Ni No Kuni Japanese Practice!

This past weekend my Japanese buddy came over and we played Ni No Kuni! I was hoping we could switch the menus into Japanese with the American version of the game, but sadly that was not that case so instead we played with the Japanese audio and at least were able to listen to the cut scenes in Japanese. My Japanese friend helped explain a lot of random phrases and we discussed different dialects. My big take away is I cannot understand anything from an Osakan dialect and my general understanding is still woefully lacking.

I forgot how amazing the music is. Here is my favorite one (yes this is more gaming related than anything else, but I want to share!)

Drippy

I'm excited to play through this game more and hopefully the exposure to Japanese with my friend's help will improve my listening skills.

Japanese Learning Tracker
Rosetta Stone: Level 2, Unit 7, Lesson 2 (yeah it went backwards in numbers, I don't understand their numbering system either)
Kanji Tracker: 598 Kanji Learned
Game Progress: Youkai Watch 5 hours 15 minutes

A Fresh Start

Hello! Welcome to this lovely new blog of mine. The purpose of this blog is to keep track of my journey with Japanese. I took a couple years of Japanese in college, fooled around a bit with Rosetta Stone and a recent trip to Tokyo has motivated me to start learning Japanese again.

I have two motivations for learning Japanese. One is so I can play Final Fantasy Explorers, which is a 3DS game I picked up (along with a Japanese 3DS, the system is region locked so can only play games in it's region. I can not play Japanese games on my American 3DS). The second motivation is so I have the option to one day move to Tokyo!

Final Fantasy Explorers!!! Still wrapped...

I am using a couple tools to learn Japanese. The first is a subscription to Rosetta Stone Totale. Totale is the online subscription to a Rosetta Stone language, I highly recommend it. Beyond the basic language learning tools, you also get access to live tutoring sessions and a slew of games. Check it out here: http://www.rosettastone.com/

The second tool is the book Remembering the Kanji by James Heisig and using a computer-based flashcard system called Anki. So far I've learned over 500 kanji in a month. Not bad!

I've been meeting once a week with one of my Japanese American friends and we speak only Japanese for 15 minutes. It doesn't sound like much, but when you're a total newb like me 15 minutes is really hard!

My last Japanese learning tool is my Japanese 3DS. I've been playing Youkai Watch on it, which is a children's game about catching ghosts! I highly recommend it.

A Japanese 3DS, with a Jibanyan (Youkai Watch) Cover

If you are trying to learn Japanese yourself, I hope to help give you some hints from what I've learned. It's a long road, but with a bit of dedication and perseverance we can do it!

Japanese Learning Tracker
Rosetta Stone: Level 2, Unit 7, Lesson 4
Kanji Tracker: 526 Kanji Learned
Game Progress: Youkai Watch 5 hours 15 minutes

I leave you with this lovely image of a temple in Kyoto in the snow.