How To Play (and comprehend!) Japanese Games1. IntroductionWhat Is This Tutorial?This tutorial will help people who are interested in playing games in the Japanese langauge by introducing them to helpful websites and online tools, and suggest the best ways to use themto meet their end.Why Would I Read This?Just by being at GBATemp, you are almost certainly interested in video games, and likely have means of playing many of the great Japanese titles that were never released in English.

You may have a passing interest in the Japanese language, but don't have time to do full-on independent study, or you take Japanese classes, but don't find them to be tailored towards your ultimate goal: Playing sweet, sweet Japanese exclusives. Hopefully this tutorial will help you tailor your learning process towards games and take a shortcut to comprehension.Do I Need To Be Able To Speak Japanese?No! What does speaking have to do with playing games anyway?!In any case, this tutorial includes information for people with little or no Japanese language experience.Users looking for more advanced language help should check out Densetsu's introductory guide to translation, which is aimed towards people with intermediate Japanese skill.2. I Don't Know Any Japanese!Help, What Are These Squiggles!Japanese is considered by several linguists to be one of the most difficult written languages. There is room fordebate on this subject, but needless to say, learning to comprehend it is not an easy feat for everyone, especiallynot those accostomed only to 'Western' scripts (English, Spanish, French, etc.). If you haven't already realized, you are supposed to enter Japanese by typing out the 'romaji'lettering.

Mind Your Language turns understanding a new language into a fun, exciting game, where you learn while you play. By using minigames to teach Vocabulary and Grammar, players gain a knowledge of a foreign language without even realising they are learning. Game Features Character Creation System to personalise your learning experience 3D representat. Again, while My Japanese Coach will not make you fluent in Japanese, it’s a great way to start learning, or a wonderful way to learn new words/refresh your knowledge if you already know some. The thing is, My Japanese Coach is a game you have to run at your own learning pace. There’s no reward or super cool cut scene ending.

In other words, you just type it as if you were typing a Japanese word into an Englishsentence. For example, 'kamikaze', would just be typed 'kamikaze'. Go ahead and try, press thespace bar, and see the different ways you can input that word in Japanese.And what if you don't know how to type out a certain hiragana or katakana word? Usea good katakana/hiragana table!:DRAW KANJI: Click the paint bucket icon and select 手書き to open the IME Pad!Try your best to draw a kanji in the IME Pad so that you can enter it as text! Now you can look up any kanji without knowing how to pronounce it!Stroke order is the most important thing to getting the IME Pad to recognize you writing,so be sure to visit this website to understand stroke order fully:Hopefully you will now be able to input Japanese text into some of the following tools with ease.If you can't, a last resort is to use a romaji-to-kana converter website. This is an extra step thatcan take forever, but it's better than nothing.To look up kanji without being able to write it out, just use an online kanji dictionary (such asthe one listed below), or a regular paper one. This is a good skill to learn, but can be very slowwhen you're trying to play a game.The Incredible Database:This is a tool that was designed to help local Japanese people learn functional English for communicatingwith foreigners (ie; businessmen):How do I use it?First of all, this database only responds to JAPANESE TEXT.

So if you don't know how to input Japanese text on your computer, go back and read about the Language Toolbar. One interesting thing to note, though, is that if you enter an English phrase in English, the database will give you responses in Japanese! So yes, this is a two-way English-Japanese Japanese-English database, but we're only concerned with one of those for now.Enter the text you want to look up (either type it in Japanese or copy+paste).

It's that simple! The beauty of this database is that you can look up entire phrases, not justsingle words. That includes verbs with their inflections (modifications that make a verbpast-tense, negative, etc.). There is no realistic dictionary on Earth that can do this!If you input a verb (or adjective or anything else) with other grammatical elements on it into a normaldictionary, you will (99% of the time) receive no results, because a normal dictionary only includes the 'root' of a verb. In English terms, this would be like an English dictionary containing only Latin every time you tried to look up a verb!A Great Dictionary:This is one of the most solid Japanese-English/English-Japanese dictionaries on the internet.

You can never have too many dictionaries, but this is where you want to start:How Do I Use It? Kanji dictionaries are more for serious study, but people who are unable to use regular input methods (non-Windows users) may have no other options for inputting kanji!4. Case By Case Translation Method For GamesSo far, you've learned about some amazing websites, how to input Japanese text on a Windows computer, and maybe a little about the Japanese written language itself. You're sweating and you're nervous, because there has been little to no mention of video games so far.

