Strategy for learning Japanese to play Japanese video games?

I just finished studying abroad in Japan this past week and was able to buy a bunch of video games from the country. My goal this Summer is study and learn enough Japanese to the point where I will be able to understand what is going on in these games. In other words my priority learning objective for now is reading and listening comprehension. I do not care about my speaking and writing skills at this moment. I have already completed my required one year of the Japanese foreign language requirement at my university but I admittedly do not perform that well studying this language within the education system as I was barely able to pass with a C average. Though I do have a mastery of the hirigana and katakana alphabet and I do know some simple vocabulary and kanji. I plan to continue my study of this language independently. My problem though is that I don't really know how to study on my own. I've already ordered "Japanese Core Words and Phrases: Things You Can't Find in a Dictionary", "Essential Kanji: 2,000 Basic Japanese Characters Systematically Arranged For Learning And Reference", and "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar" as resources to help me study but I'm not sure what order and how I should study these books. Should I read them like a novel or should I treat them like a work books. And is their a way that I can target my learning so that the vocabulary that I am learning coincides with vocabulary often used in video games? Are there any other resources that I can use that would be helpful for my current situation? Thank you for your time.

You need listening comprehension to play video games???

Andromedashun said:

You need listening comprehension to play video games???

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Some of my games have voice acting which is in Japanese so yes, I do need to increase my listening comprehension in order to understand the games but reading comprehension is my top priority.

I want to learn math so I can understand algebra but I'm only interested in learning addition and multiplication. I don't want to learn subtraction and division. Does anybody have any advice for me?

You need to set some reasonable goals. "be able to play video games" is too broad - that covers everything from being able to figure out which button to mash to dealing with text-heavy games with five screens fully of back-story written in Ye Old Faux Samurai.

In three months you're not going to make a huge amount of headway in terms of what you need for anything very text heavy. Games and other forms of fiction can have a wide range of grammar including unusual/non-standard language (me caveman me talk funny, Ye Old Immortal Quest Giver-speak, etc), unusual vocab you don't find in other sources, and so on.

You can focus on picking up the major vocab (basically operational stuff like 経験値 or whatever) for some of your games, provided you do this as a sideline to other study. Use a 攻略 (walkthrough) website as another source of reading material. But any plan which involves just trying to translate as you play through, while you're still at a relatively low level, will probably just end in frustration.

The main point about self-study is that you need to be able to set yourself tasks and go through with them. For Japanese (or any language study), you need to be studying daily even though nobody will tell you off if you don't and nobody's setting you any homework.

Mike Cash said:

I want to learn math so I can understand algebra but I'm only interested in learning addition and multiplication. I don't want to learn subtraction and division. Does anybody have any advice for me?

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Gee thanks for the kind words. -_-; My primary focus for now is listening and reading comprehension it's not like I'm going to completely ignore writing and speaking comprehension. My writing comprehension is fairly strong though my speaking comprehension is admittedly weak but guess what, speaking and writing have nothing to do with playing the video games that I want to play through so it's not worth it for me to make speaking and writing comprehension a top priority right now. I never said I don't want to learn them, they're just not my priority at the moment. :/

You need to set some reasonable goals. "be able to play video games" is too broad - that covers everything from being able to figure out which button to mash to dealing with text-heavy games with five screens fully of back-story written in Ye Old Faux Samurai.

In three months you're not going to make a huge amount of headway in terms of what you need for anything very text heavy. Games and other forms of fiction can have a wide range of grammar including unusual/non-standard language (me caveman me talk funny, Ye Old Immortal Quest Giver-speak, etc), unusual vocab you don't find in other sources, and so on.

You can focus on picking up the major vocab (basically operational stuff like 経験値 or whatever) for some of your games, provided you do this as a sideline to other study. Use a 攻略 (walkthrough) website as another source of reading material. But any plan which involves just trying to translate as you play through, while you're still at a relatively low level, will probably just end in frustration.

The main point about self-study is that you need to be able to set yourself tasks and go through with them. For Japanese (or any language study), you need to be studying daily even though nobody will tell you off if you don't and nobody's setting you any homework.

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Thank you for giving me a helpful and well thought out response unlike Mike Cash ^_^ My plan for now is to go through the books that I've ordered in addition to studying as much kanji and vocabulary as I can. Most of the games that I have are visual novels so I don't need to worry about what buttons to mash, just how to read the language.

I was illustrating absurdity with absurdity. It will take you a while to realize just what a well thought out reply it actually was.

Mike Cash said:

I was illustrating absurdity with absurdity. It will take you a while to realize just what a well thought out reply it actually was.

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I understand perfectly well what you're saying but there are nicer more polite ways to get your point across. Alright, if I need to practice writing and speaking Japanese in order to be able to read this language (READING is my main goal for now) then I will do so. I am very eager to learn this language and I will commit whatever time and effort I have to do so. ^_^

Edit: Oh and by the way, I know many people in Japan who are able to read English perfectly well but have trouble speaking it which is a very common thing in Japan as the educational system over there requires them to learn how to read and write English but not necessarily to speak English. So no, my goal with focusing and reading and listening comprehension was not absurd.

I dont think its reasonable to do in a summer, ive been studying for a bit over a year and a half with a long break in between and Playing a game would be streneous for me, I would have to look up words every now and then and it would be a pain ,were talking about knowing probably thousands and thousands of words probably near fluent level or at fluent level. Why not just start small and work your way up get a textbook or something.

letianchen said:

I dont think its reasonable to do in a summer, ive been studying for a bit over a year and a half with a long break in between and Playing a game would be streneous for me, I would have to look up words every now and then and it would be a pain ,were talking about knowing probably thousands and thousands of words probably near fluent level or at fluent level. Why not just start small and work your way up get a textbook or something.

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Ok, I've already completed my first year textbook and work workbook and will be receiving three more books in the mail soon that I plan to work with. I am also using nihongomaster as an online reference. I'll take your advice and slowly work my way up. If I can't play my games this Summer then I'll continue to work throughout the year and hopefully I'll be ready next Summer.

Visual novels are probably not the best place to start - since you can't just skip over the text if you want to understand what's going on, the text is most of the point. By all means have a go, but you're likely to find the grammar/vocab a sticking point from what you've said about your current level. (It somewhat depends on the game and your ability to deal with not knowing everything - games of that sort I've played tend to have a lot of slang and non-joyo thrown in and I wouldn't consider them good for beginners).

Online games like, 物探し (hidden object games)、脱出 (escape games - some have more descriptive text than others), and some RPG or city-building types (with tutorials), would be my suggestions for starting points.

Mike Cash said:

I want to learn math so I can understand algebra but I'm only interested in learning addition and multiplication. I don't want to learn subtraction and division. Does anybody have any advice for me?

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That's like saying mute people can never learn Japanese. Rude and pointless reply.

Timelyn said:

That's like saying mute people can never learn Japanese. Rude and pointless reply.

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Please refrain from necroposting; it is against the forum rules.

Timelyn said:

That's like saying mute people can never learn Japanese. Rude and pointless reply.

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Actually, it is nothing at all like saying mute people can never learn Japanese.

Since you were too busy being offended by proxy to think about what I actually said, I will point out for that I consciously and purposely made my point using pairs of complementary skills.