Whoa, learned a new Kanken pre-1 kanji and word from a Pokemon description in the word 掠める (to plunder, pilfer)
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Love this thread! Highly considering using an Anki deck to learn the translations for the moves, since that’s the part I’m struggling most with. This looks like it might be a good deck: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/3869280496
The move names are especially tough for me since they don’t use kanji, and, as an avid WaniKani user, I tend to lean on kanji for remembering the meaning of words 
I’d also love to know all the Japanese Pokemon names but that would have much less real world application since move names are at least usually derived from real words lol
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My girlfriend had never played a Pokémon game before this. She watched me play for a bit yesterday. She’s now farther in than me. I guess it helps that she isn’t slowed down by the Japanese.
She also gives all the Pokémon human Japanese names that are 3 kana long. Not sure how long that will last.
I hardly know the real names. We’re constantly referring to じろう, ごろう, てつお, ひかり, むさし, etc
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I’m thinking of buying the game. But, I’m not sure what the difference between Shield and Sword is.
Is there any major difference? Which do you play?
Big Camera also sell them together too (however, I’m guess that is not really needed…).
The last Pokemon game I played was Crystal!
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They have some different Pokémon and have some different gyms, but largely are the same game, according to a reddit thread I read when trying to decide.
I am playing Pokémon shield in Kanji mode. It is harder than I initially expected, but not impossible. I am looking up more than I’d like, but again, it’s doable - I reset recently but think my highest wanikani level ever was level 25(ish?) and I am like N3 level for grammar for anyone considering whether or not they should bother with this. I think for someone with a lot of patience it could be doable at N4/level 10-ish.
I’m quite happy with the parsing (though I think it is the first thing for natives that I’ve read that does it). Learning quite a bit, but it’s a little annoying to have to look up as much as I have to. I also have a tendency to over explore and have to therefore talk to everyone, so even if it were in English the games I play tend to move a little slowly, but this is way more noticeable in Japanese. I also needed a break from reading so much, so I spent a ton of time in the open world part just doing battles/catching a bunch of Pokémon.
So far the hardest thing for me is keeping up with moves/understanding text that doesn’t let me click through at my own pace.
Like others have commented, I also find the “what is kanji versus what is not” choices to be odd.
I think the most important take away is depending on your level it may feel more like studying than like a game, but that’s been a good thing for me.
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I always gave all my pokemon nicknames, even the ones I wasn’t planning on using. 
Don’t think I’d do that if I played in Japanese. 
Anyway, if she’s anything like I am, she’ll keep at it.
Spotted this line today:
Obvious enough what it means, but I’m curious if anyone knows what’s going on with the multiple が-marked nouns here. Are they both subjects of the same verb in a single sentence, or is 「やね」 the subject of some other implied verb that modifies 「いえ」? Or, more specifically, is he describing a purple house with a roof, or a house with a purple roof?
(You can see the whole house from the camera angle here, and it sure looks like the whole thing is purple… but then why mention the roof at all?)
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I can try my hand at explaining this.
I think you can break this up into a few clauses:
The first is the main clause:
いえがポケモンはかせのおすまいさ
The house is the Pokemon professor’s home
And then the two clauses which describe the house:
とおくにみえる
Seen in the distance
やねがむらさきいろ
Roof is purple
So the subject of this whole sentence is the house, but those parenthetical descriptive clauses have their own subjects.
So in the same way you can use “is” multiple times in an English sentence:
That woman, whose hair is gray, is the professor.
You can use が multiple times in a Japanese sentence.
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I raised 5 Gyarados and gave them away in surprise trades. I got a Caterpie, Chewtle, Applin, and 2 Galarian Ponytas. Oh, and the Ponytas are male and female, so I can start my own Ponyta breeding program.
I didn’t really care what I got back. I just thought it was cool to send people Gyarados.
I still have my own original Gyarados.
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I can think of a few Switch games I want. But maybe I’m not ready yet.
I never did get to play Sun and Moon. Maybe I’ll pick up a used copy cheep and start there. All this Pokemon talk is making me want to play.
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Yes pick up Sun & Moon! Ultra isnt too different story wise and I dont think you necessarily need to play the first set but id grab whichever you can find cheapest.
For people who play more Pokemon games than I do… is it normal that they won’t even let you throw a ball at a “strong” Pokemon. It feels silly that I’m level 34 and I can’t throw a ball at a level 36 Pokemon because I haven’t cleared 4 gyms yet. Like… why not just bake their strength into the odds of catching them.
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This is new to Sword/Shield. The “Wild Area” is an MMO-like area where you can encounter Pokemon high above your Pokemon’s current level. This kind of situation typically doesn’t happen in older Pokemon games, because the Pokemon you encounter along routes are leveled to where a player’s team should be by that point in the game.
As for factoring that into catching them, it’s probably to prevent a player from catching a really strong Pokemon early in the game. I say it’s best to accept it as a game mechanic, and come back later to catch the higher level Pokemon.
No! I refuse to accept this!
(throws Switch out the window)
Seriously, though, it’s not like they bar you from getting strong Pokemon in the game early on. You just have to grind for it. So to me, it would make sense to make catching strong Pokemon the same way… make the odds so low that someone has to throw 200 Pokeballs or something to have a decent chance… it wouldn’t be that different in time investment for people.
I just find the optics of a one level difference being “too strong” silly. Obviously I’m at an appropriate level for that monster.
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I’m currently playing in English (Shield). I’m thinking of picking up Sword too and playing that version in Japanese (kanji). Kinda wishing I’d bought the dual pack 
But I didn’t realise you couldn’t just change language mid-game as you can with most other Switch games.
Another option is to create a second profile on the Switch, and start a separate saved game on that profile where you play in Japanese.
Advantage: You don’t have to buy Sword. (Unless you want to.)
Disadvantages: If you have a single user Nintendo Online account, a second profile cannot use it. When Pokemon Home is released, potentially you won’t be able to access it from this second profile’s account.
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but is it really that simple? i think maybe if i play old school FF games where I pretty much know the dialogue very well, I should be ok–lokking at you FF7
You’re honestly usually not missing a ton if you don’t understand all the dialogue here. At least what I’ve seen up to this point. Maybe at some point there will be story sequences with nuance or surprises, but there hasn’t been much of anything like that up until this point. And if you don’t know where to go next, the menu will basically tell you.
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Don’t really know what you mean by "that simple, but basically what @Leebo said, Pokemon games aren’t exactly the type of game where you have to understand every word to progress.
I’d say the biggest “struggle” in terms of actual impact on gameplay is not knowing move/ability names and having to decipher their descriptions, either to realize which English move/ability it is, or understand it to the extent that I know what it does even if don’t remember which move/ability it is in English.
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At least every other line of dialog so far seems to be either 「ポケモンチャンピオンになりたい！」 or 「ポケモンそだてるのは たのしい！！」, so it’s hard to miss too much. I guess you need to be able to read the constant prompt on the menu telling you what the next goal is, though.
The biggest thing is probably the tutorials telling you how the new gameplay systems work. I guess you can always refer to English manuals if you really don’t want to miss any features, though.
(FF7 definitely has more complicated text than any Pokemon game, but I guess it doesn’t matter as much if you already know all the text.)
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