Well calm down, because things are about to get real.1. Encounter A Problem'There's stuff I can't read!' First, diagnose what it is you're trying to read. In a videogame,especially an RPG, text you can't understand will fall under one of four categories:a. Menu ItemMenu items are little blocks of text you encounter when you go into a game menu.These are typically single-word phrases, made solely of either hiragana, katakana, or two kanji.Clasically, games used either hiragana only or katakana only for menu items, even if you'd normallysee those things written in a different script because the game didn't have room for both sets ofcharacters. Later, when it was possible to have an entire set of kanji in a game (16-bit era),menus would be comprised of 2-character words written in kanji, both for uniformity and convenience.2-kanji commands persist in many RPGs, specifically SRPGs, where the same little menu pops up everytime you select one of your characters.aa.

StatsFor this method, I consider 'stats' to be menu items, because it will probably be difficult to find statistical information without navigating a menu. 'Stats' can also appear in a game's HUD, but for the sake of simplicity, let's lump them in with menu items as well, as they usually follow the same format (a few kanji or hiragana).b.

Item FunctionAn item function is the game's way of telling you what a particular menu item (be itan actual physical item in the game like a potion, or just a bit of text explaining the option youhave highlited) does. While not as simple as looking up a single word, item descriptions aren'tparticularly difficult because you already know two things: Part of the description is going toexplain WHAT is affected, and part of the description is going to tell you HOW it is affected.c. CommandA command is when the game tells/asks YOU to do something. The most typical exampleis when a game asks you a yes/no question (would you like to save?), which is prompted by a littleyes/no choice box. Other times (especially with auto-saving games) the game is telling you not toturn it off, for fear of ruining the internal data. And then (in modern RPGs especially), someonein the game is asking you to do something specific, like a fetch-quest.

This is often where 'gamer'sintuition' fails, and it really helps to be able to understand that one simple command that the dogis telling you over and over and over and over.d. DialogueDialogue is what I call everything else. Story synopses, random chatter, plot points,and other things you don't necessarily have to act upon, but might want to know to get the flavor ofa game. You can usually ignore this. if your goal is just to play through the game, but if you findJapanese being really easy for you to read (???), you might want to try reading a little dialoguehere and there. Be forewarned, dialogue in videogames is one of the most inconsistent forms ofwriting on Earth. It ranges from excessively flowery to deliberately obtuse, often times without anyinbetween.OK, maybe you can't usually ignore this.

If you count up your I/O points in the database and this amount is less than what is allowed on the key, be sure to check and add the following to your count if you have not done so: 1. Blocks in your data that use Intellution's Simulation (SIM) driver count as well. Intellution software key. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Fix Intellution Programming Software Dongle Key at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products! All retail software uses a serial number or key of some form. The installation often requires the user to enter a valid serial number to proceed. A serial can also be referred to as a 'CD Key'. When you search for Intellution Ifix 3.5 Serial for example, you may find the word 'serial' amongst the results. The new PC would not recognize the new KEY. I called the local Intellution dealer who I bought the key from and he new the problem right away. Somewhere along the way Intelution switched from Rainbow keys to Hasp keys, even though the software revision level remained the same, the newer CD's have different key drivers. The software key is a 'dongle' that fits in the back of your PC and allows you full operating use of the software. Without it you may only use the software for designing screens etc. These keys can be obtained from Intellution but are quite expensive.

It really depends on the game, though with all the hand-holding that goes on nowadays, don't be surprised if a game is very blatant; Especially a game for children, like Inazuma Eleven, which will tell you, at all times, what you are supposed to do, and point you in the general direction of that event. With a giant arrow.2. Figure Out Where One Thing Ends And Another BeginsThis is called 'parsing', and in order to look up a word in a traditional dictionary, you willneed to be able to do it. Using the database listed above in the tools section, you can just toss in an entire phrase or even a sentence if you're feeling lucky. If you aren't lucky, though, you will have topare down your search, and that can include understanding how to parse a sentence.a. Kanji Are Your Friends!In the phrase:早く起きな！You have two parts:早く (quickly) and 起きな！ (wake up!)It was pretty easy to divide this phrase because the kanji acted as a boundary between words.

You won't always be so lucky, but more often than not, you can separate phrases and even sentences this way.Click the spoiler for another great example of how kanji are our friends. The phrase 'かってに外にでてはいけませんよ。' contains only one kanji, and sadly it isn't even the kanji for the verb! Luckily, かってに　(to do as one pleases), and 'いけませんよ' (please don't do/go) are common enough to be picked up by either the database or the dictionary (you will actually need to look up　かってに in the dictionary first to get the kanji reading '勝手に' before using the database).But what about this phrase, from the same exact game (and nearly the same exact scene):Here we see かって again.

