Learning Japanese just to play videogames...

[Marcus Aseth]

As the title says,and I apology in advance if there is another topic like this because means I missed it... =_=

Anyway,I'm the only one around here doing this crazy thing of self-teaching myself the japanese language just to be able to play game in the original language or just play anything that doesn't get translated?

There is someone else around doing this?
Share your experience,how far you got,the obstacles you found,wathever ! xD

Also,is 2 years now I'm struggling with this,and even if I made some progress I can't say I'm ready to play a game in japanese and actually understand the story, so I'm kind of looking for people that's on my same quest for learning,gamers I can add on Steam or Skype to help each other in this
If you are that gamer and you're willing to help someone who's trying really hard (me ) ,please let me know and add me on those platforms!

 

[endoverend]

You might want to extend your goals for learning Japanese past video games.
Even if you do learn basic Japanese, it's going to be very hard to fully understand the story without the translation of someone who is fluent. If you fully understand that and are willing to work to get to that point, kudos to you.

 

[Marcus Aseth]

You might want to extend your goals for learning Japanese past video games.
Even if you do learn basic Japanese, it's going to be very hard to fully understand the story without the translation of someone who is fluent. If you fully understand that and are willing to work to get to that point, kudos to you.

Of course I'm willing to do that technically even a 6 years old can play a foreign game just by randomly pressing buttons,for me playing a game means to 100% understand it,and if that means to become a fluent speaker,that's what I will do

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Densetsu has an excellent thread on learning Japanese, check it out if you need any help or resources. http://gbatemp.net/threads/learning-japanese-the-nihongo-faq.290986/

 

[Marcus Aseth]

Thanks Tom,though I don't lack resources at all. Problem is,resources take time to be studied,for instance this days I'm reading "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar" from cover to cover,I'm now at page 358 but while playing "The Last Remnant" on pc it happened to me that I found a sentence that used some advanced grammar point wich probably is explained in the intermediate or advanced book. Now,I also failed to identify that grammar point so I couldn't properly search for it nor translate that sentence,and this is why I'm looking for people instead of resources,because someone more experienced than me could have instantly identified the advanced grammar point and pointed me in the right direction so that I could have studied now the grammar that I need to properly understand that text and keep playing,instead of being forced to save and turn off.
I will eventually learn that too since I plan to read in order all 3 those grammar books,it's just that for now I lack a "Senpai" so to say wich can quickly get me out of trouble in those kind of situations described above
That's what I'm searching with this topic

 

[the_randomizer]

As one who speaks intermediate Japanese, I just uh, wanted to say that, there are times where you will more than likely feel distraught or discouraged, all I can say is, keep pushing yourself. That, and your brain will hurt lol.

 

[Ashtonx]

Been doing it for a month till i got sick, now i'm about to resume, my main motivation are eroge and light novels though The least likely to get official translations and fan translations are slow and rarely get finished.

Anyway, from my short experience - kanji - i like heisig's method memorizing kanji with english meaning rather than bunch of incomprehensible japanese words, then you can just adjust your knowledge Kanji Damage is good for crazy mnemonics if you have trouble remembering them, also anki is nice flashcard software with loads of premade flashcards.

Aside from that conjugations are crazy, rather i have those in my own language but it's such a pain to learn it in foreign language and if you think how much of that is caused by different levels of politeness you just want to slaughter someone.

Same with different readings for kanji, as if learning damn moonrunes by themselves wasn't a pain in the ass enough.


Still according to my mal stats i've spent 184.5days watching anime, that doesn't include games with jp audio and visual novels so there's a bunch of shit in my head that needs to be sorted out and my experience learning might be a bit different from others.

 

[Marcus Aseth]

184 days?! Jesus!!!

I have 10 days (9.8 actually) and I thought I saw a lot of anime...
With all that watching,shouldn't you be able to magically understand it all?

I'm italian,and that's pretty much the way I learned english,tv series

 

[Deleted User]

I strongly recomend you practice your Japanese with real people. www.meetup.com is the best place to find a language exchange. You speak English with a Japanese native for an hour and in return they speak Japanese with you for an hour. You should go to that Swedish torrent site and download the ebook fluent in 3 months. Apart from that use the program Anki to for vocab.

Good luck

 

[Ashtonx]

184 days?! Jesus!!!

I have 10 days (9.8 actually) and I thought I saw a lot of anime...
With all that watching,shouldn't you be able to magically understand it all?

I'm italian,and that's pretty much the way I learned english,tv series

http://myanimelist.net/profile/ashton
As i've said it's a mess in my head, when i hear dialogue etc i sort of do understand it but i don't i get more or less what they're talking about but not enough to enjoy it or be sure what was said etc.

Besides it's useless in what i care about the most, books, manga, games where there's a lot of kanji.

As for learning english, it's similiar for me, cartoons in english when i was a kid (not much of that in my native language when i was a kid), then games and later manga, books, websites, after that it was mmo games and irc.

But english is quite simple and easy to learn this way, japanese is crazy.

 

[Marcus Aseth]

But english is quite simple and easy to learn this way, japanese is crazy.

I'm italian,I can see that...