I’ve been told by a number of people that I’ve met who speak Japanese that immersion is difficult but incredibly important because it will be difficult no matter when you start. So if I had a manga or game I wanted to try and play, I should start sooner rather than later, and try tackling it with the help of a dictionary. So I’ve been trying to play through Persona 3 in Japanese with the help of Jisho but man finding these kanji feels ridiculously impossible. I dunno if it’s the font or what but I just cannot find the radicals that make up some of these kanji, like I swear they aren’t there. Does anybody have any tips to make this easier? Should I be trying to use something other than Jisho?
4 comments
You can use OCR tools or draw kanji instead of radical hunting… But I’d recommend using something you can use a popup dictionary for until you’re comfortable enough with reading to the point where persona 5 isn’t painful to play.
Regular ebooks or VNs (with texthooking and yomichan) are good options
1. get a handwriting interface of some sort, it’s both quicker and good practice, i use the google handwriting input on my android phone, and the takoboto dictionary
2. if you’re looking up too many things, the subject matter is probably too hard, start simpler and work your way up. you can slog thru it if you like, but it’s very time consuming and can burn you out
What is your current Japanese level like? What sorts of things can you understand? I don’t mean in the sense of JLPT or how many kanji you know – I mean what are you reasonably able to comprehend without dictionary support?
My advice is to not start with an actual game, I’d find a game script online and try to read that with a popup dictionary.
google for セリフ集
and I wouldn’t even do this until you have at least N4 level of proficiency if not more
That said, I did start with an actual game (Final Fantasy) and it doesn’t have Kanji, but I wouldn’t even recommend that route. Scripts are easier to just read. You don’t need to deal with OCR and such to copy/paste into dictionary, you don’t need to draw the kanji, you don’t need any of that.