How do you play Japanese-only games?

[cajama73]

I also have a Japanese-language game that I'm playing right now. It's my favorite otome game, but since there's almost no chance of it being localized in my country, I've almost given up on a translation. But I can't give up on gaming, so I downloaded the Japanese version and have been playing it So I usually prefer games with full voice acting. Even if I can't read Japanese, I can understand it to a fairly good extent. When there's no voice, I usually play using Papago translations.

 

[藍色水珠]

I started by using machine translation and looking up words in the dictionary, learning as I played. Because machine translations aren't 100% accurate, there were some discrepancies in meaning and grammar, especially with proper nouns.

After playing the game for a while, I could understand most of the everyday-style works and dialogue.

Official localized translations take several years, so when I was eager to play, I had to rely on online machine translations. The results were limited and not very accurate.

Now I can understand 70-80% of Japanese, and I could even play Japanese games directly. It's just that reading so much non-native language text is quite mentally and visually taxing, haha~

It all stems from my love for otome games: learning things you're interested in is fun.

 

[b3rryb3rry]

I've studied Japanese for a long time now on and off but honestly Luna Translator is great for when I just wanna skim read / I'm feeling lazy and don't want to use 100% of my brain to read a visual novel

 

[3302325939]

I play in Japanese. Where I live, localization is so scarce (there are really only a handful of releases), so many people choose to learn Japanese just to play, and I just use a translator too. Hmm... I'm surprised because I've never once thought that translation detracts from game immersion. In fact, I used to think that playing clumsily without knowing Japanese actually made the experience less immersive. So, I actually think it's a relief that a translator exists.

 

[lolok222]

These days, translation tools have gotten so good that I usually just use one. Some of them can even translate the tone and overall feel of what's being said. In my case, I can understand spoken Japanese, so sometimes I also rely on the audio to get a sense of what's going on.

 

[JigoKuu]

I have been learning Japanese for many years now. Originally I started to learn in order to watch anime without subtitles, but as time went on, my interests also changed some (more exactly they grew in number, haha).
I'm happy that I can play most otome games with little to no help. When I don't know a word, I just hit up Jisho and check it. I also make custom study card decks digitally after playing so I can repeat and really learn new vocab.

 

[osanajimimi]

I use an app to try to read it, I tried to make sense of the content and move forward. If I'm tired, I switch to translation and so on.