Currently playing through Japanese Chrono Trigger. In this SNES game you can time travel and one of the time periods is 6500万 B.C. where you can interact with cavemen. Their speech is delightfully grammar-free and I found it very good for learning vocabulary.

Some examples....

へんな石　見つけた！
持ってると　気持ち悪かった．．．．．．
すぐ　すてた。

(He's talking about ice, btw)

さむくなった　モンスター　へった。
動物も　へった。

元気の水　取れなくなった。
こんな事　はじめて。

おおきな火　ラヴォス。
あれ　落ちてきた。
さむくなった．．．．．．

エイラ　酋長　やめた。
今　キーノ　酋長。

恐竜　みんな　みんな　かみなりで
ビリビリ　感電！　知ってたか？

空　雲　多くなった。
お日様　あまり　見えない。

EDIT: Mis-typed こんな as こんあ. I do that alot, darn ん is annoying to IME with a Roman keyboard.

pretty simple japanese ^_^ chrono trigger is my favorite game of all time...... i'll have to go through it someday in japanese once my japanese skills get better... have fun!!! (i really would like to play Mother 3 in japanese one day too)

Man, that's a great idea. I haven't played that game in years. I love the Frog's theme song.

Are you playing with an emulator? Where did you find a copy of the Japanese version of Chrono Trigger?

Best. Game. Ever!

I haven't played it in Japanese, but that's definitely on my list of things to do before I die

We aren't supposed to post links to material that is copyright-sensitive, like ROMs, but I *will* say that you can find a Japanese language patch for the Chrono Trigger ROM if you search around for it.

I'm playing through Mother 1 in Japanese right now, and the grammar is simple enough. The thing that kills me is that there are a lot of made up words about magic and whatnot that I just don't get. Imagine reading 'hocus pocus calamajoo' or similarly nonsensical words. *rolls eyes*

Anyway, for anyone that likes video games and hasn't tried one in Japanese yet, let me just say that finishing one in Jgo is *such* a rewarding experience. If you have a DS, I'd highly recommend picking up a copy of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, since the grammar isn't too terribly bad (I've only got JLPT 3) and ALL the kanji can be clicked on to bring up the furigana.

Happy gaming!

I found it. Started a new game up. 懐かしい！ Thanks for the idea snispilbor. And thanks for the help amthomas.

Never played the Mother series before. is it good?

Man, Marle sounds waay cuter in Japanese.

tummai Wrote:I found it. Started a new game up. 懐かしい！ Thanks for the idea snispilbor. And thanks for the help amthomas.

Never played the Mother series before. is it good?

The Mother series is very good. The 2nd one was released in the US under the title "Earthbound" for SNES. Also, the English version of the first Mother was completed by Nintendo but never officially released. Its called Earthbound 0 for NES and its one of the more infamous ROMs out there with an interesting back story.
I'm still disappointed to this day because Mother 3 was originally set to come out for N64, and due to the amazing preview pics, was one of the reasons I bought that system. (As a hardcore RPG fan, N64 was a huge letdown. Anybody remember Brian from Quest 64?? Gross!) In recent years, Mother 3 finally came out for GBA. Waaaah!

Yeah, I managed to pick up a GBA cartridge in Japan that has both Mother and Mother 2 on it, and then I bought the GBA version of Mother 3, so there's plenty of mothering to be done. I'm sure you can buy legit copies of the Jgo mother games through, say, playasia or something.

Not all the Japanese in CT is as easy as the cavemen. The people in the magic floating kingdom, have pretty complex grammar and vocabulary, there's even a word (魔神器 = まじんき = Mammon Machine) that you can't figure out the reading just from WWWJDIC. And some of the people from various older time periods use archaic stuff like -ぬ negative and お主 (おぬし), and 共 (ども) as a kind of condescending unfriendly form of さん.

The worst part though, is the robots from the future (including Robo), they use katakana everywhere, they even use ヲ as the direct object particle, I guess that makes it sound robotic in Japanese.

Here's 魔王 (Magus) at the End of Time:
魔王「．．．．．．。
お前が死んだのは弱さのせいだ。
私の力が必要だろう．．．．．．？
(say いいえ):
魔王「フン、弱い者ほど弱がる．．．．．．。」
(say はい):
魔王「足手もといになるようなら殺すぞ．．．．．．。」

shaydwyrm Wrote:Man, Marle sounds waay cuter in Japanese.

Man, I know. That was the first thing that came to mind when I started playing. "Woah, I don't remember Marle being this cute."
Well, right after "Dude, I'm playing a game in Japanese!"