This time, かって is not the same かって as かってに (勝手に), but an entirely different かって! Not only that, looking up かって in the dictionary and database will not yield a single useful results for this particular phrase.(User Marcus Aseth pointed out that the analysis of this phrase that follows (I've marked it in red) wasn't completely correct, I'm adding his reasoning in blue, and then you can read the red as sort of a cautionary tale, hah)First we'll have to look up 'みたい' which ends the phrase.

It's a word you can tack on to sentences to change the meaning to 'resembles' or 'looks like'. So the game wants to know what something looks like something. Let's look up those four possible responses:かめ - turtleトラ - tigerとり - birdリュウ - dragonOK, so the phrase means 'something something animals resemble.

And indeed, if you look up 'どうぶつ', you will see that it means 'animals'. But what the heck is かって!?Because we don't have the kanji for this verb, and the verb is already conjugated (fancy word for 'modified'), we can't look it up in the dictionary. Our only hope is to search EVERY possible word that is pronounced かって in the database, and stop on one that has something to do with animals. The simplest way to do this is with the language toolbar:So type 'katte' into the search bar. 29 possible entries!?

Well, we've already determined it's not #5 勝手 (animal looks like as one pleases?), but that still leaves the other 28. Eventually, plugging each of these phrases into the database search will land you at #7, 飼って. 'TO OWN A PET'In fact, if we search the ENTIRE phrase: かってみたい using weblio's phrase database (a website similar to JapanALC), we get an even better understanding of what's going on. Click to expand.Seriously, 'to own a pet'. So they're asking 'which of these animals do you want to own / looks like a pet you own '.

How on Earth, unless you possess a degree in Japanese Animal Husbandry, were you supposed to know that? This is a situation where having kanji would have saved you anywhere from 10-30 minutes of time.So, the next time someone says, 'I can read it if there's hiragana, but I'm not good with kanji.' Roll your eyes at them, because it's unlikely they've learned all 29 verbs that are pronounced か, including an obscure one about owning animals.This is because dictionaries do not contain verbs that have already been modified.

In fact, they only contain useless root forms of verbs that nobody actually uses, so unless you already had an extremely good grasp on Japanese, you couldn't easily deconstruct かって to its root form. Or rather, you could, but you would be doing just as much guesswork as the layman who looks up every word on its own.b. Particles Are Also Your Friends!Parsing a Japanese sentence by looking for particles borders on actually knowing Japanese (gasp!), but for someone hard-translating using dictionaries and databases, it can be useful to figuring out why a certain phrase won't show up in the search results.For the purposes of this tutorial, I will direct you to.wikipedia. No really, it has a great article on Japanese particles, including what particles are, exactly.There is really too much to cover in this tutorial, so I will leave you with suggestions on particles torecognize:は、が - wa, ga - mark subjectsを、に - o, ni - mark objectsと - to - similar to the word 'and' in Englishか - ka - marks a question, like a question mark but spoken out loudで - de - marks place or means (like the popular game 'Densha de Go!' = 'Travel by Train')の　- no - marks possessive (same as an apostrophe, as in Mark's Apple = マークのりんご)Decent Wikipedia Page:3. Look Those Things UpAfter singling out the part or parts you don't understand, find out what that stuff means!Copy a whole phrase, or just parts of a phrase, with or without particles (see above) into the database search.

Once you figure out what is a single word or verb, you can copy that into a dictionary to look up a more concrete definition.4. ComprehendMost of the time, your comprehension will be instantaneous, especially if you're tackling menuitems alone. Item functionality in RPGs (what an item, such as a potion, actually does) isslightly more difficult because you will probably have an entire phrase to translate. Commands(such as 'Go to the store and meet Kuma-san') are the most complicated things you'll have tofigure out, other than actual dialogue, mainly because commands are dialogue, without theambiguity often found in Japanese (ie; you will rarely receive a command in a game thatsays, 'Captain Masa is. Well I don't know.' , in which some wishy-washy NPC wants you togive the school soccer captain a homemade cookie she poisoned).5.

