A new Japanese learner takes on JRPGs

Words/kanji covered: 宿星: Star of fate; zodiac 星: star 狩人: hunter 学者: scholar 王者: monarch 武人: soldier/warrior 商人: merchant/trader

We have two more steps before the game officially begins, and this is the first one:

We have a prompt in the upper-left corner, and five rows to choose from. Each row has two different words on it.

The prompt is very similar to one we've seen previously. Instead of choosing a 主人公, though, we'll be choosing a 宿星(しゅくせい) – a star of fate, or a zodiac!

From top to bottom, we have: (use this for English: https://www.neoseeker.com/romancing-saga-3/Starting )

歳星(さいせい): Jisho gives me “Jupiter” for this. The official English translation uses “Artemis”, so I'm suspicious. 狩人(かりゅうど)の星(ほし): 狩人 means “hunter” and 星 means “star”. Each one of these rows ends in の星.

螢惑: this one isn't turning up in online resources for me. English version uses “Athena”. 学者(がくしゃ): scholar.

鎮星: Wiktionary tells me that this is a historical form of Saturn. English version uses “Zeus”. 王者(おうじゃ): king/monarch.

太白(たいはく): this is the first clear win in the star name column! It means Venus. English version uses “Ares”. 武人(ぶじん): soldier/warrior.

辰星(しんせい): Mercury (in ancient Chinese astronomy)​, according to Jisho. So I'm guessing that the ones I couldn't find are also ancient Chinese terms for planets. RS3 isn't going easy on me here! English version uses “Hermes”. 商人(しょうにん): merchant/trader.

According to a random Quora answer, the five planet words here are all ancient Chinese names for planets. So I'm not going to commit them to memory today.

I'm choosing to put Katrina under 辰星、商人の星. Next time, we'll choose our character's primary weapon, and learn more 漢字 for all of the weapon choices!

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Author: @WolfeReader@freeradical.zone

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Words/kanji covered: 侯爵: marquis 流浪: wandering 王族: royalty

This will be a shorter entry due to the holidays! Last time we covered the four women, and this time we'll cover the men.

ユリアン: 20歳, シノンの開拓民, and トーマス: 22歳, シノンの開拓民. Julian, 20, and Thomas, 22. Like Sara and Ellen, these are “pioneers” from Shinon. Other sources translate this as “settler” instead of “pioneer”, I've learned.

ミカエル: 27歳, ロアーヌ侯爵. Mikhail, 27. 侯爵(こうしゃく) means “marquis”. You recall from last time that モニカ is the 侯の妹 – younger sister of the marquis – and if you guessed that ミカエル is her older brother, you're right!

ハリード: 33歳, 流浪の王族. Harid, 33. 流浪(るろう) is apparently a level 59 word on Wanikani, so I won't see it there for a while. It means vagrancy or wandering. 王族(おうぞく) is common and means royalty. So... nomad of royalty, or royal nomad!

I'm going to choose カタリナ as my character, since her introduction is short. Next time, we'll choose her class and starting weapon. See you then!

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Author: @WolfeReader@freeradical.zone

Feel free to follow this blog! On Mastodon or other fediverse services, follow @a-new-japanese-learner-takes-on-jrpgs@qua.name , for RSS use https://qua.name/a-new-japanese-learner-takes-on-jrpgs/feed/ , and for the plain web view just use https://qua.name/a-new-japanese-learner-takes-on-jrpgs/

Words/kanji covered: 開拓民: pioneer (but I'm not 100% certain) 侯: marquis 妹: younger sister 貴族: aristocrat

Tonight we're going to learn about these eight characters! We'll start with the ladies:

サラ: 16歳, シノンの開拓民. So her name is Sara, she's 16, and her other info has something to do with “Shinon”. The kanji after “の” stumps me at first, since neither Wiktionary nor Jisho recognize it. I would rather not rely on machine translation, but in this case I use Papago and it gives me 開拓民（かいたくみん) – “pioneer”. So Sara is a pioneer in Shinon, at least unless someone corrects my translation here.

エレン: 20歳, シノンの開拓民. Ellen, 20, also a Shinon pioneer. Let's dive into these kanji now – 開 means “open”, 拓 means to open land or to clear land, and 民 means people.

