Wanting to learn Japanese?

[MNKyDeth]

So... because I really, really enjoy rpg's especially old school style ones I have come to the conclusion I need to start reading some Japanese.

Does anyone have any good recommendations on how to go about learning to read Japanese? I mean I can google search for the best ways etc but I know people here on the forums have done it eother by living in Japan and learning or by other methods.

Please, any advice is greatly appreciated as I want to RPG and understand what the entire story is etc in the games I am playing.

[johnnykonami]

I'm still learning after many years, and it's not something that will come quickly to you, but the easiest thing to start with is learning katakana and hiragana.  Probably in that order, that's how I did it.  You'll be surprised how many titles and little words you can translate just with katakana, as it's just a way to write out English words using the Japanese syllabic system (and other non-Japanese language words too, so if you get stuck trying to figure one out, it might not be English in origin.)  Hiragana, which you can learn right after katakana, is how most Japanese words, particles, and so on will be written out.  You will also see it quite often attached to the end of Kanji and you'll need to know it already to proceed with that.  Good news is you can learn those two alphabets in no time, there are 42 sounds/syllables in either script.

After that, you might wanna take a stab at learning some beginner kanji.  There's a couple sites out there, wanikani is one - unfortunately you have to pay to continue past level 3.  Memrise is another.  You will be surprised how many basic kanji phrases show up frequently in video games.  Buy, sell, open, close, king, princess, key, enter, exit, 1 player, 2 player, start, continue, etc... so even learning some of the basics will give you something to work with.  You will pick up vocab at the same time.  I didn't start out like this, but now I think you should learn the kanji and the vocab in tandem.

I'm still an amateur, and learning it is more of a hobby for me.  I'm far from fluent, and I think there are many members here who know a lot more who might have other advice for you.  But that's how I'd start.  You are a long way off from understanding the dialogue in an RPG, but you will be able to work out menus and items in one with a small amount of effort in no time.

[Siskan]

I'm studying Japanese at the university. While that's not a must in order to learn Japanese, it's certainly a lot easier with a teacher or a few.

What I'd say you absolutely do need is a proper book. I know it's super convenient and often free to find lessons online, but you should know that there will be a lot of strange and incorrect points and there's not much structure to things.

If you are serious about learning Japanese, buying a book should be no hurdle. I'd recommend Genki. And also the workbook and answer key for it, especially if you're going to study on your own.

Try to learn some basic radicals (kanji components) before you move on from the first few kanji. It will help a lot later on, as many kanji look similar to each other. That's probably the only thing Genki doesn't cover properly though. I believe the web would be a sufficient source for this, but there are of course books out there as well.

[johnnykonami]

We used Genki in my classes also, It's pretty much the gold standard for Japanese text books.  I had a good experience and had a really nice professor (who was a native), but it's good to have your own motivation to learn beyond assigned materials which is what any class eventually turns into.  Really learning something comes from applied use.

[shawnji]

I can agree with a lot of what's been said here.  When you do get hiragana and katakana down, you might try the website "renshuu.org".  They have a quizzing system where you can set up study schedules using a wide variety of materials.  Last I checked they have a library of over 3500 kanji with all on-yomi and kun-yomi readings, and thousands upon thousands of vocabulary terms and grammer questions.  Most of it can be arranged by either JLPT levels or Kanji Kentei, so you can set up your own personal schedule based around your level.  The quizzes also track your most missed terms while assigning mastery levels to kanji or terminology that you consistently get correct.  It will quiz you on your most-missed terms more often while still mixing in other material that you're familiar with. 

I worked in an office with several other professional translators who all used it as a study resource despite being at varying levels of ability.  It's an excellent site.  The best thing about it is that's it's completely free unless you want grammer lessons and graphs showing breakdowns of your progress (it even goes so far as to show you what time of day you tend to score better).  I highly recommend it.

[elmer]

Please, any advice is greatly appreciated as I want to RPG and understand what the entire story is etc in the games I am playing.

I agree ... personally, I need to understand what the story is in order to really enjoy the game.

Unfortunately ... I'm awful at languages, and that's after spending many years at schools with teachers trying to drill French, German and even Latin into my head.

If you find that everyone's good advice doesn't work for you ... perhaps you can just choose the "easier" route become a programmer instead, and then help work on translations! 

[johnnykonami]

renshuu.org

Thanks for posting this, I didn't know about this one.  I'm going to try it out myself.

[xelement5x]

renshuu.org

Thanks for posting this, I didn't know about this one.  I'm going to try it out myself.

Seconded.  I was semi-fluent in Japanese and lived there awhile but it's been almost 10 years since I used it regular for anything besides videogames or other minor reading. This seems to be a really good resource.

[nopepper]

I used this RPG to learn basic kata and hiragana, and it worked really well!

https://lrnj.com/

[cr8zykuban0]

i have my japanese coach on the nintendo ds which a good way to get familiar with phrases and the writing systems with some mini games along with it. I also watch videos from time to time. I really want to invest in a book to help me know more since i would like to visit japan in 2017

[Punch]

Learning the kana is the easiest part of the whole thing and can be done in a week, please do it before going for books. Romaji learning is only going to hurt you.

