Learning a New Language... With Pokémon!

[Bug]

Hey all!

It's been about 4 years since I've made a post on here, but this place will always hold a special place in my heart. (A million dollars to anyone who remembers me.)

Recently, I've been trying to learn French! Since language apps alone aren't going to cut it, I'm trying to throw myself into the deep end by switching the language on my devices, reading French literature, etc. Honestly, one of the things I've had the most success with has been replaying Pokémon X in French. I'm already very familiar with the plot and dialogue, so it makes it easier to follow along with. I still have to do a tonnnnn of manual translation, so it takes forever to do anything, lol. Overall, though, it's a neat insight into colloquial speech in the language and I'm picking things up fast!

Has anyone else done this? What are your thoughts? So good to be back. :))

 

[_confused_piplup_]

I have tried learning Pokémon in Japanese. I don't play many games, but I know Pokémon well enough to know everything despite the language: maps, story, ecc. That's usually a good idea because it doesn't matter if you don't understand everything, you can still finish the game. Now, I have noticed that some games have harder Japanese than others. I haven't played pokemon black entirely in Jp but til 3rd gym it seemed relatively easier to me. I played PLA in Japanese and that game has hard Japanese. Translating everything takes so much time, especially if you don't have good grammar basics and good dictionary. In my case, dictionary was my issue and it took soooooooo long lol. So I wouldn't really advise it unless you're fine with immersion and not translating everything, and/or if you set up things properly (OCD programs, scripts, ecc).

 

[Bug]

I have tried learning Pokémon in Japanese. I don't play many games, but I know Pokémon well enough to know everything despite the language: maps, story, ecc. That's usually a good idea because it doesn't matter if you don't understand everything, you can still finish the game. Now, I have noticed that some games have harder Japanese than others. I haven't played pokemon black entirely in Jp but til 3rd gym it seemed relatively easier to me. I played PLA in Japanese and that game has hard Japanese. Translating everything takes so much time, especially if you don't have good grammar basics and good dictionary. In my case, dictionary was my issue and it took soooooooo long lol. So I wouldn't really advise it unless you're fine with immersion and not translating everything, and/or if you set up things properly (OCD programs, scripts, ecc).

Ooooh, Japanese would be a hard one! At least with French, I can kind of infer a lot of the words based on context (Mega Stone > Méga-Gemme, etc). It's kind of a neat series to try it with because the game is digestible for kids but there's also always some abstract, philosophical musings going on.

 

[RadEmpoleon]

I actually was inspired to learn French because of X and Y. I loved it so much as a kid that I took French all 4 years in high school. Am I very good at it? ...not really, it's been a while since then. This seems like an interesting idea to try out!

 

[Bug]

I actually was inspired to learn French because of X and Y. I loved it so much as a kid that I took French all 4 years in high school. Am I very good at it? ...not really, it's been a while since then. This seems like an interesting idea to try out!

X and Y are suchhhh good games for learning French! (for obvious reasons, lol)

I bet the same immersion would apply if you tried to learn japanese while playing gold and silver!

 

[Sheep]

This is amazing!!

Some people already know this, but I actually learned English in huge part thanks to the games. ❤️ They were an irreplaceable part of my childhood for many reasons, but this was one of the most important. I remember not understanding sentences properly, and struggling at parts, but I went into Blue with next to no English capacity and came out a lot more fluent (though that was also helped by classmates speaking English, but still). Sometime it would be awesome to play through them in Japanese if I get the motivation to start learning..!

 

[Rock_Salazar]

I played through Fire Red in Japanese once, but that was because I had already beaten that game 4 times prior. I didn't really take the time to go over text and only went by memory. The only road block for me was Blaine's gym because of the riddles being in Japanese and difficult to remember. The one thing that did take me a long time to go over were the abilities and natures of my pokemon. That I had to bring up ol' reliable Bulbapedia for the translations.

 

[Bug]

This is amazing!!

Some people already know this, but I actually learned English in huge part thanks to the games. ❤️ They were an irreplaceable part of my childhood for many reasons, but this was one of the most important. I remember not understanding sentences properly, and struggling at parts, but I went into Blue with next to no English capacity and came out a lot more fluent (though that was also helped by classmates speaking English, but still). Sometime it would be awesome to play through them in Japanese if I get the motivation to start learning..!

Oh, wow!! I certainly didn't know that. That's so neat!! Do you remember if any phrases in particular really stood out that you remember in hindsight?