4th Gen Basic Japanese for the HG/SS. Navigating the Input Menu.

[Mika]

Basic Japanese for the HG/SS. Navigating the Input Menu.

Okay guys so I had a couple people ask me to help with nicknaming Pokemon using the five-character limit in HG/SS and after doing three translations I thought I could make up an easy little guide to help you guys with your legal Japanese copies to name your Pokemon and use the word/name entry feature just a little bit easier. I have Britney_Spears's Premission to post this. ^^; My major is Japanese TESOL and I've got 6 years of study under my belt so I'm about 99% certain that everything you're about to view is correct but if you can prove me wrong, I'm not out to kill puppies and I'll listen to what you have to say. Just be respectful please. Anywho. *wiggles into teacher's cap* :D Let's begin!

I plan on making this simple as pie so it's not too long and it's not too hard to understand. First, I'm going to explain the basic three alphabets of Japanese that you're going to see most often in HG/SS. Romanji, which is english spellings of Japanese words, [Sushi is technically written in Romanji. If you wrote it in 'Actual Japanese' it would be written like this: すし] Hiragana, which is used for Japan-based words and Katakana is used for borrowed words.

The Basics of the Japanese Menu

This is Hiragana. It's one of the 'alphabets' of the Japanese language. Hiragana is where we get Kanji [those fancy pants characters with about 30 billion strokes in them] and Hiragana for the most part is used for only Japanese words or words brought over from China. It is more fluid looking than Katakana. Words like Sushi, Tokyo and Sensei would be written in Hiragana.

Katakana, a much choppier looking alphabetic language [and if you hit this little button it'll switch to katakana characters which are the same as Hiragana placement wise] is used for borrowed words. Pikachu is often written in katakana. English translations, like the name "Luke" for example would be written in Romanji like "Ruuku" and would be written in Japanese in katakana like this: ルーク.

English is English. You should know that. :P

This is the backspace.

The word written on this button means "done/finished" and while you veterans know if you hit 'start' you can finish, I thought it would be a helpful it of information.

The Basic Characters

Now we're onto the good stuff. First and formost, do you all remember your multiplication worksheets you have in early elementary school/primary where you played a matching game? That's how this table works. The A goes allll the way over and the top letters go down so that second character from the left, two over, is a 'ka' character because it has a K above it and an A to the left. :3 If this doesn't make sense, let me know and I'll try and help you match them up but it's not as hard as you might think. It's the same on the Katakana chart. This means, when you're putting in words, that one character is two english letters, or ka. There are two exceptions tho, that I need to tell you about.

Si = Shi
Ti = Chi
Tu = Tsu
Hu = Fu
Wu = N/M [Depending on the word]

The Y line is also off. Going down, the characters are "Ya" "Yu "Yo". There is no "Yi" or "Ye" they do not exist in the Japanese language. Again, if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

"Wo" is technically "(w)O". It is a particle and it connects the subject to the verb. It does not exist on its own. Wi, We, Wu do not exist.

The Slightly More Difficult Characters

Okay, this is where things get a little tricky. The first box in the upper left that is illuminated is called a 'tenten' mark and it changes the sound of the word. You press this button AFTER you pick its predecessor. Here's a basic run down, using the chart above as a reference. XD: [I have no idea how to make this into a chart so if you've got graphic skills i'd love the help."] Not all Hiragana use the tenten.

Ka - > Ga
Ka - > Gi
Ka - > Gu
Ka - > Ge
Ka - > Go

Sa - > Za
Shi - > Ji
Su - > Zu
Se - > Ze
So - > Zo

Ta - > Da
Chi - > Ji [Dzi] [Rarely Used]
Tsu - > Zu [Dzu] [Rarely used]
Te - > De
To - > Do

Ha - > Ba
Hi - > Bi
Fu - > Bu
He - > Be
Ho - > Bo

Now, that last set I showed you, [Ha - > Ba] also uses that small symbol hidden between the two highlighted characters. It can only be used with the Ha, Hi, Fu, He, Ho and it changes them to the following

Ha - > Pa
Hi - > Pi
Fu - > Pu
He - > Pe
Ho - > Po

That last hightlighted character is a long bar. It CAN be used for Hiragana but it is almost exclusively used with katakana.

Say you have the word Hamburger. In Japanese, we would write that in english characters like this: hambaagaa. ハ[Ha] ン[m] バ[ba] ア[a] ガ[g] ア[a] which has the second a written twice in its katakana counterpart. You can skip this step by using the long bar which tells the reader to just use the vowel in the previous character twice. Here's the difference, which can only be seen using Japanese characters so if you can't see them, I apologize. :<

ハンバーガー < - using the long bar
ハンバアガア < - using kana fill in vowels.

