Really Basic Japanese for Import Video Gamers

Demolish the language barrier. A bit.

Do the squiggly characters in Japanese language video games frighten you? Are you a seasoned importer looking to make your trial and error gaming a little less random? A fraction of knowledge about Japanese writing systems can make your import gaming a lot smoother. This guide covers some of the essentials to familiarize you with playing Japanese video games. No, you won’t be able to fully understand a complex 80+ hour RPG, but you can successfully navigate menu screens with less frustration. It’s surprisingly easy.

Alphabetic Overview

Modern Japanese uses three main writing systems: katakana, hiragana, and kanji. Katakana is sparse but often composes the most important terms in a game, such as navigation options on menu screens. Hiragana is characterized by rounded, flowing characters that make up the bulk of the text in games. Kanji are the complex logograms borrowed from Chinese that rarely appear in video games without accompanying reading aids (called furigana).

To make the most headway with the least effort, learn katakana. It’s used to transcribe foreign words into the Japanese phonetic system. Common English words found in video games such as save, items, status, menu, bonus, etc. often appear cloaked under the thin guise of katakana. By learning this alphabet you can read and understand a lot of the key terms without having to absorb another language. Told you it was simple.

Hiragana is rounded while katakana is more angular.

About Katakana

Katakana uses a few dozen symbols to represent every sound the Japanese mouth naturally utters. Each character stands for what an English speaker would see as a consonant followed by a vowel. So instead of a character for “s”, there are individual characters for sa, se, su, etc.

Even though katakana is often used to write English words, remember they comply with Japanese phonetics. So, rather than seeing “story”, katakana renders it like this:

The “bars” in this case are used to represent vowel length. Now, say it out loud. Quickly. Sound similar? Sometimes it comes across as a bit awkward, but with a little practice you’ll be able to make immediate sense of things.

Learning Katakana

It doesn’t take hard work or grueling hours of study to learn katakana, just time and regular practice. Commit a few characters to memory each day and you’ll amass a good knowledge in a short amount of time. Think about them often, carry around flash cards and peek at them once in a while. Memory isn’t about forcing information in, it’s about learning, forgetting, then reminding yourself over and over again.

A great trick is to come up with little mnemonics to help you remember each character. I learned “ka” because the symbol looks like a car:

Ok, it doesn’t really look like a car. But I remembered it, and you’ll probably remember it as well. Come up with your own, the wackier the better. After a little time they’ll be ingrained in your memory and you can stutter through Japanese menu screens without much problem.

Tools You’ll Need

There are a lot of resources online and in print to help you learn Japanese. Unfortunately they’re often needlessly complex and attempt to deliver too much information at once. We don’t need that for our purposes, so below I’ve compiled a list of the best resources for learning katakana I’ve found.

• Printable flash cards

• Practice katakana online
• Printable katakana chart
• Detailed info about the Japanese language
• Common Japanese words found in video games

And of course, two of the most common words you’ll need to recognize (which, incedentally, are in hiragana):

Also keep in mind that each character is pronounced individually in Japanese. The transcribed “iie” isn’t pronounced “eye”, it’s more like “ee-yeh”.

And a few other miscellaneous resources:

• NTSC-UK guide to Japanese (more thorough)

• NTSC-UK: Why import? – NTSC-UK, the import info resource, answers the question: why import videogames?
• GameSpot – Know Your Imports – A guide on why and how to import video games.

Conclusion

Feeling a little more adventurous now? Armed with a little knowledge and the ability to recognize some Japanese characters, you’ll be surprised how much easier it is to pick your way through import games. You won’t understand the game as thoroughly, but you can certainly play it and have fun. Print out a katakana characters chart and keep it close at hand. The more you play and practice reading, the better you’ll become. This just barely touches the surface of Japanese language, so use it as a foundation and continue learning.

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