It’s called Influent and I first released it in 2014. Added a bunch of other languages since but it all started with Japanese. Shout out to Shashingo as well!
That one looks pretty cool. I already know some basic Japanese, so I am not a total beginner. Will this game still be worth it for me? As in, what is the most advanced level this game gets to regarding Japanese?
If you want one that gets fairly advanced, have you tried wanikani? It’s based on the SRS system (like anki), but it’s more structured than anki.
About the SRS:
If you’re not familiar with SRS or anki, it stands for “sustained repetition system” and basically you review things on a timer, and when you get something right the interval until the next time it shows you that one gets longer. When you get one wrong, the interval for that one gets shorter.
It’s somewhat gamified and broken up into levels and stages. Each stage has ten levels if I remember correctly. Every level introduces new radicals, and then once you’ve reviewed those a few times and gotten enough correct it introduces kanji that use the radicals. And then as you review those it introduces vocabulary that use the kanji. And you review those as well, and once you’ve gotten enough right enough times you move on to the next level.
Eventually if you get something right enough times, there’s a three month gap before it shows it to you again, and then if you get it right that time it’s basically completed and you won’t see it anymore. Which is good because by halfway through you’re already working with basically thousands of digital flashcards.
The problem is, for intermediate learners, unless they’ve added a feature since I last used it, you can’t skip the early levels. So you’ll have to painstakingly get through basically all the super easy kanji before you start learning new ones.
But once you get there, you’ll learn a lot. I think they’re presented by order of frequency-of-use, so if you studied by JLPT or Joyo order before, you’ll likely start learning new ones before you get through all the ones you already know.
And the last I used it, they had over 2000 kanji. Not including radicals or vocab, just the kanji. So yeah by the later levels you’ll start to feel pretty confident. If you spend time in Japan, you’ll start noticing that you can read more signs and it will feel amazing.
About plugins:
There are plugins for it, but be careful with those. Some can improve the UI a little bit, but some can completely destroy the pedagogical method built into the SRS system and the temptation to cheat can be a little too strong.
You might install an undo button because you get annoyed when a typo makes you get an answer wrong that you knew, or because you typed the kun’yomi when it wanted on’yomi, but the next you know you’re convincing yourself that you really knew that one even though you just typed the wrong thing because it was a brainfart. So then you as start getting answers “correct” even when they could use more review. Next thing you know you’re burning turtles (their phrase for completing an item) before you truly internalized the concept.
So yeah, be careful with plugins.
About the radicals:
Oh and they don’t teach you the real names of the radicals, like what you’d find in the Kodansha books. They make up their own cutesy words for them, which sometimes have the same meaning as the actual radical, but not always. And they use their cutesy radical names for their cutesy mnemonics later when you’re learning kanji with them.
It can be tempting to skip the radicals if you’re using plugins, but that will make the mnemonics make way less sense. So even though it’s kinda dumb, you have to learn their names for the radicals. Even though if you call it that in a real japanese class or to a Japanese person, they’ll look at you like you don’t know what you’re talking about. On the bright side though, they’ll be super impressed when they see you have no trouble reading kanji on a menu or whatever.
Oh and you need to know the hiragana before you can do wanikani. If you’ve been learning with romaji so far, well that’s a bad habit anyway, and now is the second-best time to break it (the first-best time was the moment you started). Just use flash cards. It won’t be that painful, I promise.
Learning the kana:
Focus on the hiragana for now; don’t worry about the katakana until you know all the hiragana by heart. And practice your flashcards both ways, actually writing the characters. It will help improve your recognition by a lot, but also it’s the only way you’ll ever be able to write them by hand (which is wayyy different from typing).
Oh and practice organizing your flashcards into a table that goes 「あ、い、う、え、お」 down the right side, and 「あ、か、さ、た、な、は、ま、や、ら、わ」 across the top (from right to left). That might sound weird, but try it! It will help you organize the characters spatially and you’ll gain a more intuitive understanding of the relationships and patterns between them. It’ll feel less like a giant messy alphabet of squiggles, and more like a coherent and orderly system of phonemes.