The first one looks neater, ne?

The Head Scratching Characters

Okay, we're almost done, we're onto the hardest bit now. >:[ These small little characters are smooshed into the big ones to create new ones. You probably won't use the ones on the left but the row down on the right you've heard of or you might use.

Going down, the list on the right is a 'ya, yu, yo' like you saw three rows to the left in a bigger form. If you combined the little character with the following kanas you'll get a new 'alphabet' letter, just like with the tenten from before.

Ki - > Kya, Kyu, Kyo
Shi - > Shi, Shu, Sho
Chi - > Cha, Chu, Cho
Ni - > Nya, Nyu, Nyo
Hi - > Hya, Hyu, Hyo
Mi - > Mya, Myu, Myo
Ri - > Rya, Ryu, Ryo

Make sense? :3 Good! If not, ask me a question!

Conclusion

Hopefully this has helped you eager little HG/SS bunnies with your basic HG/SS needs. ^^ Happy playing until the English trans comes out~

 

[Guy]

Let me be the first to compliment you here, this thread is exceptionally well. It really went into detail exlaining all the different characters of the Japanese pad. I would find this really helpul when coming to this situation and glad to see something like this posted. It will definitlely come in use for all those with the Japanese Cpoy of HeartGold and/or SoulSilver.

*Gives thumbs up*

 

[mervyn797]

in the heading Basic characters, you have written "K, S, T, N...." and they follow as ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, right?

 

[bobandbill]

in the heading Basic characters, you have written "K, S, T, N...." and they follow as ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, right?

Yep - Ka Ki Ku Ke Ko, Sa Si Su Se So, etc, etc.

 

[Venia Silente]

I may not have HG/SS (not even a DS) but such a thread, with information presented in a visually concise way and explaining the affairs of the Japanese language and its different alphabets, may as well serve me an excellent entry point to start learning the language.

Very well done. In particular the part about the combining characters.

 

[Mika]

Let me be the first to compliment you here, this thread is exceptionally well. It really went into detail exlaining all the different characters of the Japanese pad. I would find this really helpul when coming to this situation and glad to see something like this posted. It will definitlely come in use for all those with the Japanese Cpoy of HeartGold and/or SoulSilver.

*Gives thumbs up*

;o; daww thank you so much!

in the heading Basic characters, you have written "K, S, T, N...." and they follow as ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, right?

Correct, going down and matching across. Here, I'll add a smaller graphic:

The highlight character is 'ki' and you can see it corresponds to the K and I and so forth. :3

I may not have HG/SS (not even a DS) but such a thread, with information presented in a visually concise way and explaining the affairs of the Japanese language and its different alphabets, may as well serve me an excellent entry point to start learning the language.

Very well done. In particular the part about the combining characters.

Th-thanks. o///o I'm surprised it's going over as well as this haha. X3;; Let me know if you need any help at any time~

 

[~*!*~Tatsujin Gosuto~*!*~]

Chi - > Ji [Dzi] [Rarely Used]
Tsu - > Zu [Dzu] [Rarely used]

I've always screwed up on these in my life time xD

Great job with this, I wish that I had something like this when I started to learn how to write Japanese


:t354:TG

 

[Tudj]

Well your doing a good job helping people here, Good Luck on further translations. It was kinda helpful, except I just took the lazy way out and did my name in English :P.

 

[Rakyu]

Its been a while since I did Japanese, so just a couple of questions:

1. The small tsu doubles the consonant that follows it, right? (i.e. かった would be katta)
2. I don't remember the uses of the small base hiragana (a, i, u, e, o). What do they do again?

 

[mervyn797]

thanks even i though i knew them in katakana, i got confused, learned a long time back!

 

[.little monster]

Thanks so much Mika-san! <3 Now I can name my rival after the person I hate so much because their name can be spelled with Hiragana (and obviously Katakana) but not with English. ;; The 'i' at the end wont fit.

 

[Gulpin]

How would you make the English 'F' sound (as in ff)? Or would I have to use the Hu = Fu? How would you write it so it would sound like the English word 'field'?

 

[Zowayix]

That would be when you use the small vowels:

There is no character for "Fi" so Japanese uses Fu + small "i".

Field would be Fiirudo or something, so: ふぃーるど or フィールド. (The last one in katakana is probably more appropriate since "field" is an English word, and did not originally come from Japanese or Chinese.)

These small vowels are also used for stuff like Cha/Chu/Sha/Shu/etc. (See Pikachu's Japanese name for an example.)

 

[Masterge77]

AUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHH, MY HEAD HURTS, Curse you moonspeak, CURSE YOUUUUUUUUUUU