Slime Forest Adventure Teaches Japanese Through Gameplay

CorvusE

New member
Sep 13, 2006
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Slime Forest Adventure Teaches Japanese Through Gameplay

What if you could learn to read Japanese by playing a console style adventure game? Darrel Johnson of LRNJ [http://lrnj.com/] (LeaRNing Japanese) would like you to do exactly that with Slime Forest Adventure.

Available as a free download for Windows, OS X and Linux, Episode 1 of Slime Forest Adventure teaches you all katakana, all hiragana and about 200 kanji. It also tests you on all kana and 100 kanji.

A $20 U.S. membership gives you access to the member version of the game, which includes a second episode with nearly 2,000 kanji. That's enough to bring you up to full adult literacy. The episode also features new islands and quest mechanics. Successfully learning 200 kanji will win the game.

Darrell is currently working on integrating an improved battle system, reorganizing the kana curriculum, sorting Jouyou kanji into better mnemonic order and adding example vocabulary. The $20 membership will include future updates and new episodes.

You can download the free version and sign up for the mailing list at the official web site [http://lrnj.com/].

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Wolfrider

New member
May 29, 2007
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Not to be obnoxious, but perhaps "full adult literacy" is stretching it... a tad. The game will teach you vocabulary but obviously not rules of grammar, verb conjugation etc etc. Still a worthwhile program, especially if you'd rather game than study, but this isn't going to get you too far.
 

Arbre

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Jan 13, 2007
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It can't hurt though. I remember that dealing with katakanas has been way more problematic than with hiraganas. I don't know why, probably because some of the katakanas looked like nothing more than forms created on a coolness basis, without actually caring to relate them to their original hiragana caracters (there are traps, that sucks mighty balls).
 

Meophist

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Jul 11, 2006
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The game showed me this character: ヱ

In all of my years of knowing Japanese, I've never actually seen it used.
 
Nov 18, 2007
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My Problem with the Game is that it never teaches you the on and kun Readings of the Kanji, and often how they interact with each other.

Abre, Katakana was actually developed first, based off of Kanji. You'll notice that the katakana Character 'ka' looks exactly like the Kanji 'Chikara' or 'Power.' That is from where it is derived. It was made because it was combersome to write a complicated Kanji for every Sound one wanted to make. I forget how Hiragana was formed.

As for you, Meophist, the Character is 'we' and is obsolete. It's no longer in Use, but I suppose they threw it in there for Purposes of Reference.
 

Kronopticon

New member
Nov 7, 2007
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an interesting and useful concept, except that they forget people dont usually want to learn when playing games, oh well, I WANT TO LEARN!
 

Heyallo

New member
Apr 12, 2009
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hey, I'd play to learn Japanese.

Now Playing: The Vapors - Turning Japanese


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