Grandia

[StriderKyo]

I'm all for learning people learning Japanese, it's a beautiful language. But anyone who spends 7 years of their life in hardcore study just so they can get a better framerate in Grandia is an idiot. By the time you've finally learned the language, you'll discover that you have the ability to read things that aren't aimed at 9 year olds. (Sorry, had to get that off my chest).

[Diff-chan]

Originally posted by Tsubaki
Well good for you. Of course it's a long process, as is learning anything. If you need any assistance, I'm sure many people here including me would be happy to assist you.

I dont want help from you. If you feel the desire to learn a language to play games aimed at, yes, 9-year olds (StriderKyo is right), be my guest. You learned bits and pieces of the language and use that amazing power to post about shitty Japanese-only RPGs and tell people who like Final Fantasy that they have no opinion. Please. Why didnt you just learn French instead, and at least spare us your arrogance?

And Im no linguistics expert, but considering that Japanese has multiple readings for each character (why did you put the word kanji in quotes? I realize its not called kanji in Chinese but nonetheless), and Chinese has only one, Japanese is generally regarded as more difficult *to write*. And yes, Im aware of Japanese's "alphabet" system, dont take me for a fool.

[Melf]

I would think that Chinese would be more difficult than Japanese, being a tone language and all. Japanese isn't a tone language, is it?

[burgundy]

What does the difficulty of Chinese have to do with anything?

[Tsubaki]

You learned bits and pieces of the language and use that amazing power to post about shitty Japanese-only RPGs and tell people who like Final Fantasy that they have no opinion. Please.

Oh and please tell us of these awful RPGs I speak about. I'm still waiting for some specific examples of well... anything you've said in this thread.

Why didnt you just learn French instead, and at least spare us your arrogance?

I'm arrogant because I provide backup for everything I say? Thanks.

All I see is you generally calling imports crappy, calling Grandia overrated and not that special, etc etc, yet you've not presented a basis for any of your statements.

And Im no linguistics expert, but considering that Japanese has multiple readings for each character (why did you put the word kanji in quotes? I realize its not called kanji in Chinese but nonetheless), and Chinese has only one, Japanese is generally regarded as more difficult *to write*.

Yes, I wrote kanji in quotes because in Chinese they're all those types of characters. You are correct in that there are multiple readings for characters in Japanese, but writing them is not the difficult part. What's difficult about Japanese is reading aloud, specifically the pronunciation of word combinations. Writing is not difficult because once you've learned a word, you've learned the word. There's only one way to write it. Reading for meaning is not difficult because of the same thing. And because Chinese characters/kanji have meaning in their strokes and radicals, you can decipher meaning without even knowing what the word means. On the other hand, what's extremely difficult about Japanese is the pronunciation of words and their combinations. It's why you can receive a business card of someone's name and have absolutely no clue how to say it.

But in the context of entertainment, reading words outloud is not something that matters much, if at all.

Originally posted by burgundy
What does the difficulty of Chinese have to do with anything?

diff said that Japanese was perhaps the most difficult written language in the world, and Chinese is far more so.

[Diff-chan]

When I say "crappy" or "piece of shit", Im referring to RPGs in Japanese that you rave about that nobody else here plays because they dont pretend to be Japanese. Im not gonna play them because theyre in Japanese and I dont know Japanese all that well (and you probably dont know much more than me). Maybe in 2 years. This thread is ultimately as productive as your GC-GBA player one... it was hurt because you posted stupid shit and got called on it.

And what the fuck? I played Grandia. I own it. In fact, I played and own Grandia in a version with my native tongue. The graphics aren't great. The storyline isn't great. The characters are kinda annoying and generic (young hero, annoying little girl with crush on him, etc.). Its rather foolish to me in fact. The battle system to me is highly overrated and only marginally better than your run-of-the-mill RPG battle system. What more basis do you need other than the fact I fucking own the damn thing and played it?

Please.

[Tsubaki]

Originally posted by diffusionx
When I say "crappy" or "piece of shit", Im referring to RPGs in Japanese that you rave about that nobody else here plays because they dont pretend to be Japanese. Im not gonna play them because theyre in Japanese and I dont know Japanese all that well (and you probably dont know much more than me). Maybe in 2 years.

Fact: You just stated that Japanese-only RPGs that you haven't played are automatically crappy. Wow... what a nice claim. It obviously can't be "no one else here plays" because Shou-sama has played and enjoyed Growlanser. Frogacuda has played and enjoyed Tales of Phantasia. PaCrappa has played and enjoyed Black/Matrix. etc etc.

Fact: You say I masquerade as Japanese. I never claimed to be Japanese. Nor do I really embrace their culture. I used to be an anime fan, but not anymore. I've enjoyed more Western games than Japanese games this year. So... what are you basing your statements on?

Fact: You say I probably don't know much more Japanese than you. To be honest, I have no idea how much Japanese you know. I only know how much Japanese I know. Since you don't know how much Japanese I know either, I'm not sure how you came to your conclusion.

This thread is ultimately as productive as your GC-GBA player one... it was hurt because you posted stupid shit and got called on it.

Fact: I did no such thing. Read my reply to the thread. It was OMG! ON TOPIC! burgundy brought up the language issue. I was under the impression that the original poster wanted to know the difference between the PSX and SS Grandia games. Language has nothing to do with the question, and that's what I stated.

And what the fuck? I played Grandia. I own it.
<snip>
What more basis do you need other than the fact I fucking own the damn thing and played it?

Nothing, simply that explanation you just gave would have sufficed. But until now, you have not backed up any of your statements.

[burgundy]

I did bring up the language issue, but I fail to see how it's off topic, considering that language is quite a notable difference between the two versions.

[sggg]

Originally posted by Tsubaki
As much as you'd like to think Japanese is impossible, try Chinese where there's like 10-20x as many "kanji". Written Japanese is quite easy in comparison, largely in part that it has an "alphabet" system.

This is a bit off-topic... but if anyone is curious Finnish and Hungarian (and other minor related languages) and the most difficult languages in the world to learn because they are so grammatically complex. Finnish alone has something like 14 cases which make it so that word order in sentences does not even matter.

Japanese is actually not that hard. It's just a big adjustment learning to understand new characters.

[taloony]

Originally posted by Tsubaki
Fact: You just stated that Japanese-only RPGs that you haven't played are automatically crappy. Wow... what a nice claim. It obviously can't be "no one else here plays" because Shou-sama has played and enjoyed Growlanser. Frogacuda has played and enjoyed Tales of Phantasia. PaCrappa has played and enjoyed Black/Matrix. etc etc.

I'd imagine he's referring to the numerous RPG's that don't make their way over here because they are crap. How many games get released in a year in Japan? How many of those make it over here? A good percentage that don't make it are probably shit, though I haven't, of course, played them all.