Game Imports - Final Fantasy XIII (good idea?)

[Laver2k]

Hey all!
Ive been learning Japanese for a couple of years now and Ive been to Japan (and although didnt understand a lot of things, I could at least could express myself when I needed to).

Im thinking about importing the game Final Fantasy XIII from Japan. Its very story-heavy but has Japanese subtitles too. Obviously you cant guess my level of understanding, but are games a good way to learn Japanese? I watch a lot of Japanese TV and Films and am able to follow them a fair bit (though they mostly have English subtitles so I can cheat).

What are peoples experiences with importing video games to learn from?

[Jessi]

Hi Laver2k!

You might want to take a look at this thread about learning Japanese for playing video games:

http://www.japanesepod101.com/forum/vie ... php?t=4148

Read through that thread, I think you'll find some good advice and tips in there!

[amost]

Hey all!
Ive been learning Japanese for a couple of years now and Ive been to Japan (and although didnt understand a lot of things, I could at least could express myself when I needed to).

Im thinking about importing the game Final Fantasy XIII from Japan. Its very story-heavy but has Japanese subtitles too. Obviously you cant guess my level of understanding, but are games a good way to learn Japanese? I watch a lot of Japanese TV and Films and am able to follow them a fair bit (though they mostly have English subtitles so I can cheat).

What are peoples experiences with importing video games to learn from?

Playing games is probably a good way to learn the japanese required for ... playing more games
With your level of japanese, for sure you'd be able to follow where you have to go next, but like you said, it's story intensive, and alot of that might not get through.

So the questions now become: 1. do you want to spoil the story without fully understanding it?
2. do you want to pay the cost to import a game that's already really expensive?

I'd vote no for this game. The money you'd pay to buy and then ship the game to you will not be offset by the choppy story that you'd understand/not understand. I think a better option would be to start on a cheaper game first. May I recommend any of the "Tales of..." series?

[QuackingShoe]

Spoil the story by not fully understanding it? No, no, screw that. That's not a mindset that a language learner can afford to have. I used to have that mindset, and it resulted in me basically attempting to only read/watch/play things that I didn't like because I wouldn't care if I ruined them by not understanding them. This was not fun at all.

If you think you'll actually play and finish the game, and you don't mind the absurd import price, get it. Games are a great resource. There's a lot of text (depending on the game), progression through the game depends on your comprehension of the text which gives you that feedback that's so useful for learning, and you get a lot of exposure to forms of the language that you wouldn't normally see but that are very important, like all of the instructional text used to tell you how to play various parts of the game.


Actually, screw that part about 'finish the game'. I don't finish 80% of things I start in Japanese. If you think you'll play it for any period of time and have fun and don't mind the absurd import price, get it

[Laver2k]

Thanks so much for the advice guys!

Each time someone posts with a new point of view I change my mind!
But its a good point, I live the story of the FF game series and to not understand it all would be a shame, I should hold out. But does anybody have reccomendations of similar games that I could start off with? Like this "Tales of..." series?

[QuackingShoe]

I'd like to give some suggestions, but sadly can't. I struggled with trying to find some for a long time, but I quickly discovered that the number of RPGs I'm willing to play is very few, and all of them are the ones with amazing stories.

You could play ones you've already played in English......

[Javizy]

If you have no idea how much you'll understand, why not try playing a game you've played before? If you get a PSX emulator like espxe, you can play classics like FFVII and VIII (with sweet OpenGL2 graphics). You'll have the advantage of knowing the story, so you won't get completely lost, and you'll find it really interesting to see how the characters speak in Japanese! Most of them lose their personality in translation. I've found it a really motivating way to get myself to read, and it's great to play games from my childhood in the original.

[amost]

If you have no idea how much you'll understand, why not try playing a game you've played before? If you get a PSX emulator like espxe, you can play classics like FFVII and VIII (with sweet OpenGL2 graphics). You'll have the advantage of knowing the story, so you won't get completely lost, and you'll find it really interesting to see how the characters speak in Japanese! Most of them lose their personality in translation. I've found it a really motivating way to get myself to read, and it's great to play games from my childhood in the original.

I prefer games with voice acting tho There are words I know from the sound, but can't read, and words that I can deduce the meaning from the kanji, and yet cannot pronounce, so you get the best of both worlds.

If you like the psx emu idea, Tales of Eternia is a PSX game with voice acting.

[Taurus]

I'm about 20 hours in to FFXIII. I don't know what your Japanese level is like, but I'm able to follow the meaning of the story by getting the gist if not all the details - but I think I'm getting most of the details too. I think the good thing about games like these is that they've got Japanese subtitles. If you sit with a laptop and the internet in front of you, there's no reason why you can't pause the game every time something comes up that you don't understand. There's been a couple of tutorial screens that I've had to translate, too, but mostly I'm getting it. Anything that comes up that I don't understand I'm either guessing from the context or pausing, looking up, and sticking into my Anki deck.

As for the language used, I think it's slightly unfair to say that it is only useful for games. I mean, there's stuff that is used mostly for games, which is some of the stuff that I've had to look up; but there's also stuff about politics, citizens, relationships, relying on others, etc. etc. There's a lot of useful stuff.

[QuackingShoe]

As for the language used, I think it's slightly unfair to say that it is only useful for games. I mean, there's stuff that is used mostly for games, which is some of the stuff that I've had to look up; but there's also stuff about politics, citizens, relationships, relying on others, etc. etc. There's a lot of useful stuff.

Heheheheh

Funny thing, I knew virtually all of the English used in English video games before I started playing them.
I wonder what that might mean.

[lv2shinobi]

I debated that myself, but I couldn't get myself to do it. I can only pass the level 4 JLPT tests and only know roughly 100 kanji. That is certainly not enough to understand a an in depth story.

If story doesn't matter to you then I guess you're fine, but 50 hours of a story intensive game that I can't understand would drive me crazy. I'll wait till March.

[Taurus]

I debated that myself, but I couldn't get myself to do it. I can only pass the level 4 JLPT tests and only know roughly 100 kanji. That is certainly not enough to understand a an in depth story.

If story doesn't matter to you then I guess you're fine, but 50 hours of a story intensive game that I can't understand would drive me crazy. I'll wait till March.

I think it would certainly be a challenge if you're still only at a JLPT 4 level of understanding. But there are definitely some people who have learned Japanese by rising to such challenges. I guess everyone is different. I don't think I'd have been able to do it, and it will definitely require a lot of pausing and looking stuff up.

But specifically with regard to FFXIII, while it is story-heavy, it is also combat-heavy. You could probably negotiate the menus and figure out combat with a bit of katakana. So it's not like everything is lost if you can't understand the story.

[Javizy]

Yeah, the story comes during cut scenes, so when you're actually controlling the character yourself, you don't have to worry about it. That's the advantage for me - even if the story is tough, it's broken up in an interactive and entertaining way. If you sit down and read a book, you're going to have to endure it from the moment you start to the moment you stop, and I was starting to get a bit bored of that. That's why I'm happy playing the text-only ones, since I started for the purpose of reading.

As for the language, I'd definitely say it's useful. If you study JLPT1 textbooks you're going to be learning a lot of pretty much dead words (according to my friends), but I've already started using some of the words I learned from FFVIII in everyday conversation. The "game" language is going to come during battles and in menus, otherwise you've got a story like any other that gives you exposure to authentic Japanese.