It’ll also show you which ones you still struggle with, because you’ll be able to see the holes in your table (if you’re doing it without looking at a reference, which I recommend. Do as many as you can without it, and only then check your reference to fill in the rest). Then you know which ones to focus on. And each time you build the table, those holes will get smaller until you can put each one in its place without checking any references.
At that point, it’ll feel so easy that you won’t even know why you have flashcards anymore. But keep using them until you can write each character too. Again, try filling in your table, only this time writing them by hand each time.
Once you can do all that with the hiragana, you can make your katakana flashcards. Only, skip the romaji this time. Make your flashcards flip between the hiragana and the katakana!
Wanikani isn’t a complete solution in itself. It will improve your reading tremendously. It will help your writing somewhat, but less so unless you practice the strokes by hand. (Seeing and recognizing a kanji is completely different from being able to write it without looking at a reference. Interestingly, typing only requires you to be able to see and recognize a character).
What it won’t help with is grammar, or listening to full sentences at a natural pace, or speaking fluently (it will help your pronunciation of individual words though, if you do your reviews with the sound on). So you’ll still have to supplement it with additional material.
What to supplement it with:
For grammar, that means textbooks mostly. Maybe some blogs for additional concepts, like idioms, dialects, or casual speaking styles.
If you want to be able to write by hand, you have to practice the stroke order. It’s the only way to ingrain it in your memory. The Kodansha books will give you all you need for that. If you prefer mobile apps, Jsho and Imiwa both have that information. I think Imiwa is better than Jsho, but unfortunately it’s not on android.
Shadowing is good for listening and speaking practice. 日本語話しよう is a good textbook/cd for that, or you could probably find videos on the internet. After that, just watching J-Dramas and listening to Japanese music. Avoid using anime for practice sessions though because that’s not how people really talk.
in which they announce that https://www.mochijapa.com/ has joined the team to make sure language accuracy is top notch. They’re also working on adding a fourth region to the game with more advanced language.
Link?
It’s called Influent and I first released it in 2014. Added a bunch of other languages since but it all started with Japanese. Shout out to Shashingo as well!
No idea what one the person you replayed to made, but Wagotabi is good. It also updates fairly regularly.
That one looks pretty cool. I already know some basic Japanese, so I am not a total beginner. Will this game still be worth it for me? As in, what is the most advanced level this game gets to regarding Japanese?
If you want one that gets fairly advanced, have you tried wanikani? It’s based on the SRS system (like anki), but it’s more structured than anki.
About the SRS:
If you’re not familiar with SRS or anki, it stands for “sustained repetition system” and basically you review things on a timer, and when you get something right the interval until the next time it shows you that one gets longer. When you get one wrong, the interval for that one gets shorter.
It’s somewhat gamified and broken up into levels and stages. Each stage has ten levels if I remember correctly. Every level introduces new radicals, and then once you’ve reviewed those a few times and gotten enough correct it introduces kanji that use the radicals. And then as you review those it introduces vocabulary that use the kanji. And you review those as well, and once you’ve gotten enough right enough times you move on to the next level.
Eventually if you get something right enough times, there’s a three month gap before it shows it to you again, and then if you get it right that time it’s basically completed and you won’t see it anymore. Which is good because by halfway through you’re already working with basically thousands of digital flashcards.
The problem is, for intermediate learners, unless they’ve added a feature since I last used it, you can’t skip the early levels. So you’ll have to painstakingly get through basically all the super easy kanji before you start learning new ones.
But once you get there, you’ll learn a lot. I think they’re presented by order of frequency-of-use, so if you studied by JLPT or Joyo order before, you’ll likely start learning new ones before you get through all the ones you already know.
And the last I used it, they had over 2000 kanji. Not including radicals or vocab, just the kanji. So yeah by the later levels you’ll start to feel pretty confident. If you spend time in Japan, you’ll start noticing that you can read more signs and it will feel amazing.
About plugins:
There are plugins for it, but be careful with those. Some can improve the UI a little bit, but some can completely destroy the pedagogical method built into the SRS system and the temptation to cheat can be a little too strong.