This is how I'm currently studying:
1 - Japanese for Everyone - Gakken (old book but a really good, underrated one)
2 - A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar - Japan Times (really good, must buy reference)
3 - Remembering the Kanji - Univ. of Hawaii/Heisig (a really controversial one, search about it, and only buy it if you think you agree with the method)

Here's a table with a list of books that can serve as your first textbook: http://rtkwiki.koohii.com/wiki/Comparison_of_Japanese_Textbooks_Table

I used this RPG to learn basic kata and hiragana, and it worked really well!

https://lrnj.com/

Weaboo Software Products presents
a RPG MAKER production

(seriously, the webpage and the game's screenshots didn't leave a good impression at all, and the paypal links just put me off of trying the free version)

[SamIAm]

I don't want to discourage you, but if you're looking to actually understand the stories in some of these Japanese games, you need to come to grips with certain realities, and set realistic goals for yourself.

There are a lot of people, including people majoring in the language at university, who let themselves plateau after memorizing just a few hundred kanji and maybe a couple thousand words. That's not going to do it. You'll understand as much playing a game at that level as you will watching a movie that's only 30% downloaded in bittorrent.

If you're just looking to learn some menu words and be able to recognize when someone tells you to "go east" or "open the door", that's a reasonable and easily accomplished goal. Some people might also find enough reward in understanding whatever bits and pieces of story they get at a low level that that's worth it, too. I never did, though. I majored in Japanese and spent a year abroad in Japan, but I didn't start playing games in Japanese and actually enjoying myself until I passed the JLPT1 a year after I graduated.

You would probably benefit from learning to speak it as well, which is a whole other can of worms, and is something you must develop like any other physically-involved skill: cooking, carpentry, music, sports, surgery, etc. In other words, you need to learn by doing it a lot.

If you really want to learn Japanese, you need to be hardcore. You need to study for a few hours a day, every day, for a few years. It's far from impossible...many have done it, including me, and I'm no prodigy...but know what you're getting into.

Japanese is a deceptive language. In the beginning, you'll see that it doesn't have many irregularities, there are no extensive conjugation/declension tables to memorize like in European languages, and it's actually pretty easy to pronounce. The grammar seems fairly straightforward, too. This is why there are a lot of people out there going around saying "Japanese is easy". You need to ignore them.

When you get into the intermediate level, you'll start to realize what a mountain it really is. In short, you need to learn to think all over again, and your English ability will throw you off more often than it will help you. You also have arguably the most complex writing system in the world to deal with.

Again, I don't want to discourage you. I just want you to know that if you want to really get somewhere, you can't treat this like kiddie swimming lessons, where you do it for an hour or two a week, and sooner or later you're doggie-paddling around wherever you like. You need to attack it like it's K2, and you need to want it like all the freaks who risk life and limb to summit it.

[Necromancer]

However well intentioned it may be, that's some of the silliest crap I've heard in a while.  You don't need to be able to read, write, and converse in Japanese as well as your average native speaker to get more out of a game, just as you don't have to tackle the Thimble before you can call yourself a rock climber or go over Angel Falls before you can be considered a rafter.

[SamIAm]

Like I said, if he wants to learn some menu words and some basic directions and is otherwise fine not understanding almost anything else in the thousands of dialogue boxes he'll be looking at, that's great. It would be an attainable short-term goal.

Personally, I didn't enjoy playing games that way, but to each his own.

If, as he said in the OP, he wants to comprehend "what the entire story is", then I'm afraid the picture is not even going to begin to come into focus until he's spent hundreds of hours studying. Finding good resources and study methods is important, but steeling your nerves for this hurdle is critical.

[SephirothTNH]

I don't want to discourage you, but if you're looking to actually understand the stories in some of these Japanese games, you need to come to grips with certain realities, and set realistic goals for yourself.....

So much truth in this post.  I can't tell you how long it will take you because the amount of time we can devote to something like this varies greatly.  With a full time job and a full time family I don't get to study enough per day to reach fluency any time soon.  With about 600 kanji and a couple thousand vocab under my belt.  And what I would figure to be an intermediate grammar knowledge there are still large portions of JRPG story line that I just can't come to grips with. 

It's funny, I think SamIAm pulled that 30% out of thin air, but I would say that's pretty close to accurate.  I can understand about 30% of the story line.  Sometimes less.  Even when I know most or all the kanji in a bit of dialogue it can be a struggle to get actual meaning from it.  I've been pretty proud of myself in solving some puzzles in games.  I remember one in a dungeon crawler that required my knowledge of Solfege, Do Re Mi Fa So, and Music all while reading Japanese.  I was pretty proud of myself and my Japanese progress at the time.  But I still wouldn't say I can sit down with a Japanese rpg and just enjoy it. 

At my current rate I would guess it'll take me another 5 years before I can just sit down and enjoy a Japanese rpg.  And even then I'm only assuming about 80% to 90% total comprehension.  There is still the odd uniquely Japanese stuff you'll run into that throws you for a loop.  Some game I was playing had this bit of dialog that all of a sudden started to talk about belly buttons.  Since it was so odd I couldn't make heads or tells of it.  Eventually I heard from a native speaker it's what we would call an old wives tail.  According to that native speaker the saying was something along the lines of "if you sleep with your belly button exposed you'll get sick." 

But yeah set realistic goals.  Your progress will be fairly quick at first and it will feel great.  You'll go from understanding nothing to menus then to items and status stuff and eventually basic dialog then story elements. It'll all happen pretty fast and feel great.  And you may start to tell yourself "another couple months and I should be able to understand most of this" or "another year and I'll be ready play anything."  But your going to get to a point, some call it a plateau, where learning another 100 kanji is only going to increase your understanding from say 20% to maybe 22% and learning another set of grammar points is only going to take you from 22% to 25%.  When you reach this point don't get discouraged.