Grandia

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Originally posted by Tsubaki
Anyway, my opinion on learning Japanese is simply this:

There will always be games that will not come to America. So why not learn the language and make the issue irrelevant? It's far more rewarding than the whining and petitioning that companies won't localize Game A or did a poor translation job on Game B. It's always better to have a choice.

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What would you recommend for someone interested in learning Japanese that has a busy schedule, I would like to learn Japanese very much :)

Werewolf, the first thing you can do is buy some Japanese language instruction books. Some of them are pretty good. They won't get you fluent but it's a good start. This is especially true if you know more than one language, because each language you learn is easier than the last (because you'll know how to learn language better).

Obviously Japanese is quite difficult for an Indo-European language speaker but it's not impossible. I don't know much Japanese, just the basics and not enough to read... But I have experience learning French, Swedish, Norwegian, and German and I have read some language theory books.

If you know any Japanese friends, ask them to help you and practice with you. That's the best thing you can do.

You could also buy some audio tapes to listen to in the car, or better yet you could get an interactive CD-Rom. Those can be pretty good. One helped me with my Swedish immeasurably.

Good luck. ;)

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Originally posted by Tsubaki
There will always be games that will not come to America. So why not learn the language and make the issue irrelevant? It's far more rewarding than the whining and petitioning that companies won't localize Game A or did a poor translation job on Game B. It's always better to have a choice.

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Maybe it's becuase it'll take up 100's of hours of my life to learn the language...and that alot of the good stuff from Japan is coming to America. Are'nt Sakura Taisen,Growlanser ,SM3 , etc already announced. And dont forget about the whole romhacking scene....RPG's like Devil Summoners are being transalated also.

I did enjoy Grandia .......but do you think it would be worth learning a whole language(a particularly hard one that) just to understand some anime voice overs(which I normally hate) and to see some slightly better grpahics?I think not.

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Originally posted by Werewolf
What would you recommend for someone interested in learning Japanese that has a busy schedule, I would like to learn Japanese very much :)

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It's... hard to say... I'm not an expert in the language, nor how to learn the language.

A lot of it comes with exposure. I got into anime at around '96 and as any anime watcher can tell you, you can pick up phrases just by watching it subbed or even raw. But I also liked anime music, so when I bought CDs, I would "read along" with the lyrics booklet. That is how I learned to read hiragana, katakana, and some kanji. Grab a dictionary and then you'll know the meanings.

I definitely can say I self-taught myself the basics that way, but it's a long process and not for everyone. I did it that way because I love music and love to read and sing alone with music, so it worked.

But I also later took about 2 years of classes when I was in college because although you can learn to read the text somewhat, and to build a basic vocabulary, it's quite another to write and to know the grammar structure.

The guy who is in charge of the Sakura Taisen Translation Project , Kayama, was a high-schooler who had no formal Japanese training. He learned Japanese through a book he picked up, and through simply translating ST. His ST translation was kind of poor compared to his later ST3-4 stuff... which is why he's redoing ST translations. But it's all a learning process. He's also doing translation work for some fansubs so his listening skills are excellent too. If I can get a hold of him, I'll ask him more about how he learned, but I'm pretty sure it's all-exposure, and not much formal-learning.

But I do think the best and most efficient way is a class. Classes teach you the grammar structure, and how the language generally functions. It also forces you to write, which makes it infinitely easier to read. But you also should be exposed to the language (through anime, games, music, whatever) so that you're learning the vocabulary and real-life phrases.

As for self-teaching through textbooks, I don't really have any recommendations. My university used "Japanese For Everyone" and although I like it, the first chapter kind of assumes you can read hiragana/katakana already. Most people I talk to used "Youkoso" (Welcome) for their courses.

The most western-friendly dictionary, though, is the NTC's New Japanese-English Character Dictionary which is a nice $35 at Amazon. I paid the $50 full price. It has an easy to use SKIP method of looking up characters, which is great for the dictionary and even looking up in online dictionaries such as Jeffrey's . I'll be happy to help you out with any more resources, but I'm not an expert on the subject.

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Originally posted by xS
Maybe it's becuase it'll take up 100's of hours of my life to learn the language...and that alot of the good stuff from Japan is coming to America.

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If a lot = about half nowadays, vs 30% before, then sure.

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Are'nt Sakura Taisen,Growlanser ,SM3 , etc already announced. And dont forget about the whole romhacking scene....RPG's like Devil Summoners are being transalated also.

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ST is coming to america in some form. ST1-5 + all the bells and whistles is not.

Growlanser 2 + 3 are being localized. Growlanser 1 (which I'm told is the best... i dunno, don't own 2 + 3 myself) isn't.

(SM3?)

But you know... looking at my favorite games for every system, they're all import only. Where's Sin & Punishment for N64? Where's... well, darn near everything(Chaos Seed, Langrissers, Sakura Taisen, Grandia, Grandia: Digital Museum which is a complete game, Shining Force 3s) for the Saturn? Where's Growlanser, Tales of Phantasia, Black/Matrix for PSX? Where's Culdcept 2 Exp. for the PS2? etc etc etc.