You might install an undo button because you get annoyed when a typo makes you get an answer wrong that you knew, or because you typed the kun’yomi when it wanted on’yomi, but the next you know you’re convincing yourself that you really knew that one even though you just typed the wrong thing because it was a brainfart. So then you as start getting answers “correct” even when they could use more review. Next thing you know you’re burning turtles (their phrase for completing an item) before you truly internalized the concept.
So yeah, be careful with plugins.
About the radicals:
Oh and they don’t teach you the real names of the radicals, like what you’d find in the Kodansha books. They make up their own cutesy words for them, which sometimes have the same meaning as the actual radical, but not always. And they use their cutesy radical names for their cutesy mnemonics later when you’re learning kanji with them.
It can be tempting to skip the radicals if you’re using plugins, but that will make the mnemonics make way less sense. So even though it’s kinda dumb, you have to learn their names for the radicals. Even though if you call it that in a real japanese class or to a Japanese person, they’ll look at you like you don’t know what you’re talking about. On the bright side though, they’ll be super impressed when they see you have no trouble reading kanji on a menu or whatever.
Oh and you need to know the hiragana before you can do wanikani. If you’ve been learning with romaji so far, well that’s a bad habit anyway, and now is the second-best time to break it (the first-best time was the moment you started). Just use flash cards. It won’t be that painful, I promise.
Learning the kana:
Focus on the hiragana for now; don’t worry about the katakana until you know all the hiragana by heart. And practice your flashcards both ways, actually writing the characters. It will help improve your recognition by a lot, but also it’s the only way you’ll ever be able to write them by hand (which is wayyy different from typing).
Oh and practice organizing your flashcards into a table that goes 「あ、い、う、え、お」 down the right side, and 「あ、か、さ、た、な、は、ま、や、ら、わ」 across the top (from right to left). That might sound weird, but try it! It will help you organize the characters spatially and you’ll gain a more intuitive understanding of the relationships and patterns between them. It’ll feel less like a giant messy alphabet of squiggles, and more like a coherent and orderly system of phonemes.
It’ll also show you which ones you still struggle with, because you’ll be able to see the holes in your table (if you’re doing it without looking at a reference, which I recommend. Do as many as you can without it, and only then check your reference to fill in the rest). Then you know which ones to focus on. And each time you build the table, those holes will get smaller until you can put each one in its place without checking any references.
At that point, it’ll feel so easy that you won’t even know why you have flashcards anymore. But keep using them until you can write each character too. Again, try filling in your table, only this time writing them by hand each time.
Once you can do all that with the hiragana, you can make your katakana flashcards. Only, skip the romaji this time. Make your flashcards flip between the hiragana and the katakana!
Wanikani isn’t a complete solution in itself. It will improve your reading tremendously. It will help your writing somewhat, but less so unless you practice the strokes by hand. (Seeing and recognizing a kanji is completely different from being able to write it without looking at a reference. Interestingly, typing only requires you to be able to see and recognize a character).
What it won’t help with is grammar, or listening to full sentences at a natural pace, or speaking fluently (it will help your pronunciation of individual words though, if you do your reviews with the sound on). So you’ll still have to supplement it with additional material.
What to supplement it with:
For grammar, that means textbooks mostly. Maybe some blogs for additional concepts, like idioms, dialects, or casual speaking styles.
If you want to be able to write by hand, you have to practice the stroke order. It’s the only way to ingrain it in your memory. The Kodansha books will give you all you need for that. If you prefer mobile apps, Jsho and Imiwa both have that information. I think Imiwa is better than Jsho, but unfortunately it’s not on android.
Shadowing is good for listening and speaking practice. 日本語話しよう is a good textbook/cd for that, or you could probably find videos on the internet. After that, just watching J-Dramas and listening to Japanese music. Avoid using anime for practice sessions though because that’s not how people really talk.
I will admit to not finishing the game, or really any game. It’s a problem of mine.
But here’s the one year anniversary update here
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2701720/announcements/detail/545650698257172084?snr=2___
in which they announce that https://www.mochijapa.com/ has joined the team to make sure language accuracy is top notch. They’re also working on adding a fourth region to the game with more advanced language.