Playing Harvest Moon in Japanese
The story of an English-speaking person learning a little Japanese by playing the latest Harvest Moon game, Connect to a New World, in original Japanese.
A little background before we begin: I've played and loved the Harvest Moon game series since I was nine, when I got the first game as a bribe for going on a week long family road trip. Harvest Moon is a farming and life simulation game for Nintendo consoles. It is a Japanese game, produced by Marvelous Entertainment AQL. In the US, the game is usually translated into English by Natsume, though this latest game will be translated by a different company under the name Story of Seasons. In Japan, the game is called Harvest Moon: Connect to a New World.
Japanese games usually take around a year or so to make it from Japan to the US in English translation. I've always been interested in Japanese culture and language, and I've been toying with the idea of teaching myself Japanese for years. Instead of waiting for the game to be translated into English, I decided to buy a Japanese 3DS console and the game in Japanese. I bought my Japanese textbooks on recommendations of several people from the subreddit, /r/learnjapanese. The 3DS console and game I bought from www.nippon-yasan.com.
I started the Story of Seasons game before I even mastered the first of the Japanese scripts, hiragana. In Japanese, there are four scripts: hiragana, katakana, kanji, and romaji. Hiragana is based off traditional Japanese written language and consists of basic sounds and words. Katakana is very similar, except it is used for foreign words. All Japanese language can be found in the elementary hana (hiragana and katakana) group. Kanji is adapted Chinese characters that compose a lot of words and grammar. The final script, romaji, is Romanized words — that is, words written in the Roman alphabet. While one could live off romaji alone, it is not recommended, as it doesn't quite capture how Japanese is supposed to work. The three main scripts — hiragana, katakana, and kanji — are used together to create a unique and rich language full of depth and wonder.
When I started the Story of Seasons game, I used Google Translate to translate the game's wiki guide. Eventually, however, I learned what certain kanji and hana meant simply by playing and examining the context. I was soon able to barely grasp the language, and therefore, play the game.
My playing experience was sporadic at best, due to schooling. Each time I played, however, I knew more and more words, even if I didn't know the exact English equivalent. The moral of this story is, if you want to do something crazy and possibly stupid, do it. There's nothing more satisfying than diving in headfirst and finding it's worth it.
I am still trying to teach myself Japanese. Many resources can be found on Reddit. This game isn't the most hardcore of all video games, but I feel like I have really learned something because of my attempts to play the game and learn enough Japanese. Plus I had a lot of fun playing the latest version of my favorite game. I hope that all of you decide to do something equally crazy and unusual, so that you might learn what it means to really live.
Learn More
www.reddit.com/r/learnjapanese
Nippon-Yasan
Japanese Language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/lesson/english/learn/benefit/basic/basic.html
http://web-japan.org/kidsweb/language/
Japanese Dictionary
http://jisho.org/kanji/radicals/
Author
Also In The October 2014 Issue
Andrew Mills Talks about Bits & Bytes and How to Design Games
Andrew created Bits & Bytes, a fun card game to teach kids computing skills: logic, problem solving, and critical thinking.
Tim Kropp Talks About Creating Games for Kids
Tim describes how he created his game company, Glide Games, and with his young son created two video games, Elevator Adventures and Subway Adventures.
Lo Shu Magic Squares Puzzle
A 4,000 year old Chinese magic squares puzzle is both fun and a way to learn basic problem solving skills. Plus turtles.
History of Video Games
Can you name the first video game? The first game likely was Tennis for Two in 1958 but it could be Space Wars! in 1962 or other games. It's complicated.
Playing Harvest Moon in Japanese
The story of an English-speaking person learning a little Japanese by playing the latest Harvest Moon game, Connect to a New World, in original Japanese.
Wendy Norman and Skype in the classroom
Wendy Norman, the Director of Social Good at Microsoft, talks about the history and features of the Skype in the classroom service for teachers.
Game Play
You can use the concepts of game play to turn almost any task or information into a game. Assuming you can define game play.
Maker Faire NY 2014
The Greatest Show and Tell on Earth turned out to be tons of fun for kids and parents, plus a place to wander and find new technology. Links and video.
We need storytelling. Otherwise, life just goes on and on like the number Pi.
October 2014 Learn More Links
Links from the bottom of all the October 2014 articles, collected in one place for you to print, share, or bookmark.
Papyrus
This language lets you modify the Skyrim game to learn game coding plus have fun adding objects and functionality to the game.
October 2014 News Wire
Interesting stories about computer science, software programming, and technology for the month of September 2014.
Unity, PyGame, GamePress
Three game creation software tools you can use to create games. Includes a brief description and lots of links to these and other game creation tools.
