I have JLPT2 but...

[Mahoujin Tsukai]

I tried playing the Japanese version of Final Fantasy IV (it's called FFII in the USA). I can't read and comprehend the in-game text because it scrolls so fast . And there are so many words that I still don't understand.

Anyone having similar problems?

 

[Glenn]

JLPT isn't really an indicator of your actual ability (ironically). If you don't practice reading quickly, you probably won't read quickly. And isn't JLPT 2 supposed to be knowing 6000 words or so? That doesn't seem like an awful lot to me (in relation to not coming across words you don't know that often). That aside, when you deal with fantasy themes in general you're going to come across some made up words, and I don't think JLPT can help you with that.

 

[nice gaijin]

another example of how passing a standardized test means that you can pass a standardized test?

That aside there are probably two things that are making this difficult for you. Games have a lot of specialized vocabulary that you'd probably never encounter anywhere else, and just because you can read Japanese doesn't necessarily mean that you can read it quickly: the only remedy for this is more study and practice.

edit: lol Glenn I'm creeped out by how similar our posts are here...

 

[Glenn]

That just means it must be true!

 

[JimmySeal]

another example of how passing a standardized test means that you can pass a standardized test?

I do think that to a considerable extent, the JLPT does measure ability, but Level 2 is probably not as high as OP thinks.

@OP: I think that if you have the right attitude, you can probably get through the game ok. You have to just accept that there are some words that you're not going to know at first but if you have level 2, you'll probably find that if you try, you can figure out what a lot of them mean from the context. I may be wrong, but doesn't most of the text in FF2/4 stop and wait for you to press the A button before it scrolls?

Have a look at these pages. I think Glenn posted the first one a while ago:
http://www.english-learning.co.uk/voc.html
http://static.unilang.org/resources/vocab/vocdb.html

 

[The7thSamurai]

Well, considering most university educated Japanese know around 60,000 words, and JLPT2 is around 6000, I'm not surprised you don't understand. I'm aiming for JLPT2 this year but I don't expect to be able to read stuff like that Final Fantasy game until well after JLPT1.

 

[nhk9]

Well, considering most university educated Japanese know around 60,000 words, and JLPT2 is around 6000, I'm not surprised you don't understand. I'm aiming for JLPT2 this year but I don't expect to be able to read stuff like that Final Fantasy game until well after JLPT1.

Where did you get the 60,000 figure? It's the first time I've heard about that. It'd be nice if you can maybe post a link for us to read about. I think that's quite a bit, actually. But I wouldn't doubt that figure as Japanese have to learn obscure words like "さみだれ" for "rain in may" (kanji: 五月雨). I saw this word in a middle school nihongo textbook.

The thing that I am surprised at is the very strong vocab base of native speakers regarding gitaigo and giongo. Those words are very easy to forget since one doesn't use them often. If you don't listen to Japanese everyday they just tend to slip away.

 

[The7thSamurai]

Whe
Where did you get the 60,000 figure? It's the first time I've heard about that. It'd be nice if you can maybe post a link for us to read about. I think that's quite a bit, actually. But I wouldn't doubt that figure as Japanese have to learn obscure words like "さみだれ" for "rain in may" (kanji: 五月雨). I saw this word in a middle school nihongo textbook.

The thing that I am surprised at is the very strong vocab base of native speakers regarding gitaigo and giongo. Those words are very easy to forget since one doesn't use them often. If you don't listen to Japanese everyday they just tend to slip away.

Sorry I should have posted a reference. I actually started a discussion on the number of words Japanese people know not long ago:

157,000 words? | Japan Forum

The source that I linked to stated two different figures. I think the 60,000 would be more like it. The hundred and something thousand word figure probably includes word inflections and such.

 

[Thunderthief]

Try "Zelda: Ocarina Of Time" Japanese version. It was written at a level so that middle school kids and better could understand it, and you can control the text speed. You can usually pick it up off ebay for $20 or so.

Its great Japanese reading practice.

 

[nhk9]

Sorry I should have posted a reference. I actually started a discussion on the number of words Japanese people know not long ago:
157,000 words? | Japan Forum
The source that I linked to stated two different figures. I think the 60,000 would be more like it. The hundred and something thousand word figure probably includes word inflections and such.