Things are definitely better now than before. But the thing is... in America, they decide on whether or not to localize something based on whether they perceive it will sell or not. And in Japan, they simply just make the games and let the people decide.

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I did enjoy Grandia .......but do you think it would be worth learning a whole language(a particularly hard one that) just to understand some anime voice overs(which I normally hate) and to see some slightly better grpahics?I think not.

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While I love Grandia like a madman, I'm sure most people don't. But I wasn't really talking about 1 game... the 100+ hours invested in learning Japanese opens up a lot of possibilities for gaming. As I said, you would no longer have to worry about "Oh, will this company pick that game up? I hope so... it looks interesting." You don't need to rely on what companies decide. You can play games sometimes a year before a US company brings it out. And don't forget you can also read Japanese gamesites for the latest news. Screw gamespot, IGN and magicbox. Now you can read Gamespot Jp, Famitsu, Minaduki, etc yourself.

Possibilities are endless if you step outside the world of gaming too..

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Originally posted by Tsubaki
Anyway, my opinion on learning Japanese is simply this:

There will always be games that will not come to America. So why not learn the language and make the issue irrelevant? It's far more rewarding than the whining and petitioning that companies won't localize Game A or did a poor translation job on Game B. It's always better to have a choice.

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Learning a foreign language is a hell of an investment for gaming purposes only, especially when there are so many excellent titles that are released in English. I'll sooner not play a game or play it in a language I don't understand before I spend years trying to learn Japanese.

Obviously, there are more and better reasons to take up a foreign language, but a response of "Hmph. Just learn Japanese." is really useless.

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Werewolf: It's my experience that a lot of text-heavy import titles are also kanji-heavy, which are a hell of a lot harder to learn than the Japanese alphabets (katakana and hirigana).

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Originally posted by Tsubaki
Truth to be told, even if a game like Sakura Taisen were to be subtitled in English, keeping original Japanese voices, I wouldn't want it. But that's just me.

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What in the blue fuck is wrong with you?

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Originally posted by Tsubaki
But the thing is... in America, they decide on whether or not to localize something based on whether they perceive it will sell or not. And in Japan, they simply just make the games and let the people decide.

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This is wild fantasy. In Japan, just like here, games are made to sell. Most Japanese gamers like to play crap - just a different kind of crap than most American gamers.

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While I love Grandia like a madman, I'm sure most people don't. But I wasn't really talking about 1 game... the 100+ hours invested in learning Japanese opens up a lot of possibilities for gaming. As I said, you would no longer have to worry about "Oh, will this company pick that game up? I hope so... it looks interesting." You don't need to rely on what companies decide. You can play games sometimes a year before a US company brings it out. And don't forget you can also read Japanese gamesites for the latest news. Screw gamespot, IGN and magicbox. Now you can read Gamespot Jp, Famitsu, Minaduki, etc yourself.

Possibilities are endless if you step outside the world of gaming too..

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Most imports titles play fine without any or just a bare bones understanding of Japanese. And I don't see the advantage of being able to read Famitsu directly. It's not Shakespeare.

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Originally posted by burgundy
This is wild fantasy. In Japan, just like here, games are made to sell. Most Japanese gamers like to play crap - just a different kind of crap than most American gamers.

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That's not what I meant. What I meant is:

Japan makes 1000 games.

America looks at those 1000 games, and thinks what may or may not sell. Then they localize 300 of them.

Some of the filtering process is good. They eliminate all the junk licensed crap as well as the many many lame games. But the other side of the filtering process is, even if a game is good (or as it may be, the best), if the US can't market it or think it will sell, it'll be left behind as well.

I'm saying that Japan makes a lot of stuff. And the difference is, if you were open to playing imports you have a choice. If you are Engish-only, that choice is stripped from you. The localization companies make it for you.

I agree with you in principle, but I think the cases of AAA titles being left in Japan are few and far between. The overwhelming majority of top games do make it over.

Most of those titles don't require an understanding of the Japanese language. Generally, I'll import almost anything aside from RPGs if I want it bad enough and there's no domestic release, yet I own maybe 10 import games.

And if you have import hardware only, you're missing out on the great Western titles that don't make it to Japan.

My point is that the net benefit of learning Japanese is rather small, at least in terms of the games I want to play. If you're an anime or RPG hound, you'll obviously feel differently.

I think this is a pretty silly debate. Anyone can see what the benefits or non-benefits of learning a language like Japanese would be and it's up to the individual to decide whether it's worth it to them. For some people, it definitely would be since they may be interested in Japanese books, website, films, games, and so on. For others, if it was just a few Japanese videogames it would not be worth it. The same goes for just about any language. So, I think it's a pretty pointless debate. It just depends.

As for various region games. I just think having various regions sucks so much. I mainly prefer Japanese developed games, it seems, but I like games from all regions so I think it's just a shame it's such a pain in the arse to play imports with most consoles. :(