Learning JP from otome games

[stelar]

I feel like not enough people are mentioning agent for texthooking.
Especially if you emulate (but not only) its by far the easiest and cleanest set up.

 

[Cecilya]

My very first visual novel in Japanese was WataJuu (私のリアルは充実しすぎている). It's a short slice of life otome and the non-voiced version is even free. Any kind of Japanese media will be difficult at first but this one has very simple vocab/grammar. There's a few jokes that might fly over your head at first but most jokes are easy to understand. I thought it was a fun play overall.

It's also hookable with textractor. I can also fully recommend the previous mention of Agent, especially for newer or emulated games. I was able to play through the entirety of Persona 5 Royal because of it.

 

[stelar]

My very first visual novel in Japanese was WataJuu (私のリアルは充実しすぎている). It's a short slice of life otome and the non-voiced version is even free. Any kind of Japanese media will be difficult at first but this one has very simple vocab/grammar. There's a few jokes that might fly over your head at first but most jokes are easy to understand. I thought it was a fun play overall.

It's also hookable with textractor. I can also fully recommend the previous mention of Agent, especially for newer or emulated games. I was able to play through the entirety of Persona 5 Royal because of it.

Watajuu is such a good one its my second one I played and I fully fully fully recommend it for any beginner
its so sweet as well and surprisingly emotional at times for a dumb lil slice of life

 

[Doglo]

An updated version and maintained database with user submissions is also https://jiten.moe/
Jiten allows you to add decks make Anki formanted cards from it and then track your learning process of those decks with cool graphs etc.

I keep going back to this because im at N5~ level, but the hard difficulty otomes are calling mg name...i know some people say take the plunge but i just know the Kanji will be so daunting

 

[stelar]

I keep going back to this because im at N5~ level, but the hard difficulty otomes are calling mg name...i know some people say take the plunge but i just know the Kanji will be so daunting

Your first game will be rough no matter what!

Definitely use Yomitan for your first game, that will make Kanji less scary

 

[Doglo]

Your first game will be rough no matter what!

Definitely use Yomitan for your first game, that will make Kanji less scary

oh my bless your SOUL I didn't even know about this website! I'm going to get this for chrome


I can't thank you enough for this, I've been looking for something like this for so long!

 

[chorecel]

Hiii! Adding on to the current recs--PsychicEmotion6 was fairly simple imo. Also the Starry Sky games. Games with a school setting...

 

[stelar]

oh my bless your SOUL I didn't even know about this website! I'm going to get this for chrome


I can't thank you enough for this, I've been looking for something like this for so long!

https://lazyguidejp.github.io/jp-lazy-guide/
you might want to check this out
if you play VNs on pc you can texthook them with something like textractor or agent (especially good for emulated games)

 

[cococ]

If you already recognize 五十音, try those otome game in school setting, like starry sky, the difficulty should be comparatively easy, even you cannot catch one or two sentence, not gonna affect so much on the whole storyline understanding

 

[shoelaces1]

I definitely recommend finding a balance between something that interests you and something on the easier level. A lot of people have recommended Brother's Conflict before but personally I didn't enjoy that game as my first otome and went for other games.

You can filter otome on Jiten by difficulty to find something of interest (ascending difficulty order) https://jiten.moe/decks/media?mediaType=7&offset=0&tags=70&sortBy=difficulty&sortOrder=0

You could also try practising with graded readers if you are not used to reading at all to build that muscle first. The beginning will always be the hardest, it all comes down to how much you can tolerate in terms of lookups and ambiguities, but it will get better the more you read.

 

[mellowmachi]

I definitely recommend finding a balance between something that interests you and something on the easier level. A lot of people have recommended Brother's Conflict before but personally I didn't enjoy that game as my first otome and went for other games.

You can filter otome on Jiten by difficulty to find something of interest (ascending difficulty order) https://jiten.moe/decks/media?mediaType=7&offset=0&tags=70&sortBy=difficulty&sortOrder=0

You could also try practising with graded readers if you are not used to reading at all to build that muscle first. The beginning will always be the hardest, it all comes down to how much you can tolerate in terms of lookups and ambiguities, but it will get better the more you read.

Seconding this! The very first few months of immersion can be rough and the learning curve is quite steep, so I'd recommend few short stories from graded readers to test the water, so to speak instead of struggling not to drown in the ocean. I started with Tadoku books https://tadoku.org/japanese/en/free-books-en/ as they are a manageable first step, beginning from children's picture book (the Illustrations are sooo prettyy!) and you build up your reading stamina over time from short stories to longer & more complicated texts.

 

[mellowmachi]

What's really important is through Tadoku Graded Reader, you begin recognizing the sentence pattern (they're repeated over and over again throughout the beginner grade), you increase your ability to parse (breaking down longer, complicated sentence and clauses). I struggled quite a lot with vertical texts especially in letters & novels but those short stories are like a building blocks that helped me push through haha. Approaching it from small, manageable steps will train your brain so it won't get overwhelmed, and most importantly, so you can enjoy the process too!
as for JP Novel in epub format, I love Hoshi Reader! They're available for Android and iOS https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hoshi-reader/id6758244332
https://github.com/HuangAntimony/Hoshi-Reader-Android

 

[sweetymana]

When I was teenager, It was expensive to buy otome game for me. I kinda embarrassed to ask my parents to buy it for me. But, I was able to access voice actor event shows in online, and I start learning by hearing the most without using English translation. So i start to imitate the Japanese sounds and I am able to speak so quickly. I could speak three languages total but a bit Grammer mistakes. However, I was not able to taught myself learning hiragana, katakana, and Kanji. Then, I ask my parents to go Japanese school for summer camp. The school test my level, but my speaking like fluent level with no basic of writing and reading skills everyone was surprised. I learn language with sounds. I told them to put my in basic class first not the advanced class. It was fun studying but I am bit discouraged from Dysgrammatism. I do not have sense of grammer for all languages and that hinder me to get good scores in language school. Since I have the inability to learn grammer and hard to use the rules correctly.