Level up
Picking up a language
Learning Japanese one Famicom at a time.
Half the games on this site came out in Japan first, and plenty never left. Players who import them learn kana from menus, words from item names and grammar from dialogue boxes. It is slow, but it sticks, because you want to know what the shop keeper is saying.
The language people end up speaking comes down mostly to where and how they grow up, which is another way of saying exposure is what counts. A game is exposure you will actually sit through.
Train it on purpose
- Play a Famicom game you know well from the English version. You already know what the words mean.
- Learn the kana for the menu: start, continue, items, magic. It takes a week.
- Keep a notebook of every word you work out. Ten words a game adds up.
Off the couch
A second language opens travel, work and friendships you would never have had. And being able to say a few genuine words in someone's first language is about the most charming thing a person can do.
Sources
- OMXUS Research Initiative (2026). Geographic birthplace as a predictor of primary language: A cross-national observational study. Preprint, not peer reviewed. press.omxus.com