モニカ: 19歳, ロアーヌ侯の妹. Monica, 19. The katakana in her description is also a place, but “侯” is appended directly to it. “侯” was hard to type with romaji – I was only able to produce it by typing out 侯の妹(ほうのいもうと) in its entirety. In any case, this translates to “marquis” or “daimyo”, and 妹 is “younger sister”. Monica is the Loanne Marquis' younger sister.

カタリナ: 24歳, ロアーヌ貴族. Katrina, 24. Loanne again. 貴族(きぞく) means “noble” or “aristocrat”.

I'm out of time, so we'll cover the men when I have time tomorrow!

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Author: @WolfeReader@freeradical.zone

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Words/kanji covered: 主人公: protagonist 選: choice 性別: gender 男: male 女: female 歳: age

Today I'll get to choose a character – and if time permits, I'll get to set their class and preferred weapon type.

There are eight characters to choose from as your main character – four men and four women. I'm familiar with this screen from the English versions of the game, so let's see how it looks in 日本語:

I'm guessing that some of these words will be useful, so let's start translating!

First sentence: 主人公を選んでください

主人公(しゅじんこう): This translates as protagonist, or main character. The three kanjis seem to mean, respectively: main/lord, person, public/official. 選んで(えらんで): According to jisho.org, this is the “connective form” of the verb 選ぶ(えらぶ), which means “to choose”. The kanji 選 means “choice”. ください: I learned this one earlier from Wanikani! It means “please give me.” I'm surprised they didn't go with 下さい, which is how WaniKani taught this phrase.

All told, it makes sense to read this sentence as “please choose the main character.”

Next, we have 性別(せいべつ): this means gender. 性 by itself seems to also mean gender or sex, and 別 means difference.

For our choice of genders, we have 男(おとこ, male) and 女(おんな, female).

Each character is then listed with her 歳(とし, age), and a very short description. I'll translate the descriptions when I have time later today.

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Author: @WolfeReader@freeradical.zone

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I launch the game and pass the usual studio logos. Behold, the Romancing SaGa 3 title screen:

Wait, WHAT?

The first two are obvious. But the third throws me off. I've seen games in Japanese that use katakana for “options” or “config” – I am quite surprised to see kanji this early in the process.

So let's look them up!

First, I use the “Chinese Handwriting” Android app to trace out the kanji and get the characters copied. Then, I turn to Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/設定#Japanese

Here's what I learn: 設 means: establish, set up, prepare 定 means: determine, fix, establish, decide 設定(せってい) overall has a few possible meanings, but for computing specifically it means configuration.

As an English speaker, I quite like that the word for “settings” is pronounced “settei”. That one's gonna be easy to remember.

(For future blog entries, I'll be going through this same process each time I encounter a new word I don't know. I won't detail the entire process each time.)

There are five more opening menu screens to navigate before the game itself begins. Some will go by quickly, and some will absolutely blast me with essential RPG terminology. Hopefully we'll learn a lot from this!

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Author: @WolfeReader@freeradical.zone

Feel free to follow this blog! On Mastodon or other fediverse services, follow @a-new-japanese-learner-takes-on-jrpgs@qua.name , for RSS use https://qua.name/a-new-japanese-learner-takes-on-jrpgs/feed/ , and for the plain web view just use https://qua.name/a-new-japanese-learner-takes-on-jrpgs/

I have been studying Japanese for weeks now, which means that it's high time that I attempt to play a Japanese RPG!

For my first attempt, I shall use Romancing SaGa 3. I chose this specifically because it doesn't have lengthy cutscenes, and because its vocabulary (hopefully) will cover a lot of fantasy and RPG terms.

Things to do: 1. Get the game on Steam (I have the Switch version, but my access to that system is very inconsistent). 2. Figure out where to host images for this blog. 3. Be ready to do a LOT of translating.

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Author: @WolfeReader@freeradical.zone

Feel free to follow this blog! On Mastodon or other fediverse services, follow @a-new-japanese-learner-takes-on-jrpgs@qua.name , for RSS use https://qua.name/a-new-japanese-learner-takes-on-jrpgs/feed/ , and for the plain web view just use https://qua.name/a-new-japanese-learner-takes-on-jrpgs/