Hello! We are making a Japanese vocabulary RPG game to help beginners with the basics of hiragana and katakana, as well as about 300 or so basic vocabulary. We’re doing this in part to help learn Japanese ourselves and are very much novices still. Working on this game consistently has definitely helped kickstart our learning though, and it keeps these words and characters fresh on the mind as we’re seeing them all day.
Before we start posting anything online about the game itself though to others who may be interested, I wanted to make sure the title ideas we had make sense, because as I said, we are learning ourselves and would prefer the title not be gibberish in Japanese, but preferably it would also sound cool phonetically to English speakers.
The game concept is basically exploring a small town and finding vocab words (example: interact with a window, have a pop up that says “window, Mado, まど “). The player uses the vocab they find in pre-battle challenges to decide advantage before fighting Yokai themed enemies in classic turn-based RPG fashion (Decided to dig into Japanese lore to also get a better sense of the history and culture, plus it’s super interesting!).
Our first idea for the title was Go Go Goi Kenshu 語彙研修 (the Go Go are English, kinda going for a “Go Go Power Rangers” feeling). It seemed to translate roughly to Vocabulary Training and phonetically it works really well, but we were told that in Japanese it sounds more like a weird name for a vocabulary seminar.
Our next idea was Go Go Goi Goshin 語彙護身 , basically translating to Vocab self-defense, but obviously, we’re unsure if it comes off as intended.
We also thought maybe something like Go Go Goi Musha 語彙武者 (Vocab Warrior) or Go Go Goi Sentou 語彙戦闘 (Vocab Battle/Combat) could work as back ups to the back up, but we definitely prefer the alliteration of Go Go Goi Goshin.
The person who helped before stated that they would most likely recommend something more along the lines of Tango Senshi 単語戦士 (Word Warrior) as 単語 is more often used than 語彙 in language learning.
I’m not against using Tango 単語 instead of Goi 語彙 if that is the better option when referring to vocabulary, It’s just that it makes me think of the Latin dance lol and I could see it being initially conflicting in that sense.
Basically, I’m looking for guidance and opinions on these options, possibly suggestions if anyone has any, or corrections if anything is outright incorrect.
Thank you in advance and any/all constructive input is very much appreciated! 🙂