Should You Learn Japanese with Pokemon Games?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 มิ.ย. 2024
- Trying to decide what game to learn Japanese with? Pokemon might be the game for you!
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(This is a reupload to fix some editing and design problems)
Credit to Anna Baumeister
References:
Homophones - www.cjk.org/cjk/reference/japh...
Homophones 2 -iknow.jp/courses/618828
Pokemon Wiki -wiki.pokemonwiki.com/wiki/%E3%...
Sun and Moon footage - • ついにハウとガチバトル!!きょうぺいちゃんの...
#Pokemon #LearnJapanese #JapanesePokemon #GameGengo
I tried out a Japanese copy of FireRed. Couldn’t read a word, yet I was still able to do stuff like access and use the PC. I think it’s like muscle memory. I played the English version so much as a kid that it was kinda like tracing your steps through a room in your house without the lights on.
Were you able to learn some Japanese words?
@@kingdoge69 Likely not much. If he just goes by muscle memory, it means he doesn't (need to) read, hence he doesn't practice interpretation and comprehension.
Just so everyone who sees this later knows: Pokemon Legends: Arceus has Furigana for the spoken dialogue and some other text. But keep in mind it's not there for all text in the game for some reason.
I'm not a dedicated japanese learner, I'm here because I'm learning korean/mandarin and playing pokemon in korean and just wanted similar content, but whats Furigana? I've never heard of it
@@OstentatiousGrace it's the little pronunciation hiragana thst sometimes goes over a kanji. Newspapers feature it quite often. It actually sometimes has other functions, but if you're not learning Japanese you probably won't see the other functions.
I put over 100 hours into Japanese leaf green, while I already knew hiragana and katakana at an okay level, it got me much better at reading both, and you definitely start learning phrases and recognizing particles for places and actions.
I’ve been playing Pokemon Violet in Japanese and it has furigana, which is great! It makes it easy to read and to look up words I don’t know
My learning most useful technique to learn a languague is inmersion, I learned english not by studiying but by pure practicing, Watching a lot of my favorite content in english and playing a lot.
I want to do the same with japanese and I want to learn while playing games, because My goal to learn japanese is to be able to read manga and play video games in japanese.
So for this goal your video game learning content is gonna be fundamental!!
I still remember たばかりfrom your video. I hope you continue making videos because I'm now your new suscriber.
Exactly!! You have my thoughts for exactly why I started this channel!!
I want to make Japanese learning fun and able to utilize immersion while also removing the heavy barriers it usually has by doing it all by yourself!
Thank you so much for subscribing! hehe
Do you have any favorite games in particular? I can try to add them to the list of games I cover!!
@@GameGengo Thanks for taking your time to answer, i love Shin megami tensei franchaise, but feel no preassure to appeal to my videogame taste, I'll follow your content which ever is the content. I also like your voice is very... like relaxing.
Can you give an update 2 years later?
@@kingdoge69 haha, reading back my comment I can say that my English got better, as for my Japanese I haven't advance too much, I had some rough times after that comment, there were times in which I stop studying Japanese, I would say I'm just a Japanese beginner, although I have no problems with Japanese particles anymore, and I have advance with the 2k Anki deck quite a lot.
@@Arc_Soma2639update?
I'm 2-3 weeks into studying japanese. 80/90% is ajatting. I finished biohazard 4 remake in japanese and I did the same for biohazard 2 remake today.
I'm planning on finishing 3 and 6 now. 5 is available in japanese for me. sadly.
Pokemon has leveled up in the language game with the addition of furigana in the newest titles (Arceus and SV atleast). Tho I dont know if you can disable it if you want a more advanced learning experience.
Also in regards to Pokemon Jargon, in my personal experience you can just go through the game ignoring most pokemon names. This can also go for abilities, moves and items aswell, you just need a general understanding of what they do, and if you have any pokemon experience, thats probably not a problem at all.
Great video! I started learning Japanese "seriously" 4 months ago and I was looking for some practice and I think that Pokémon might just be a great way to do it. Actually Japanese is the fourth language that I'm learning (I'm from Mexico and English is my second language) and when I was a kid I learned a lot of English vocabulary thanks to the Pokémon games, so I thought I would do the same with Japanese now that I'm 18 🤠.
Also, you just won a new subscriber, the edition and information from the videos are great!
今はまだ勉強していますか？
@@willionaire9737 はい! I took a break for a few months but now i'm back in full motion >:).
Do you have any tips for others trying to learn japanese?
@@angelsebastiangb7670應援するんですよう!! 頑張って下さい!! 😀😀😃😃
This is a reupload with some fixed visuals/editing. I think it really looks much better this way and was worth the reupload while the view count was still fairly low!
Thank you all for your comments and likes on the previous upload
ok so i cant see the discord link in the vid so how do i join?
