Game scripts will be text in your browser. You don’t have to fool around with OCR, drawing kanji, or any of that. You can use a popup dictionary like yomichan on them. It’s going to be much easier and faster.
**Tip 1:** Google セリフ集 [name of your game]. セリフ集 means script collection.
**Tip 2:** Read a few game scripts in the genre of games you are interested in. This will prime you in the types of vocab and grammar used in these games. Then when you go to play a game, it won’t be as crazy
**Tip 3:** Install a popup dictionary like yomichan. Now you don’t have lose your concentration while going to jisho. Can make mining vocab easier as well.
**Tip 4:** When you read something, make sure you understand all of it. If not, post in the daily questions thread with a link to your script so people can have context. Don’t just skip a bunch of it because it is too hard, tough it out.
**Tip 5:** General literacy helps. I tried games, and it was pretty hard. Then I read 13 books. After that I had more vocab to pull from, so it wasn’t as insane to jump into games and not know anything. When mining words from books for general literacy, look for generic useful words and not niche words just used in that book.
**Tip 6:** If you are playing a game with English text, at least use the Japanese voiceover. Then you can at least get some free listening practice, and you’ll be surprised what you can understand sometimes.
**Tip 7:** If you are playing a game in Japanese, I think it’s good to learn to read all the menus first. That way you can at least play it in some basic way.
**Tip 8:** Sometimes it pays to take screenshots when you play the game. If you are using a tutor, don’t play the game during your expensive tutoring lesson, only refer to the screenshots. Also this makes anki cards easier to make since you can paste the screenshot into the card, and bam now you have a lot of context for that vocab word.
**Tip 9:** Share your scripts with your fellow redditors!!!!! I messaged the mods and they said it’s ok to share online game scripts. Show us what you found.
I want this to be a tips thread so post your tips in the comments.
6 comments
Or you could use something like agent or game2text ocr plus script to mine directly from the game. You could even use JL as a pop-up dic directly out of full screen. If we’re talking vns u could just textractor or smthg like exSTATic if you wanted.
I still agree it can be useful to read in advance but most people find it boring so using some sort of text extraction setup on the spot is probably more realistic
Also use this to have the list of vocabulary from the game.
https://textmining.userlocal.jp
I read quite a bit of Final Fantasy VII’s script before I had a means of playing the original game in Japanese (thank goodness for the Switch!)
[http://ajatt.com/finalfantasy/ff7p-index.htm](http://ajatt.com/finalfantasy/ff7p-index.htm)
I disagree with tip 4. Trying to understand everything to 100% understanding bogs down your progress of playing a game. It’s usually best to have a game you played in English first and then play in Japanese. That way you don’t have to be pausing every time a new line of dialog comes up. Usually can quite easily piece together what unknown words mean with familiarity with the English script (unless the original script was paved over by the son of a submariner localizers).
I’ve heard of doing this with Pokémon! depending on the level of the reader of course, it’s a little easier since it’s a kids game
Or… and hear me out on this… just read actual stand-alone fiction? 🤣 Kind of a single-track mind to be so fixated on learning from video games that you go to extra lengths to use them in contexts where there are much better resources at your fingertips.
Like, go check out syosetu.com for all the web novels you can eat, written by real up-and-coming Japanese fiction enthusiasts, literally for free. Any genre you can imagine, running the full range of reading difficulty levels, and you’ve even got a built in community of fellow fiction lovers.
I’m about to study Japanese. . . for the 3rd time, this is awesome!