I’m currently lv 22 in WK and have a fair amount of speaking practice. But I struggle a lot with reading because I just don’t like it that much. So mangas and books are out of question for me. But reading is an essential skill to have and great to learn vocab.
That said, it’s more easy for me to get engaged with games and I tried that more than a year ago but got totally lost because I had to translate everything! And I said to myself that it’s not the time to start with games.
So I wonder, over a year later (probably longer), are there any games you can recommend for my level?
Have you tried visual novels? I started the visual novel Island with the book club here, and I’m convinced that I have found the perfect medium for me. You can use tools to get the text from the novels into a web browser and then use Yomichan and similar tools to look up words. You can even connect the visual novel to Google Translate or Deepl and check your own translation against machine translations. I was level 6 when I started and level 11 now, and it’s OK. You do need fundamental grammar knowledge though, but that’s true for any game or other kind of media.
The visual novel book club is here (now voting for the next novel, but also links to previous novels)
The current visual novel from the club is ISLAND, which has me hooked on visual novels
Ace Attorney is in the club’s voting is quite nice. Not sure about text hooking and probably also no spoken andio. But this one is certainly interactive enough.
Isn’t a visual novel just a manga with some sound and slightly animated pictures? While I never tried it in japanese, the whole concept didn’t get me in english either. To someone like me who reads nothing but textbooks, I don’t know if it suits me.
(I know you asked for games but) I like googling random things in Japanese and reading stuff like wikipedia articles (going down various rabbit holes). Recently, someone recommended this forum that’s kind of like r/AITA or the comments in r/askreddit on Reddit and very addictive to read.
I guess I’m trying to show that games aren’t the only option for alternatives to traditional reading material if you have a hard time sitting down and working through literature.
If you already have games that you like, that may help make your first choice a little easier: if there’s a game that you like, that you have played before and that you know, generally, the story of and how to play, and that has a Japanese version, you can try playing through that first. It’s a very low-pressure way to get some practice in and ease yourself into playing games in Japanese, since you have a general idea of what you’re supposed to do already.
Personally, I’ve never played PC games as much as console, but I’ve heard Ni no Kuni, Stardew Valley, and the Yakuza series are popular as first games in Japanese. All are available on Steam as far as I’m aware!
More like a Novel, with some pictures, hence the name the level of difficulty is quite similar to reading novels but having the voice actors when it’s people talking and the visual clues make it easier. Not to mention the tools you can set up to make it easy for you to look up words / translation. As for the “game” part of it, you can follow different routes and experience different stories. I love that, to me it is the solution to the problem some movies have: watching a James Bond and he is in danger 10 minutes into the movie? Doesn’t really matter you know he’s going to be fine. Well in a Visual Novel you don’t know that, make the wrong choice, and it’s game over, even after 10 minutes haha. Of course then you can try again and go a different route. It also fixes the problem some books have: the author could have ended the book with the hero dying or not, he chose the hero not dying and that’s not what you wanted? No worries , in Visual Novels you get to see how both things would have played out! (if you so wish, you can also ignore the route you don’t care for).
There are every genre available, mystery, romance, fun, you name it. I highly enjoy this format myself, both for the learning and for the entertainment:)
Games are generally like manga with sound effects and animated pictures. Texts are also like colored manga, but there might not be spoken voice for everything.
But some have more text than others. I think visual novels (VNs) generally have more text, but many of which can be made to work with Yomichan (or 10ten).
Other genres may have less dense text or less paragraphs, but unlike many VNs, text might not be able to pause or rewind. Also, they may have more texts that aren’t voiced. Also, gameplay difficulty. VNs are generally pretty casual.
Anyway, I think I might be good to start with the genre of choice, and then knowing what to expect. Like game controls might not always require reading properly…
It’s funny, because the “choose your own adventure” aspect of visual novels is a big part of why the medium does NOT really appeal to me hahaha! But I actually have learned that there are quite a few VNs that are pretty linear and which don’t feature branching paths.
I’m playing Umineko: When they Cry right now along with the informal club for it on this forum, and I’m enjoying it a lot more than I expected to, as someone who normally isn’t a VN fan. I can really see why VNs are so heavily recommended as learning material because the voice acting is really helpful, and the ability to texthook them makes it easier to do lookups than when reading manga or playing other types of games.
So, speaking as a VN hater, I recommend trying them out at least once, because the medium might surprise you! If you like video games but don’t like regular novels, a VN might be the perfect happy medium to get you reading a lot.
I agree that replaying something you already love but changing the language to Japanese is a great way to get some reading practice! I’ve been working my way through replaying final fantasy games in Japanese.
Koe 声, Shujinkou, Wagotabi, and Nihongo Quest N5 are all Japanese language learner games.
Koe is out right now, Wagotabi and Nihingo Quest N5 you can become beta testers for, and Shujinkou just keep an eye out on that game on steam. All games were made with beginners in mind.
Not too long ago Wagotabi has been released to iOS and Android and I have to say it is probably the best one of the lot, and it is very affordable without subscriptions of internet access required. It is extremely refreshing in this day and age and I highly recommend it.
I’ve learned a bunch of everyday words from playing The Sims 4 in Japanese. I can recommend it, if it’s your cup of tea. If it isn’t, don’t go out of your way to play it, it isn’t that great for learning.
I also recommend checking out YomiNinja, it’s an OCR overlay that provides translations on the fly. It can also integrate to Yomitan and create Anki cards on the fly via that way.