@@debendranathmukherjee5721 Hey there, so usually Discord is for patreon supporters. However there are currently 4 free spots available with celebration for hitting 3k subs. I just need to find what video it was linked on haha
@@GameGengo yeah no issues man... thanx just let me know so that i can join it asap coz i really want to... 😊
@@debendranathmukherjee5721 Here you go!! :) discord.gg/YsWUGjh
Scarlet and violet has furigana now
I personally started my japanese journey with Zelda- Links awakening and Youkai watch 4. Both amazing examples, since both have furigana, easy grammar and vocab and have spaces in between the words as well. Highly recommend!
People in the West were like "video games rot your brain" while the Japanese were continuing education through electronic recreation. Damn, San.
pokemon's been of great help for me alongside the properly named online-dictionary denshi jisho, as you can enter things in romaji or kana and they look for words; helped a lot with the homophones thing, which is a serious thing in japanese when you have little background/context.
nice vid btw! keep it up! cheers
Perhaps you mentioned this and I missed it but I would also argue that even playing Pokemon is possibly an option even if you only know Kana. If you're a Pokemon fan and you already know the general structure of how the games work, it's actually a decent way to get you to actual *READ* the characters instead of slowly, consciously, thinking, remembering what each character is.
my first Japanese "game" was My Japanese Coach for the DS. On principle, it would have been a fantastic learning source: it teaches different grammar structure as well as the kana and iirc some kanji. In practice, however, it doesn't really teaches you the grammar or the logic behind it, and the kana portions have mistakes, which I only noticed because I used Tae Kim beforehand. My first real Japanese game was, if I'm not mistaken, Love Live School Idol Project Festival. It's a mobile rhythm game with story mode (which plays like a VN). Nowadays, I'm playing Japanese mobile games as well as reading some easy novels and manga in my spare time.
Amazing content! I'm learning Deutsch by playing Pokémon Sapphire, not Japanese, but this was still a very interesting and well-edited analysis. I plan on learning Japanese one day, but not quite yet haha. New subscriber :)
The good thing with German is (I looked some attacks up to be sure) that you can use some attack words for day to day German (or at least you don't have to learn all the names from scratch).
Can you confirm that (from your perspective)?
I think the mystery dungeon games are better then the mainline game! especially DX since it has furigana now XD
You mean better for learning? I did notice it was easier for me to understand the mystery dungeon dx demo compared to pokemon let's go
Great video! Your channel needs more subs. I'm thinking of playing Pokemon Platinum in japanese, but the proboem is that it doesn't have kanji. Sometimes I think I'll check Google Translate Lol. What's fun about all of this is that Portuguese is my first language and I whatched a Video in english about how to speak Japanese 🤣
Hey, great video! Is there a specific pokemon you recommend for the 3ds?
I'm learning a language other than Japanese but the reason it's useful for me is because I'm gonna play the games anyway, so I might as well practice a little on the side.
Thank you for this video! I am using the Zelda and Pokemon games to learn japanese
I've had Japanese copies of the first-gen Pokémon Game Boy games for a while. Last year, I started playing Green and took photos of every line of the intro's dialog so that I could go back and translate it after saving and turning off the game. It was quite tedious, and there were some sentences I couldn't translate. However, my Japanese is rusty. My first exposure to serious Japanese learning was over a decade ago when I took some classes in college. I still remember the basics (sentence structure, simple grammar, some very common vocabulary, etc.) and occasionally read or listen to small segments of the language, but it's not enough to help me, say, have a simple conversation. I'm thinking of reviewing a bit more before I get back to playing Green. The low-res text is a tiny bit annoying, but I can tolerate it if it will help me get back to studying Japanese!
I bought Pokémon Green from a JP seller more for a collectors item. That said, I’ve wanted to learn some Japanese and was wondering how accessible it would be. The font resolution is pretty dire which makes it awkward to identify exactly what it’s trying to say at times.
ありがとがじます 😄
Amazing content as usual Matt! I've been looking into what games I could play completely in Japanese to broaden my understanding of the language/kanji. I was considering playing one of The Legend of Zelda titles, but Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee also seems like a great choice. Pokemon Blue helped me learn to read English as a kid after all :). Really good to know about the language options on Nintendo Switch!
I'd love to see other reviews or recommendations you have for games that are great for Japanese language learning. I'm curious what you think about Persona games for learning Japanese too. They are really lengthy games and there is a lot of 'Persona' specific vocabulary, but the dialogue between characters is really good for learning. And in Persona 5 (I forget if P3 or P4 have this too), you can replay the voice acted dialogue in the logs, which is great for listening practice.
