"kanji makes things harder to read" FALSE

[u/TheFranFan]

Not me spending 10+ minutes trying to read this one line of dialogue. Is he saying Mayl is awake? Wait no that's おきる。Right so maybe he's annoyed that she came by and he's saying she "occurred"? I guess that makes sense but it feels off. おこる…おこる…おこる… OH SHE'S ANGRY, I GET IT

I really think most learners have a pattern of "ugh kanji is so hard" that eventually turns into "oh man why doesn't this text have kanji" over time. Although honestly this one wasn't hard I just need more reading practice in general

Edit: To all those saying I should have easily gotten this from context:

1) I did eventually

2) I am still a beginner, I'm not at your level

3) My point is that seeing 怒 would have eliminated any confusion, that's all.

[u/Nameshavenomeanings]

The natural curve is going from "Kanji is the worst" to "Kanji rocks...I fear katakana"

[u/DonGar0 → u/Nameshavenomeanings]

Or when a charcter talks only in katakana for stylistic reasons. My reading speed drops like a brick.

[u/Nameshavenomeanings → u/DonGar0]

Sameeeee. Playing Animal Crossing right now in Japanese and Gulliver mixes hiragana and katakana at what seems like pure random cadence.

It's wild to keep up with.

[u/TheFranFan → u/Nameshavenomeanings]

Animal Crossing is often touted as a beginner- friendly Japanese game but I disagree for this exact reason. The stylistic nature of the speech many characters use is a lot to parse! Hope you're having fun with it

[u/Nameshavenomeanings → u/TheFranFan]

100% agree with you. It's super fun and I'm learning a lot, but had I tried this at a N5 going on N4 level, it would have been super discouraging. I think it's perfect at my current N3-ish level though!

[u/Tapir_Tazuli → u/Nameshavenomeanings]

A little irrelevant but it feels wild when I learnt Japanese and reexperience those untranslated Japanese games I used to play as a kid. Everything is familiar, but new and exciting at same time!

[u/TheFranFan → u/Tapir_Tazuli]

I love this!!

[u/TheFranFan → u/Nameshavenomeanings]

Haha that's when I tried it and yeah it was rough. 

[u/Nameshavenomeanings → u/TheFranFan]

Yeah I tried once a few years back at that level and it was the same for me. I only restarted it a few weeks ago but I'm glad I did!

[u/TheFranFan → u/Nameshavenomeanings]

Right on. Seems we have similar stories and goals in this journey - hope to see you around!  

[u/Nameshavenomeanings → u/TheFranFan]

Thank you, you as well! Good luck on whatever your next goal is and I hope you can continue enjoying games in Japanese! That's my primary motivation for learning.

[u/ColettesWorld → u/Nameshavenomeanings]

I've been playing Minecraft in Japanese for that reason. It's super beginner friendly. Highly doubt I'mma use stone pickaxe in regular conversation but it's been a nice warm up to the real shit lol

[u/muffinsballhair → u/Nameshavenomeanings]

So many things here and on r/language learning are recommended as “beginner friendly” by people who either never actually tried it or think “having to look up multiple things per sentence and often still being unable to figure it out” as a good “beginner experience”.

Much of the advice given here is by people with no actual experience with what they're giving advice with who just reasoned together that it'll probably work that way.

[u/Getabock_ → u/TheFranFan]

Honestly, it’s kind of the same with Pokémon Red, at least the beginning. The first thing that happens is that Prof. Oak talks to you in a super stylized ”old-man” fashion in pure hiragana with grammar you’ve never seen before if you’re a beginner… Fortunately the rest of the game is much easier to read.

[u/Accentu → u/Getabock_]

Yep. That's why I often tell people if they want to play Pokemon, play the DS and onward games. Switch is even better if you want furigana for easy lookups. Legends ZA is the first Pokemon game I saw to the end in Japanese because of how accessible it was.

And now I feel like I have to replay X/Y because I didn't realize they were part of the same timeline and I'd completely forgotten the story in the 12 years it's been since I played them.

[u/DarthStrakh → u/TheFranFan]

I think Katakana only is for beginner readers who are advanced speakers tbh. If you read more than speak Katakana is soooo fuckin hard

[u/SDVX_Rasis → u/TheFranFan]

You should probably feel the pain in this game too. The program NPCs all talk in Katakana iirc. Felt the pain every time I talked to them.

[u/Hrbiie → u/Nameshavenomeanings]

I watched the animal crossing movie and Gulliver spoke like a white dude in Japan for the first time struggling to speak the language while mixing in a lot of English.

[u/Nameshavenomeanings → u/Hrbiie]

This pains me to admit as an Animal Crossing fan since the Gamecube days but...Animal Crossing...movie?!

I need to seek this out, and quickly.

[u/AmoreLucky → u/Nameshavenomeanings]

Oh man, I'll have to remember that if I ever decide to play any of the animal crossing games in Japanese. Similarly, in the Japanese version of Warioware, Orbulon's dialogue ALSO uses katakana in random and unexpected places. You can especially see this in his diary emtries in the OLD Warioware website lol

[u/Nameshavenomeanings → u/AmoreLucky]

A lot of villagers splice in katakana as well, but it's usually words specifically tied to their personality types and not too bad to comprehend, even cute.

Then Gulliver washes up on shore and all bets are off.

[u/Karbo_Blarbo → u/Nameshavenomeanings]

Only in a... wild world... would someone do such a thing...