Learning Japanese To Play More Games.

[MrHyde123456789]

I absolutely hate very bad MTL. The hate has pushed me to the stage that I have decided to actually learn Japanese to play games Raw rather than reading half assed MTL. Right now I am in the process of learning characters. If anybody knows Japanese or has tried this, can u give me a rough estimate of how long it will take for me to learn Japanese enough to play eroge comfortably. Do u also have any tips to help me learn faster. For context I am a pretty quick learner and can speak 5 languages.
I just want to know what a reasonable time frame would be by which I will be decent in the language. Knowing Japanese could also be a valuable asset in my resume when I finish college.
Any tip and a little encouragement would go a long way. Thx

 

[desmosome]

If a random white person knows Japanese, do you think the interviewer will just assume that they are a weeb or coomer?

 

[Jaike]

For context I am a pretty quick learner and can speak 5 languages.
I just want to know what a reasonable time frame would be by which I will be decent in the language. Knowing Japanese could also be a valuable asset in my resume when I finish college.
Any tip and a little encouragement would go a long way. Thx

Nothing specific for Japanese, but: Don't cram for hours on end, but try to space your learning in sessions of 15 to 30 minutes. Try to spend at least an hour a day in total on learning. Read aloud as much as you can. Use flashcards for vocab. Don't rely exclusively on one free website.

Oh, I lied about nothing specific for Japanese, I've heard a lot of people say they think using literal mnemonics based on the radicals works great for learning kanji.

 

[Deleted member 4665907]

I learned Japanese when I was a child. I'm not sure how long it would take for an average adult to learn a new language, but I think you should take a course or join a study group, preferably IRL, if you haven't done so already.

 

[Meaning Less]

Different people have very different learning approaches when tackling new languages, so this question is very subjective.

Your goal is to play eroge so you will have to learn lots of kanji because there is no voice acting or furigana to assist you in most cases.

If you know 5 languages I assume that you already know what works faster for you. But I learn faster by immersion, so I'd say start playing japanese games with a dictionary as soon as you have a good base, that way you won't be wasting time with random kanji or listening skills and it should be motivation enough to keep you studying for hours instead of minutes.
You could even start manually translating games that you want to play, that will also work as a motivator and should speed things up.

 

[F4C430]

If you already know 5 languages then perhaps you should be the one giving advice instead of receiving it.

But you didn't give enough info for anyone to even make a rough guess. What languages do you already know? How did you learn them? How long did it take you to learn those? How much time per day will you study Japanese? Are you learning by yourself or are you going to take classes? What materials are you using? Do you have native/fluent speakers available to practice with?

My tips for learning Japanese and retaining it:

1. Use Heisig's "
   You must be registered to see the links
   " book for hiragana and katakana. If you stick to what he says, it'll take you about 6 hours spread out over a couple weeks and you'll be set with those for life unless you never look at Japanese again.
2. If you're in this for the guided long-term, then i also suggest Heisig's "
   You must be registered to see the links
   " series as well for learning the Chinese characters. It's not perfect but it's a good system that everyone else copied. If you don't want the book, at least learn his method for the kanji and apply it yourself. There's a good reason why everyone copied him.
3. Get yourself a textbook for the grammar.
4. (Extra) Avoid Duolingo. Its gamification is a distraction to learning, and its system is actually not very good the last i checked (at least a year ago).
5. (Extra) I say avoid Wanikani as well. I hate their interpretations, mnemonic stories, and i found their review system confusing.

がんばって

 

[Fzeren]

If a random white person knows Japanese, do you think the interviewer will just assume that they are a weeb or coomer?

I don't think most normal people know what those words mean

 

[woody554]

it depends colossally on what your first language is. if it's english or pretty much any indoeuropean language, japanese will be one of the most difficult languages to pick up. but if it happens to be finnish, estonian or even hungarian, everything will look very familiar and pronunciation will be extremely easy.

but in the end it's just another language, and if it's your 4th or 5th you'll already know how to figure out things even if the language is a bad fit for you. learn the basics, then it's just grindy daily legwork for a few years and you're there.

there is the issue of writing though which throws chinese at you, so you kinda have to learn two extremely different languages in tandem. as compound words in japanese are written and pronounced in chinese, only standalone words are pronounced in japanese.

there's absolutely nothing stopping you though. it all depends on how good you are at stubbornly grinding it daily for a few years. it's no different from learning an instrument or painting, repetition and daily grind is mandatory.

 

[DiviDreamer]

Japanese is extremely difficult, so if you want to waste like 5 years to learn then go for it.

 

[Samhill]

You'll have to find a resource that will tell you porn words. Like cum, pussy, and orgasm. I know they censor in manga, but if they censor text in games, would you be able to recognize c◯nt? I suppose in context you would, but I don't know how hard that is.

 

[MrHyde123456789]

F4C430 I am actually Indian which is a very diverse country. Region to region language changes. In that too my mom and dad are from completely different sides of the country. Hindi is a given common language that I am best at and consider my first language. All my education has been in english so I am pretty well versed in that too. I also know the local language of where I live pretty well. I speak with my fathers and mothers relatives in their local languages respectively. Thus I know 5 languages 2 of which I cannot read or write and can only hold conversations in.
I have never sought to learn a new language. All the languages I know are ones I grew up with and learned without actually putting external effort in. Thus I do not really know about learning a new language from scratch and the amount of time it takes to get a bit decent at it.
Right now I put about an hr or 2 daily in trying to learn japanese. Have been doing this for the past 3 days and have learned all hiragana characters. I have been watching anime for about 9 years now; not saying that that taught me japanese but its at least made me much more comfortable to listening japanese and it not sounding like some weird foreign language. I am learning by myself

 

[Deleted member 1143342]

You'll have to find a resource that will tell you porn words. Like cum, pussy, and orgasm. I know they censor in manga, but if they censor text in games, would you be able to recognize c◯nt? I suppose in context you would, but I don't know how hard that is.

then you're gonna need more dictionaries that isn't in your regular Japanese textbooks as well as that other dictionaries. Go surf on somewhere that isn't speaking English (duh) or simply play more visual novel and use your cognition to memorize those stuff. And do not use MTL since it'll confuse you more, just use common sense and a bit of knowledge in writing Kanji just in case if you're struggling on searching the meaning on such word/sentence. For memorizing the entire Japanese script, it's already stated by F4C430, it's a great site if you're happened to just learn how to read every Japanese syllables and it's written form

OH, and I remind you most writer in any Japanese VN studios will use different pronunciation on penis more than vagina (from less vulgar to way lewder, also either oriental or sounding foreign enough), so you'd better be ready on those change, i.e ちんぽ, ちんこ, ちんちん and おちんちん (gotta use Google Translate since I haven't installed Japanese writing system in this laptop).