decks with audio, since there are a lot of words they use frequently that show up, especially from victory chats. Also, try looking up some kanji that interest you. Ex, in Flynn's 紅連剣「ぐれんけん」, the first kanji also appears in 紅葉「こうよう」autumn foilage, red leaves and 口紅「くちべに」lipstick, rouge. Also, Patty and her 女の勘「おんなのかん」woman's intuition, show up later in Kore.

I agree with others that it's probably best to just go for it and see how far you can get. If nothing else, if it's too hard you can always make it something to aim for, and set it aside for a few months. Another thing to try would be to watch some RPG themed anime to build up your game vocabulary. Stuff like Log Horizon or Sword Art Online (never watched them, so I'm not sure how good they are, but if they're dull there are probably others you can find) might be an easier place to start than an actual game.

Ah, thanks a lot for the replies everybody! I do have WWWJDIC on my phone, so I can just write out the kanji ^^ I guess that going by the majority, I should just go for it, huh? I watch a lot of anime too, so I'm kind of familiar with the casual grammar rules that they use. And I suppose I should read a lot also, then?

Btw, is it possible to make an Anki deck out of Xillia? I figured it won't be as easy as using Subs2SRS like for anime, but it's an idea I've been bouncing back and forth on.

You have nothing to lose other than the cost of the game, and even if you end up not being able to play it now that doesn't mean you never will be able to.

saikkun Wrote:Ah, thanks a lot for the replies everybody! I do have WWWJDIC on my phone, so I can just write out the kanji ^^ I guess that going by the majority, I should just go for it, huh? I watch a lot of anime too, so I'm kind of familiar with the casual grammar rules that they use. And I suppose I should read a lot also, then?

Btw, is it possible to make an Anki deck out of Xillia? I figured it won't be as easy as using Subs2SRS like for anime, but it's an idea I've been bouncing back and forth on.

You can make a deck out of just about anything, but it would be a lot more work than doing so from computer sources. Just look up each word you come across that you don't know and then make it into a card; I'd suggest putting whole sentences in there for context, but that's up to you.

sholum Wrote:

saikkun Wrote:Ah, thanks a lot for the replies everybody! I do have WWWJDIC on my phone, so I can just write out the kanji ^^ I guess that going by the majority, I should just go for it, huh? I watch a lot of anime too, so I'm kind of familiar with the casual grammar rules that they use. And I suppose I should read a lot also, then?

Btw, is it possible to make an Anki deck out of Xillia? I figured it won't be as easy as using Subs2SRS like for anime, but it's an idea I've been bouncing back and forth on.

You can make a deck out of just about anything, but it would be a lot more work than doing so from computer sources. Just look up each word you come across that you don't know and then make it into a card; I'd suggest putting whole sentences in there for context, but that's up to you.

I figured I'd use Anki in the event where an obscure/unknown/forgotten kanji/vocab word keeps repeating itself. Although, how exactly do I copypaste sentences from a PS3 game such as Xillia for the cards?

saikkun Wrote:

sholum Wrote:

saikkun Wrote:Ah, thanks a lot for the replies everybody! I do have WWWJDIC on my phone, so I can just write out the kanji ^^ I guess that going by the majority, I should just go for it, huh? I watch a lot of anime too, so I'm kind of familiar with the casual grammar rules that they use. And I suppose I should read a lot also, then?

Btw, is it possible to make an Anki deck out of Xillia? I figured it won't be as easy as using Subs2SRS like for anime, but it's an idea I've been bouncing back and forth on.

You can make a deck out of just about anything, but it would be a lot more work than doing so from computer sources. Just look up each word you come across that you don't know and then make it into a card; I'd suggest putting whole sentences in there for context, but that's up to you.

I figured I'd use Anki in the event where an obscure/unknown/forgotten kanji/vocab word keeps repeating itself. Although, how exactly do I copypaste sentences from a PS3 game such as Xillia for the cards?

That's the problem, you can't. You'll have to use something like the 'kanji by radicals' section of jisho.org to do that. It's not particularly hard to do, but it takes a lot of time looking back and forth from the game to your computer, so it gets tedious.
Of course, this becomes easier once you know more vocabulary and can just type words that use those kanji in order to look them up, but it's still not very convenient. I rarely look up words when playing console games, unless they're really bothering me, simply because I find it to be a pain.

Of course, some games (I don't think Xillia is one of them), have had their scripts posted online, which makes it much easier to make decks from them. If you can find a script for the game, you'll be set.

I thikin we are on the same boat: I'm leaning towards 2k vocab and I'm trying to play my first RPG in japanese. A friend of mine recently brought me Tales Of Vesperia back from Japan but, even with script translations and guides, my first impression was horrible. The game looks really cool, but I felt like I was looking at japanese text for the first time. I think Tales and other major RPGs are out of my reach for now.

A week ago I bought a Playstation Vita and I linked it to my japanese account (with PS+): I started playing Rhapsody (マール王国の人形姫) and so far it has been a pleasant experience. I don't understand 100% (way less, maybe 40%) but I don't feel lost like as I felt with Vesperia.

In addition, I'm planning to play Bravely Default a second time in japanese: a part from being a fantastic game, it's a great learning tool since you can change language on the fly (japanese script and voice are included!) and replay old events as much as you want (with voice over).

zerozerosette Wrote:In addition, I'm planning to play Bravely Default a second time in japanese: a part from being a fantastic game, it's a great learning tool since you can change language on the fly (japanese script and voice are included!) and replay old events as much as you want (with voice over).

Do all versions allow you to change languages ? Or just the japanese / us /ue ? I've been meaning to play this one for a little while, I might get to it after I'm done with FFXHD (the Japanese vita version, which means that I can play FFX on the toilet... a childhood's dream come true <3)