SpartaN

Let's say you just want to say "I am". How would you do that? What are the benefits of using a series like Zelda to learn another language? Chances are you have played at least one game from the franchise in the past. If you try learning with a new game, one you've never played in English, you will probably spend most of your time stuck on names. Being able to distinguish what the names belong to (a person, location, thing, etc.) can get confusing especially in longer sentences. By playing a familiar game, you won't have that problem and you can use that time productively learning new words, learning new phrases, and save yourself the frustration. は　 (wa) は designates the topic of a sentence. Even though it's the 'ha' syllable, it's pronounced 'wa' when used as a particle. The first word everyone learns is ' konnichi wa '. A lot of people misspell it as こんにちわ, but it's actually こんにちは, using the 'wa' topic indica...

If you do use The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time  as a form of immersion into Japanese, you might occasionally  pretty much constantly find new letters or words you are unfamiliar with. In a European language, you can simply search the word as it appears on the screen. But what about Japanese words? How do you find the specific kanji you don't know? You can't just search the word, because you'd have to know it's pronunciation already in order to do that. It's not like they all come with furigana  after all. Despite these difficulties, there is a way, but first I should inform anyone interested in learning new letters to look into 'how to search a Japanese dictionary' with radicals (the components of kanji that stem from other basic kanji). Nonetheless, I have found a link to the entire in-game transcript here:  zeldalegends.net I've linked the transcript on my Resources page, along with other useful links for those looking to learn str...

There is commentary, but something I didn't go into in the video was  mountain kanji and related terminology. Kanji to learn : 山 (やま; yama ) mountain; 登  (のぼ‐る; noboru ) to climb; and 道 (どう; do ) road. Death Mountain Trail In the picture above is Death Mountain Trail, with "Death Mountain" in katakana and "(mountain) trail" in kanji. The katakana if straight forward: デスマウンテン, desumaunten , which is literally "Death Mountain". It's a typical use of the katakana to transmit English words.  The kanji is: 登山道, tozando , meaning mountain trail. The usage of 登 together with 山 means "mountain climbing" ( tozan ). By itself, 山 is yama . In this case it uses it's on'yomi, or "Chinese reading". So yama  becomes zan . 登 is a third grade letter, and is usually substituted with 上 when spelling のぼる (to climb). 上 is the character for up, and is spelled うえ by itself. It's an easier letter seen in firs...

No longer will Link wander the world in silence.

Remember how the owl just won't leave you alone in your quest to save Hyrule? And how at the end of every wall of text he feels the need to ask you whether or not to repeat what he literally just told you? It's like that, except in a foreign language. Unless he words it just right, and isn't asking in the negative "do you not  want me to repeat?" Only then can I answer him correctly. Never again! Kanji to learn : 見る ( link ) and 行く ( link ). 見る and 行く are both verbs. 行く 'to go' in particular is used quite often in Zelda to describe where Link is going next. It's romaji spelling is iku , and it has special grammar rules as a u-verb that are a bit less common that ru-verbs like 見. 見る means 'to see' and is romanized as mi ru . Even by themselves, verbs are accompanied by a hiragana suffix that denotes the tense it's in. Japanese verbs are grouped according to their default suffixes ( miru  is a ru-berb, iku  is a u-verb).  Important :...

Part 1 focuses on the monologue by the tree for a complex sentence that you can practice breaking down to help make sense of sentence structure. It was, chronologically, the first dialogue in the game, but this one will focus on easier sentences and some kanji you should learn early on. Kanji to learn: 木 ( link ); 森 ( link ); 子 ( link ); 今 ( link ); the next two are important despite only being see once or twice; 中 ( link ); and 出 ( link ). The kanji listed are all grade one except for 今 which is grade two. However, 今 is very common. A lot of kanji taught in higher grades are just as common as the lower grades, in some cases even more so. Take watashi  (私) for instance. It isn't taught until grade six (though most kids already know it) and it's the letter for "I", or "me" when referring to oneself. Kokiri Forest This place is mentioned all over the game, and is fairly easy to remember. It's the katakana for Kokiri (コ 'ko'; ...

I've found a good video editor at last! But until I release my first quality video, I will just keep breaking down footage from the captures I already have. I will put the time stamp to jump to where you can see what I'm talking about, and maybe you just want to read the text yourself for practice. Opening Sequence 0:34「ハイラル王国に広がる深き森…その森を守り続けできたワシを、人はデクの樹と呼んでおった…」 Starting slow I'll look at "ハイラル王国に広がる深き森". ハイラル:  ハ ha ; イ i ; ラ ra ;  and ,  ル ru . We have two of the R-group syllables and a vowel in one word. Altogether it should read heiraru  to make English "Hyrule". I mention that there is two R-group letters, because I know that I struggled with differentiating the R's from each other so this might be a good in-game reference to help. 王国 is a common term for kingdom. It's a combination of two kanji: 王 meaning 'king' (おう; ou ) and 国 meaning 'country' (こく; koku ). King is one of the easiest kanji out...