Pokemon In Japanese

[Turquoise]

I was just wondering for those countless people who watch read and play Pokemon in Japanese learn any Japanese from Pokemon and if you do, Is it A good source to start learning from?

 

[Kingmate]

I wouldnt start learning from it,you will be better of starting at other locations,like a laungage school etc.I learnt it for a while and I could read parts of it.

 

[Ruckus Jorgee]

I haven't played video games in Japanese before but I doubt you can really understand what they're saying in the video games. I meant learn Japanese from a video game. And all that Japanese is in Kana but there might be some Kanji because again, I said I've never played them but I've seen youtube videos of them. I mean I've had friends who played Pokemon games in English yet they didn't know English so they skipped over the important parts and ended up going in the wrong direction, so it seemed kind of tedious for them. Playing a Pokemon game in Japanese when you don't understand or fully understand Japanese will just be the same thing. The person who was confused on English at the time and didn't know it only knew Spanish so he would've done well at the game if the games were in Spanish and games come in all sorts of different languages, just like dubs in anime and TV programs.

 

[Yamato-san]

well, I can say I did memorize quite a vocabulary from trying to read various Japanese sites (like Pokesho), as well as joining a fansub group. Manga raws are great too, if you can find them. However, this was all well AFTER I learned basic grammar and Japanese kana (which I did more or less the hard way, with devoted internet research and plain old class-taking), so yeah, you're gonna need to crawl before you can learn to walk.

 

[Ruckus Jorgee]

Yeah, if I only knew English now and didn't know Japanese, whenever I'd play the Japanese games, I'd try to play it like it's my English version, but then I might miss something in the game and then having to go back and forward wandering around confused so it feels good to know that you know how learning the language while playing the game works, although it's very hard and almost impossible to do. Pokemon is supposed to be fun, not about reading stuff you aren't able to read yet.

 

[wildweathel]

The text in the main Pokemon games isn't important enough to make them great learning tools. Yes, they're fun and help with familiarity/reading speed (if you bother to talk to every one), but books or manga will be better for actually learning the language.

Funny story, a few months ago I was reading through the FAQ for B/W and one of the questions had to do with the point where you backtrack to the desert. I remember thinking "oh, that's not hard; you just talk to the Plasma guys blocking the bridge, and they tell you pretty much exactly where to...oh.

Manga's the easiest place to start, books require some knowledge (and an acceptance that there will be a lot you won't understand, and video games are best for building reading speed and immersion--especially those that require problem solving in the language.

You want something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHfdMIQkSO0 or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4ZCI68hiHc or maybe the story mode of
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ5-5B6wQHA

I don't recommend scanned manga raws: starting out it really sucks trying to look up blurry words. Spend the money on real print copies and save your eyes and frustration.

 

[make_it_worse]

Counting this way to learn the language, it might be a good one. Because I learned english way playing Pokémon.. And in Pokémon Japanese Versions, there are no kanjis so learning Japanese is much better and easier.

 

[Virtual-Z]

I recommend Rosetta Stone highly.

 

[Turquoise]

Counting this way to learn the language, it might be a good one. Because I learned english way playing Pokémon.. And in Pokémon Japanese Versions, there are no kanjis so learning Japanese is much better and easier.

Is kanji the most difficult? Also isn't pokemon in Hiragana?

 

[bluesun]

Is kanji the most difficult? Also isn't pokemon in Hiragana?

here are certainly more kanji than anything else -- the 'Jouyou Kanji' set, 'common use kanji', is currently 2136 characters. Compare that to the 50 or so kana and you'll see why kanji are difficult.

And yes, Pokémon uses kana, except for a few specific kanji (year/month/day on your trainer card, and yen for money); except in Black and White there's also an option to convert the entire game to kanji (and the credits randomly turn English too).

 

[bell02+]

I think if you've had at least 2-semesters of Japanese then you should be okay with playing the game in kana. Otherwise it might be early because you might not understand grammar that well to enjoy it. It'll probably teach you a lot of words that you don't normally learn in books, (Same with reading manga) but obviously I'm implying a dictionary in hand (you may learn some words by association, but most likely you'll be looking up stuff like crazy in the dictionary, but on the bright side words stick faster. Manga is better for learning kanji in a similar way)

Of course, this is all just companion piece learning to go with watching programs without subtitles and talking to people in the language. It doesn't mean you don't need to have anymore professional lessons.

 

[Geodude]

Watching the Japanese anime without subtitles has only been barely touched on. I've been doing it for a few years now. If you do it often and pay close attention to the dialogue, you'd be surprised how many words you can pick up. The first ones you'll probably recognize are the Japanese names of commonly used attacks, such as denkousekka (Quick Attack) or joumambolt (Thunderbolt). (Please forgive the spelling in all of these.) Off the top of my head, a few of the other words I've picked up from watching the anime are shinjin (beginner), kenkyoushion (lab), san-tai-san (3-on-3), konriki (attack), kawase (dodge), aibo (partner), and kodomo (child).

 

[Turquoise]

Watching the Japanese anime without subtitles has only been barely touched on. I've been doing it for a few years now. If you do it often and pay close attention to the dialogue, you'd be surprised how many words you can pick up. The first ones you'll probably recognize are the Japanese names of commonly used attacks, such as denkousekka (Quick Attack) or joumambolt (Thunderbolt). (Please forgive the spelling in all of these.) Off the top of my head, a few of the other words I've picked up from watching the anime are shinjin (beginner), kenkyoushion (lab), san-tai-san (3-on-3), konriki (attack), kawase (dodge), aibo (partner), and kodomo (child).

