An Importers Guide To Japanese

[marcus]

Title: An Importers Guide To Japanese

Description: A comprehensive guide to understanding the basics of Japanese. Including basic word translations and explanations of Katakana and Hiragana.

Written by Tom Salter (Electric Boogaloo) and Jonathan Mace (Half-Pint)

URL: http://www.ntsc-uk.com/tech.php?tech=GuideToJapanese

[KingMike]

Brilliant. Gives me a few days to practice before F Zero GX arrives.

Well done guys great article.

[lordcookie]

Absolutely brilliant. I will certainly be looking at this page more as I have been wanting to understand all my Japanese games a bit better.

It seems to be broken down in to a logical structure as well.

Well done Boogaloo and Half-Pint.

[saif]

Nice work lads.
Very good idea and nice to see the language demystified a bit.
A few simple words can help a hell of a lot.

PS I *think* the japanese for shop is "mise" but i could be mistaken.

[Tom Salter]

PS I *think* the japanese for shop is "mise" but i could be mistaken.

Aye it is. Found this out last night

[wod]

thats a good read always wondered about the japanese language and that explained it

good work lads

[Commander Marklar]

Cool - really good feature, congrats you guys! If there is one thing I thought was a little odd was how it finished - it just seemed to stop I guess it was fairly difficult to write something like this to begin with so mucho respect

[ExpertKing]

shop = mise /omise (honorific)
or
shop=XXX -ya (terebi geemuya)

[Lactose Intollerant]

Sometimes the shop kanji can be 'mise' othertime it can be read 'ya' OTHER times there's another kanji whose meaning is 'ya' (room) that you use.

The joys of 5000 subtle ways of saying the same thing that is Japanese. Don't even get me started on the difference between 'te' and 'plain' forms...

[connect]

What a bloody good idea. Thanks for that. Hmm might start playing some of my JAP games again.

[Tom Salter]

Thanks for the comments guys ^_^

Learning Katakana is probably the most valuable thing an import gamer should know. You can work your way around 80% of menu's with an elementary knowledge of it, and it's a damn sight easier than learning lots of Kanji. Only problem is that lots of the symbols look the same :/

By the way, if a Part 2 was ever in the works, what would you guys like to see?

[Commander Marklar]

Yeah, probably... depends what was going into part 2 Something else I thought about after is some references to outside sources, like "if you want to learn more, click here" which would go off to some books or something... Maybe that is in part 2... oh, the suspense

It's amazing though, 'cos I've only just started to pick up on some of the language and katakana really is very very easy to pick up, for anyone interested. Don't let the organised-insects you see on screen put you off - it is very straight forward. You'll soon learn to spot the simple things, like a "Korora Rarii Kaa" from an Impreza and learn a few simple things - it is very satisfying overall, even if you can't make your way around a text-heavy RPG, at least you'll be able to turn the music off

[kona]

Wow, I just saw this and it's fantastic! Nice work guys. 1/2pint, I completely forgive you for the scare you gave me the other day.

I'll give some more feedback once I spend some time and learn the Katakana characters and go back to some Japanese games.

As Commander Marklar says a section for further reading would be nice.

[Tom Salter]

It's amazing though, 'cos I've only just started to pick up on some of the language and katakana really is very very easy to pick up, for anyone interested. Don't let the organised-insects you see on screen put you off - it is very straight forward.

Exactly! It does take some work, but it's ultimately rewarding. It's also like a puzzle game trying to work out what some of the words are in "Engrish".

[PH]

Great article/guide. Well done Electric Boogaloo and ?pint.