Thank you so much for all your support Alicia! I'm so glad you've been enjoying the channel hehe
Oh nice! I feel that The Legend of Zelda titles, while great that they have furigana, are a little difficult of a game to use for immersion as most of the main language use in the game you can mostly avoid (item description etc) and the game is very game-play heavy. However for a first game it might actually be better than Pokemon because you can reeeeally take it all slow.
But if language learning is your top priority, then perhaps a game with a little bit more story and less gameplay focus would help more :)
Oh absolutely! I will definitely continue the review series! I just need to figure out what game to do next hehe
Perhaps the Persona series is a good idea? ;)
I do however highly recommend the series, I think they are some of the best games to learn with actually! (the ones with voice acting).
I am personally really fond of P4 as it has a little bit more of a real-world setting.
Don't know if he mentioned it in the video, but Pokemon Colloseum and its sequel both have furigana. You'll get a better reading experience and arguably better gameplay.
I've been studying japanese off and on since July 2019. I've had issues with learning simply due to the fact I almost NEVER get ANY practice. So the 1500 words I learned, end up being mostly for nothing. Only to get severely burnt out and bored af not being able to apply my skills to something I WANT to use them on, like Manga or Vidya games. Instead of reading off a blank white screen/page only to forget it a few days later bcuz those words I learn don't reoccur
And just an hour ago, I got the bright idea of playing Pokemon in Japanese. I've recently modded my 2DSXL and always wanted to play Pokemon. I remember at some point seeing a japanese version that allows you to choose Hiragana or Furigana. And the idea instantly popped into my head. Tho I never thought Pokemon would've been the most popular first choice lol. Great minds think alike, eh?
Only downside, unless they're voiced, I'm gonna probably read Japanese in an English style fashion
my first Japanese language game was either Pokemon White, or Fist of the North Star: Kami Denshomono no Michi.
I just ordered Brilliant Diamond and Kanken Premium too!
I tried playing Pokemon Crystal a while back as a way of deepening my knowledge of vocabulary and I can safely say that the biggest problem was guessing what the meaning of each word was due to the lack of Kanji. Even simple ones like 行った were not very intuitive when all you have is Kana.
I may eventually give the newer games a shot since they have Kanji, might also make the learning process more productive since it's also Kanji practice in a way.
Oh absolutely!! いった is a nightmare for new learners!! haha which is it?? Say? Go? Do you hurt? Did you need something? So confusing!!
Yeah for sure, the Kanji really help I find, however if you can, finding something with voice-acting/furigana will make your life so much easier!
Even right now i'm going through some old games, whose font is quite hard to read as its pre-HD text, but thanks to voice acting, it's no problem at all to know how to read the Kanji each and everytime.
At 1:40 you mentioned switching to a user which is set to Japanese. Trying to find where to change the settings on my Switch for this. If I change it in the System settings, the language changes for the whole console instead of just one of the accounts. And I can't seem to find user-specific settings for this. I mean, at least I can change it for savefiles between accounts, if the option exists in-game. But it sounded like it was possible to set one account to Japanese and leaving the other one for when you just want to play and are too tired for learning. That would be pretty neat X)
I could be wrong, but I don't think that's actually an option. You have to turn the whole console to the language of your choice if you wanna play in a different language if the game itself doesn't let you change it.
Could you make a video about animal crossing ? I would like to know if it's a good game to learn japanese, and there are also furigana in the game (on new horizons at least) ^^
Yeah! I have quite a few requests for Animal Crossing actually! It one of the top contenders to be the next review!
I have quite the intuition that Animal Crossing could be a HUUUGE source of vocabulary (with all its insects, fishes, furnitures...) and conversational practice with the villagers' dialogues
@@OrigamiByDidi Yeah absolutely! I have seen some really strong interest in the game! It has an interesting balance of useful language, with also quite helpful functions like Furigana! I may have to do it for the next review! :) hehe
I've started playing Brilliant Diamond in Japanese because I played Diamond so much as a child that I basically know the dialogues by heart and thought that might help, haha
It's a bit tedious to look up all the kanji and words I don't know and it took me a good 15 hours to get the first badge, but I'm having a blast! I do wish they used furigana, but hey, it works either way
If HeartGold/SoulSilver were ever go on the Switch with Kanji, I might finally buy my first console in a long time (the last being a PSP in 2010).
Anime Style Games with Furigana on the Kanji and japanese audio I have Monster Hunter Stories 2 (have all language in all region), Yokai Watch 4++ (Its a Japan exclusive game)
The language switch thing for the switch is super good to know, though it is highly annoying. I'm not as mad about it now, but still... C'mon! Most switch games I have allow you to switch the language without the hastle
I actually have both Let's Go Eevee and Pokemon Y ready to play in Japanese too! Will definitely play LGE first
I personally say that Pokemon games are a great resource for language learning but not beginner friendly that's being said I don't have any experience for Japanese with Pokemon games but when I first played Pokemon game I found it difficult to grasp many of the English terminologies like the word "Foe" it was my first time encounter in a Pokemon game at the age of 14-15 and my English wasn't very great at that time another word would be "Lass" I still am not sure of how to use that word.