Thanks for the post, I am really considering watching the Anime in Japanease especially now I know of somone who has lernt from it.

 

[bluesun]

Watching the Japanese anime without subtitles has only been barely touched on. I've been doing it for a few years now. If you do it often and pay close attention to the dialogue, you'd be surprised how many words you can pick up. The first ones you'll probably recognize are the Japanese names of commonly used attacks, such as denkousekka (Quick Attack) or joumambolt (Thunderbolt). (Please forgive the spelling in all of these.) Off the top of my head, a few of the other words I've picked up from watching the anime are shinjin (beginner), kenkyoushion (lab), san-tai-san (3-on-3), konriki (attack), kawase (dodge), aibo (partner), and kodomo (child).

Just to let you know, that's juumanbolt(100000 volts), kenkyuujo(research laboratory), and kougeki(attack).

 

[SSJ_Jup81]

I've never learned anything from Pokemon in Japanese. I wouldn't start learning from something like that, though, personally. The main thing I learned, though, and this is for anything aimed at kids, is how the speaking of the main characters is mostly casual and anything else, was mostly moves for the Pokemon, which helped when playing the games in Japanese.

 

[Geodude]

Just to let you know, that's juumanbolt(100000 volts), kenkyuujo(research laboratory), and kougeki(attack).

Heh, I kinda figured someone was going to do that. Thanks.

 

[wildweathel]

Kudos for getting denkousekka. It's a four-character idiomatic phrase (lightning/light/rock/fire 電光石火), the kind of thing that classroom students like to complain about.

I'm not really impressed by language classes. Three years of classroom Latin and I can barely read. Two years of non-classroom Japanese and I can read, understand, and even speak a little. I'm no genius, but I do get most of my news from Yahoo Japan. I've blown well past my original goal: understand Digimon Tamers, and now it really does seem that the sky is the limit.

I think it's best to think of media (TV, books, etc) as the main course and class/textbooks/etc as the supplement. Most people approach language the other way, but they don't seem to be having as much fun or learning as much.

 

[SSJ_Jup81]

Kudos for getting denkousekka. It's a four-character idiomatic phrase (lightning/light/rock/fire 電光石火), the kind of thing that classroom students like to complain about.

I'm not really impressed by language classes. Three years of classroom Latin and I can barely read. Two years of non-classroom Japanese and I can read, understand, and even speak a little. I'm no genius, but I do get most of my news from Yahoo Japan. I've blown well past my original goal: understand Digimon Tamers, and now it really does seem that the sky is the limit.

I think it's best to think of media (TV, books, etc) as the main course and class/textbooks/etc as the supplement. Most people approach language the other way, but they don't seem to be having as much fun or learning as much.

I personally think it depends on the person. Some learning methods work better for some people. TV is okay to use, but I still don't feel it's good to learn solely by, 'cept for maybe phonetics. For the most part, without someone to explain it, you're not learning why something is written or phrased in a certain way, unless you're watching a preschool show or some show aimed at very young children/beginner learners where that may be brushed upon. This is why I feel that Rosetta Stone isn't very good. It teaches you phrases, but not the reasons as to how to form the sentences yourself or what the articles mean, etc., unless there's more extensive courses that I'm unaware of.

As for books, that's good for explaining things like grammar and such; something that can't be fully learned through kiddy programs made purely for entertainment as opposed to educating.

 

[kiera2]

I personally think it depends on the person.

Pretty much every study on the nature of learning would agree with you there

My personal view is that for complete beginners, nothing is better than access to classes and a native speaker. This will help prevent the formation of bad habits, and a basic classroom course will teach you the fundamentals of grammar. From there it's much easier to continue with self-learning.

Pokemon would be a horrible place to start learning - but it's a great way to practise once you have that fundamental understanding of sentence structure and a handful of basic sentence patterns. Because what most classroom courses won't teach you is the informalities that are used in actual, day-to-day communication. Pokemon features a bunch of characters with very distinctive ways of speaking, and will help you get a handle on the different speech patterns that different types of people use.

I can't talk about learning Japanese from video games without mentioning The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, though. The Japanese version has a nifty little feature that makes for a fantastic learning tool: dialogue initially appears on the touch screen in standard Japanese with kanji, but touching the characters will make the furigana appear. So you can practise your kanji recognition and reading comprehension skills, but have the option of getting a hint if you're stuck or don't recognise a character.

Manga with furigana is helpful for similar reasons - about ten years ago I used to supplement my Japanese homework from school by reading through manga with my mum's help, and I learned a LOT from that. But it's harder to ignore furigana that are right there in your face, so manga is less helpful for kanji.

One option that I don't think has been mentioned is watching Japanese TV with Japanese subtitles. The combination of the visual and auditory information can be very helpful.

 

[toramaru]

俺の日本語も漫画やアニメから習ったの。
ポケモンのような日本のゲームやアニメなら、やっぱり日本語バージョンのほうがより面白いと思います。

by the way. why can't i see the last part of my japanese sentence above?