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. 
Last edited by snispilbor (2008 May 30, 4:49 pm)
amthomas
Member
From: Japan
Registered: 2006-06-22
Posts: 104
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!
amthomas
Member
From: Japan
Registered: 2006-06-22
Posts: 104
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．．．．．．。」