Too bad I don't have $6.50 or else I would've wanted to continue reading that article. I don't understand what they mean by "basic words" and what kind of methodology they use so it's probably hard to take it as is. Japanese is a language where you can combine words and create new words easily. I don't know about 60000words, but I think if you have 1/3 of that you will definitely not have a difficult time staying in japan.

 

[jljzen]

60,000 words?! Are you freaking nuts? I don't even think I have that kind of vocabulary in English, let alone Japanese!

 

[JimmySeal]

You probably do, and just don't realize it.

 

[jljzen]

I dunno. I think we throw around numbers an awful lot without realizing their significance. Have any of you ever tried counting to 60,000? That number is a lot large than you think.

 

[nice gaijin]

from askoxford.com

The Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. To this may be added around 9,500 derivative words included as subentries. Over half of these words are nouns, about a quarter adjectives, and about a seventh verbs; the rest is made up of interjections, conjunctions, prepositions, suffixes, etc. These figures take no account of entries with senses for different parts of speech (such as noun and adjective).

This suggests that there are, at the very least, a quarter of a million distinct English words, excluding inflections, and words from technical and regional vocabulary not covered by the OED, or words not yet added to the published dictionary, of which perhaps 20 per cent are no longer in current use. If distinct senses were counted, the total would probably approach three quarters of a million.

So 60,000 words would only be about a third of the words in common use today, and a far smaller fraction of the total number of words that are considered "English." I wouldn't doubt that my own vocabulary probably encapsulates a larger fraction of the entire lexicon.

The 60,000+ figure has been confirmed by a research paper by Diane Fukumoto and Eleanor Horii, published in The Journal-Newsletter of the Association of Teachers of Japanese. This article was written back in the 60's, so it's very possible that this figure has changed since then:
link to the document, since they don't like me to hotlink

Once again, a quick search clears the fog. I don't see why people prefer to speculate about such things, over using the tools at their disposal.

 

[jljzen]

Touche.
However, I'd be willing to bet that the average native speaker of any given language would use nowhere near that amount of words in their everyday dealings. There's just not the necessity. But I digress.
Ah, to know 60,000 words in Japanese...wow. How awesome would that be?

 

[nice gaijin]

I'm afraid you'd have to be quite a pompous *** to use the entire 60,000 words you know in everyday conversation, but that's not the point of knowing the words. I'm just happy to be beyond the point of counting my vocabulary (in either language).

 

[JimmySeal]

I'm pretty sure that 60,000 figure refers to passive vocabulary, not active.
Vocabulary - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The above page says 20,000, but I would believe a figure like 60,000. I'd say I can recognize about 12,000-15,000 Japanese words and understanding Japanese like a native speaker still seems a long way off.

 

[Mahoujin Tsukai]

60,000 words in the Japanese language is alot.

Not sure if I can compare with the English language but,
I remember some websites saying that G W Bush knows only 10,000 English words.

 

[jljzen]

Anyhow, back to the topic at hand...
While I'm still a low-intermediate (passed 2kyuu this year), I fall into patterns of using the same words repetitively when a different, more applicable, or more intellectually-sounding word would better suit my mood or the nuance I am trying to convey. I hate this. Even when forcing myself to use the new word, I often fall back on the old ones, not so much out of laziness but more because I'm used to using it.

 

[nhk9]

Anyhow, back to the topic at hand...
While I'm still a low-intermediate (passed 2kyuu this year), I fall into patterns of using the same words repetitively when a different, more applicable, or more intellectually-sounding word would better suit my mood or the nuance I am trying to convey. I hate this. Even when forcing myself to use the new word, I often fall back on the old ones, not so much out of laziness but more because I'm used to using it.

You are not the only facing this problem! This problem fades as your vocabulary skills improves. You may want to find books that explain common idioms. Note that there are books that explain idioms that are seldomly used. Those books tend to cater toward Japanese natives who are interested in peculiarities of their own tongue. For us foreigners it is important to find a book that doesn't discuss those rare idioms, but the most common ones that all fluent speakers are supposed to know.