Japan in my Hand: An Import Introduction
Afraid of import gaming? Don't be! We'll show you the ropes...
...Continued From Page 2
If you're already into or thinking about getting into import games, a fun thing to have a go at is attempting to learn the Japanese Katakana writing system. Katakana (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana) is one of the Japanese writing systems and is usually used for 'Loan words', meaning words that aren't of traditional Japanese origin. You'll be very surprised by how much text in games is actually kinda in English, just not written in English. It can be difficult to start but the katakana symbols can be easily spotted in text because compared to the other writing they tend to be simpler and more angular.
Japanese as a language works with a set mixture of syllables, so these loan words read rather strangely but do make sense. For example, in
Goku Makaimura, a screen that you are going to see a lot of the time says 'continue', in katakana this is spelled as KONTINYU. Other things that come in handy to be able to spot are things like 'save' (SEEBU, pronounced kinda like SAY BU! ), Load (ROODO, like 'row dough') and options ( OPUSHON ). Its surprising to see so many quite easily recognizable words - it just takes a while to be able to recognize them.
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If you don't fancy going quite as far as that, there are still a few simple things that you can learn that will help you. Knowing the difference between YES (HAI) and NO (IIE) is one of the most useful things you can learn, as you'll often find in-between levels the good old game save prompt, which is the Kana for save with some japanese writing after it and then usually a nice question mark. Hai is usually on the left and is made up of two characters, Iie is usually on the right and is made up of three characters. Iie is usually the one automatically highlighted so whenever you want to save your game, select the smaller word!
Written by Philip Jones on Wednesday, August 23, 2006
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posted September 1, 2006