On other note it sure had it part in helping me learn the language and I will surely play all those games again in Japanese as I am learning Japanese now, sure there are some difficult words but they also grant a repetitive encounter of same words unlocking new horizons to learn language through repetitive method which is difficult to have in immediate surroundings especially in the case of foreign languages, like where in India will I find a Japanese surroundings, games are great at fulfilling that aspect
being able to switch between kanji and kana is amazing
The Pokemon games seem pretty great honestly. Though I don't know if I will choose it because of the lack of furigana. I mean I can do only kana mode but it seems a waste to not use the kanji I already know.
The good news is, all the newest games have furigana!! yaaaaay!
I've tried with Omega Ruby.
The thing that game is so easy it kinda autoplays itself by just mashing A. So I cought myself not paying attention since I never got stuck and dropped it.
Can also learn japanese with Mario and Luigi Games?
I just inherited my uncles gameboy and bought a japanese Pokemon red copy for 2 dollars in a garage sale. I knew it was a bargain so i bought It and now im constantly using a dictionary to play the game. Sometimes It gets very tiring but since i love Pokemon i rarely see It as a barrier. My point is......i dont know, i just like to type.
about the actual subject of the video though (lol, sorry, I talk too much), my only pickle with Pokemon games is that sometimes words are written in kana even when you got Kanji mode set even though that word would never be written in kana. This can give a wrong impression to learners that that word doesn't have a kanji or that the kanji is not used. I know that happens a lot in games (and I don't really understand why when it happens most of the time other than the obvious "emphasis" with katakana for instance or when they want to convey character I guess like "child speak"), but I found that it happened a bit too much in Let's Go Eevee. For instance, on the video I noticed 地震 was written in kana in one of the pokemon abilities. so sometimes it can be a bit "deceiving" and actually much harder to read for kanji aficionados like me. and yes, last point, to any fellow learners, my advice is DEFO learn Kanji from day 1 hour 0! I could not agree more with your advice, 先生！ :)
aren't most or all of the moves written in kana?
What about ace attorney can you use that
If you did that in a video please text me it’s name thank you
Not particularly relevant, but another bonus is how much cheaper Japanese pokemon games are than english ones
Does anyone know which games have kanji and which don't? I loved Soul Silver but it sounds like it doesn't have kanji and I've been playing animal crossing and it's really annoying to have to look up a word I could have read if it was just kanji in the first place 😭
That would be a great video to make actually! Ill see what I can do!
@@GameGengo Omg this would be AMAZING
Hello Gengo san, please recommend something for android as well. I have watched a lot of your videos but you haven't recommended any game for Android users...😢
Got to love how Erika is Erika in both English and Japanese.
Playing through Pokemon Shining Pearl in Japanese and I've played about 18 hours.
Although I really love Pokemon, I think I have to save it for next time. Not having any furigana makes me feel like I have to intensively read everything and it becomes really tiring.
I cant really stand pressing next on dialogues which I can't even read, I'm fine with not understanding though.
But it did help me learn a lot of words fast and learn a lot of kanji.
Too bad I can't understand and read Japanese. I love the effort of the Japanese version of Pokemon
will it be lessons for beginners?
I will be doing lessons for all levels using many many different games!
What games do you enjoy in Japanese? :)
@@GameGengo There are a lot of them, I really love translating Japanese games. The last game I played in Japanese was a Chrono trigger - it's not very difficult Japanese, but there are a lot of interesting things. And of course I would like you to do a review of Danganronpa, that would be very cool. There are already three parts on the pc, and there is a very difficult Japanese.
@@GameGengo By the way, if you need any help with content creation, please feel free to let me know
Thanks man!! I really appreciate the support! If you ever do any game translations/transcripts I'd love to read them! :)
I found it cheaper to buy all the Pokémon DS games in Japanese but i can’t read any Japanese 💀
can't blame people that play pokémon in japanese. our western copies are loaded with harmless to pointless localisation and censorship. drunk man in viridian? nope. marriage between humans and pokémon? begone! npc named after masudas daughter... no personal easter egg for us
so win-win situation
Yeah for sure! I love playing my old fav games in Japanese as it feels like you are exploring your beloved games and getting even more!
More context or more understanding of certain scenes etc, so fun! :D
Localization cancer (culture swap, censorship, name changes, altered characterization, purposely done mistranslations, altered lore etc) is not only present in Pokemon games. It's present in almost all Japanese games. It's a primary reason why I started learning Japanese.
Nahh I'm glad they censored the marriage part 💀💀💀