Does it actually teach Japanese well?

[cruddish]

What I mean by this is that all of the reviews say it teaches stuff like characters very well, but could I learn to speak basic Japanese (i.e. form sentences) through this? Thanks!

[danny1145]

Hiragana is pretty much the basic of the basics. If you are trying to read things in japanese, hiragana will not be enough, however, it is the best place to start. Japanese writing combines hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are the easiest,while kanji is the most difficult. To answer your question, you likely won't learn how to read and write sentences. However, it is essential to learn hiragana, as you will see it sprinkled throughout sentences in japanese.

[Marbleworks]

You can spend a lot less time actually studying and get more out of that instead of trying to play a game. With that said there is a lot more to forming sentences beyond simple declaritives.

[[GVN]Rally]

Originally posted by solemnclockwork:

You can spend a lot less time actually studying and get more out of that instead of trying to play a game. With that said there is a lot more to forming sentences beyond simple declaritives.

solemn is not wrong, but from my experience, this kind of education is fairly good at helping ppl absorbing knowledge without the impression of "studying" which can turn away or discourage many ppl at times. Depends on difficulty, it might even be a good exercise For N5-N4 student

[cruddish]

Originally posted by GVNRally:

Originally posted by solemnclockwork:

You can spend a lot less time actually studying and get more out of that instead of trying to play a game. With that said there is a lot more to forming sentences beyond simple declaritives.

solemn is not wrong, but from my experience, this kind of education is fairly good at helping ppl absorbing knowledge without the impression of "studying" which can turn away or discourage many ppl at times. Depends on difficulty, it might even be a good exercise For N5-N4 student

Would you recommmend I start with this game? Where else can I go to study "easily" aftwerwards?

[gombicek]

As others have said. This game will teach you hiragana. It's not the fastest, nor most efective way of learning it, but its more fun. Well if you like jrpgs.

What to do next depends on what type of a learner are you. If you prefer written material, or video etc. You can look on youtube for free lessons, I'm sure that there will e plenty of them for japanese as it is one of the most popular asian languages nowadays.

As for a textbook I can recommend japanese from zero http://www.yesjapan.com/ . It is not perfect, it goes over the hiragana very slowly, but it's written in clear and easy english, and is not as dry as other textbooks tend to be. IMHO best for an absolute beginner. Then there are textbooks like Minna no nihongo and genki, they are probably one of the best, but are meant for a clasroom use, so for self study I would consider them after you can read hiragana and katakana comfortably and have some basics of japanese.

There are much much more textbooks and resources for japanese, some good some not. Just use google and you should find plenty of material for free.

[⎛⎝Duckers McQuack⎠⎞]

Originally posted by danny1145:

Hiragana is pretty much the basic of the basics. If you are trying to read things in japanese, hiragana will not be enough, however, it is the best place to start. Japanese writing combines hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are the easiest,while kanji is the most difficult. To answer your question, you likely won't learn how to read and write sentences. However, it is essential to learn hiragana, as you will see it sprinkled throughout sentences in japanese.

For me who struggles to remember the hirigana characters and their sounds i really need this game :P I got an app called human japanese, and it teaches you everything you need to know to speak japanese. Tho textbook teachings of signs to pronounciation never got me further, but with this game, i can now finally learn the basics :P

[quirked up white boy]

Originally posted by Jygantic:

Where else can I go to study "easily" aftwerwards?

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/
http://www.tagaini.net/

[Maitolee]

Reading your answers I'm not really sure if the game really teaches you how to form at least simple sentences (e.g. where to put the verb in the sentence, how to use "wa" to point the subject, how to use "ka" when asking a question, ...).

In the video presentation they say "As a bonus, you'll learn Japanese words, phrases, grammar and punctuation." Also in the game description you can read : "As a bonus, you’ll also learn common Japanese words and phrases and important grammar points! "

I want to know if the game just helps you memorizing words. I would really appreciate if someone can clarify this. Thank you!

[cruddish]

Originally posted by Maitolee:

Reading your answers I'm not really sure if the game really teaches you how to form at least simple sentences (e.g. where to put the verb in the sentence, how to use "wa" to point the subject, how to use "ka" when asking a question, ...).

In the video presentation they say "As a bonus, you'll learn Japanese words, phrases, grammar and punctuation." Also in the game description you can read : "As a bonus, you’ll also learn common Japanese words and phrases and important grammar points! "

I want to know if the game just helps you memorizing words. I would really appreciate if someone can clarify this. Thank you!

That is basically what I mean. Even being able to say stuff like "hello" (which I already know) would be useful. I don't really have a need to learn how to say fire in Japanese.

[Radington]

I think I can learn from this.
Only trouble I'm having is the font and the way it's shown how to write it can be pretty confusing and I have atrocious writing so when I draw the symbols in my notebook like the game advised it looks funny but that's a personal problem. Learning Hirigana through repition of random battles has already helped me recognize the letters A and I. It's only 2 letters but progress is progress.

[gombicek]

Originally posted by Cel:

I think I can learn from this.
Only trouble I'm having is the font and the way it's shown how to write it can be pretty confusing and I have atrocious writing so when I draw the symbols in my notebook like the game advised it looks funny but that's a personal problem. Learning Hirigana through repition of random battles has already helped me recognize the letters A and I. It's only 2 letters but progress is progress.:8bitheart:

Don't worry about the writing too much. As long as you write the characters with correct stroke order they will be recognizable. And you probably won't need to write by hand much.

[LoveJesusHateTheGovernment]

Originally posted by danny1145:

Hiragana is pretty much the basic of the basics. If you are trying to read things in japanese, hiragana will not be enough, however, it is the best place to start. Japanese writing combines hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are the easiest,while kanji is the most difficult. To answer your question, you likely won't learn how to read and write sentences. However, it is essential to learn hiragana, as you will see it sprinkled throughout sentences in japanese.

Hello, sorry to display my ignorance regarding the Japanese language, but I wanted to ask you about the distinctions between hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Are they different linguistic dialects, or are they different writing styles, (such as manuscript and cursive in the English language), or are they different ways of combining the same words but in different sentence structures, or something else entirely?

[LoveJesusHateTheGovernment]

Originally posted by GVNRally:

Originally posted by solemnclockwork:

You can spend a lot less time actually studying and get more out of that instead of trying to play a game. With that said there is a lot more to forming sentences beyond simple declaritives.

solemn is not wrong, but from my experience, this kind of education is fairly good at helping ppl absorbing knowledge without the impression of "studying" which can turn away or discourage many ppl at times. Depends on difficulty, it might even be a good exercise For N5-N4 student

I think for a lot of people, (particularly right-brain dominant people) this is a very helpful way of learning to more effectively learn in such a way as to make the transition of data from short to long term memory.