ExamplesAwww yeah, it's stats galore! At the bottom of the screen, we have a bunch of single kanji - let's look them up one by one:力　- strength, power体　- the database said 'body', but the dictionary is more helpful here: 'health'!知 - wisdom速 - speed魔 - devil. But if we look at other words, like 魔道 or　魔弾, we see that it also means 'magic'運　- luckEasy enough, and I'll bet these show up in almost every RPG!How about the stuff on the right-hand side?攻撃 - attack命中 - 'a hit'. If this doesn't make sense to you, check out some other compounds, you'll see　命中率 means 'accuracy rate', so it's safe to say this has to do with hit rate or accuracy.防御　- defense回避　- evasion魔法威力　- wow, couldn't find anything in the database OR the dictionary?

Let's look at them two kanji at a time:魔法 - magic! Plus you may remember 魔 from the stats at the bottom of the screen.威力 - power! Come to think of it, 力 alone also meant power, right?In fact, just by knowing 魔　is magic and 力 is power, you could probably already guess that 魔法威力 is just a fancy way of saying 'magic power'.

And in fact, in a less fancy game, you will see it written just as 魔力.魔法効果 - Nothing again. Too bad that businessman database isn't tailored towards videogames. Anyway, you know 魔法　is magic (or even if you don't, you could look it up again until you did remember.), so just look up 効果.効果 means 'effect' or 'effectiveness', so 魔法効果 means 'magic effectiveness'.And that's it, all of the stats are translated!Here's an actual game menu. There are stats at the bottom, but I mean, you should be able to figure out what they are based on those little pictures. But what about the menu items at the top?The menu items are all icons, while the actual item is listed to the right of the bar.食べ物 - Throw this whole phrase in the database and you'll get several definitions for the same thing: food! No wonder there was a picture of an apple.びく - 'biku'. Written in plain hiragana.

What the heck is biku?!The database tells us it means 'creel'. WHAT THE HECK IS CREEL!?!?!?If you didn't know what a creel was, you could look that up in an English dictionary, but for now, just look up 'biku' in the Japanese dictionary - 'A basket for carrying fish'.How simple!

Now you see the benefits of using a dictionary for single words versus the database for whole phrases.AHH! That's a lot of Japanese! And there are choice to make! This must be a command.Now, if we were lazy, which we are, we would look up the choices first:男　- male女 - femaleOK, so the game is probably asking our sex/gender.

Everything proceeds fine in this game until you try to leave the building that you begin the game in, at which time you are prompted with this message:Here we have two phrases, divided by a comma (just like in English!), 小包も受け取ったから and いったん部屋に戻ろうかな. The second one is less confusing for me to explain, so let's take that one on:いったん部屋に戻ろうかな has three kanji in it, one compound (a word that contains two or more kanji), and then one lone kanji. Based on what I said above, we can assume that that lone kanji, which comes at the end of the sentence, is the beginning of the verb (and the stuff attached to it).Looking up 戻ろうかな yields nothing., but 戻ろうか or 戻ろう yields a few results, each that include 'get back'. So it's say to say this phrase is about 'getting back' to a certain place.Japanese learning tip.

After you've singled out 戻ろう is the verb, look up かな that comes after it. The dictionary will tell you that it means, 'should I' or 'I wonder', when it comes at the end of a sentence. If your memory isn't awesome, write down all these sentence-ending words to save yourself the trouble of looking them up later!Then we can look up the rest of the phrase, starting with the kanji (because non-verb kanji usually represent nouns, or at least something more concrete than random grammar particles).

部屋 means 'room', so we can assume this phrase means 'get back to the room'.In the context of the game, this makes sense, because this message pops up every time we try to leave a certain building. The game is letting you know you have to go back to your room to progress the story! Aye, congrats. I'm honestly not all that interested in learning Japanese but likely I'll have to slowly do so and a lot of the links here will help, if nothing else-and I think you realize that certain people will only take it so far as you included a section just with links for reference which is great. Throwing words around dictionaries and using common sense is a decent way to pick up key words and stuff and slowly hack away at the tedious process of trying to understand a game in a totally foreign language.

First we'll have to look up 'みたい' which ends the phrase. It's a word you can tack on to sentences to change the meaning to 'resembles' or 'looks like'. So the game wants to know what something looks like something. Maybe.OK, so the phrase means 'something something animals resemble.

And indeed, if you look up 'どうぶつ', you will see that it means 'animals'. But what the heck is かって!? Eventually, plugging each of these phrases into the database search will land you at #7, 飼って. 'TO OWN A PET'Seriously, 'to own a pet'. So they're asking 'which of these animals looks like a pet you own'.