Now if we’re talking mainland Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese – now that’s a dialect.

But I wouldn’t say it’s really “bad” or anything. It’s actually a pretty interesting idea, and there may be times where it’s really helpful. I could see finding an article on a topic I want to be able to talk about and passing it through, just to see what kind of vocab comes up. Then you could google the words for sentences, or SRS the definitions, or what have you.

I just wouldn’t SRS anything directly from the page, that’s for sure. As for whether or not its worse than English…Man, tough question. My inclination is to fall back on the idea that input is best when its by and for native speakers. Input is really all about adjusting to how they talk, and how they put together sentences and all that. When you try to get English out of a translator, it’s a garbled mess most times, so it’s not really how we talk, right? So avoid it?

Sheesh, I don’t know. 😛

Is it bad to use google translate to turn english websites into japanese? I know the translations are not grammatically correct, but is isn’t it more important to look at Japanese rather than english? Even if it might be bad Japanese?

I hope my question makes sense…

English is never ‘okay’ in an immersion environment. To paraphrase a now-missing Khatzumoto tweet (woulda linked you straight to it, eh), “If you MUST use English, hit it with Japanese suppression fire.” In other words, when you inevitably have to work with English, keep yourself tethered to Japanese, a little bread-crumb trail to lead you back home when you’re done. In that sense, the add on you’re referring to is pretty good.

But as far as making English “okay,” not so much. Japanese is Japanese and English is English. This post is more about output, and Khatz is discussing a possibly-helpful gray area. On input, though, it’s rather black and white.

As far as I know, anyway. If I’m going to answer questions on behalf of Khatz like this, I should probably qualify all of this in a similar way: You have no reason to take my word for it. This is just my take.

Is it ok to read some english in moderation if we use this mixing language system? I stumbled upon a Firefox add-on that changes words like ‘read’ into ‘読ead’. So would this make some (emphases on some) english ok?

Rather than mixing, maybe we start with crappy, stiff, mistake-laden, Japanese. And then eventually it gets better with practice? For most of us, the transitional language is the much maligned stiff textbook Japanese.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLN2k0b3g70

If you want something, go get it!

多分、中国の文化はアニメより面白くないんですから。。。

There are a few confusing parts so far, but the game is pretty easy to follow with just a basic understanding of Japanese.

All of the dialogue is voiced so if your kanji reading ability isn’t all there yet (like mine) it will help.

This is actually the first FF game I’ve ever owned, so I can’t really compare it to the others in terms of gameplay. I will say that my first reaction to the visuals was “This is the Avatar of video games.” On a technical level, it still falls short of Crysis (the game upon which all are judged), but when you take everything together–tech and style–it’s just gorgeous. Easily the prettiest game I’ve ever played.

In terms of language, Japanese subs are on by default. I find this is actually really helping my listening, since it encourages me to follow along as the characters say their lines. —Just don’t get too focused on those subs! The characters are so emotive and detailed, you can’t spend all your time reading! The game’s plot so far has been easy to follow despite anything with a hint of complexity flying right over my head. Maybe the best part here is if something REALLY throws me off, a summation of every chapter’s events is a few buttons away in the main menu. The game also slowly introduces you to its features in tutorials that move as slowly as you need, which for me meant if something was really confusing me, I could stop and pop some things into a translator for some quick help.

To sum up, I’d say this game represents a tremendous body of language. Everything is stored for you as you progress. There’s a ton of speech. Using a method where I basically type things as I hear them into a wordpad doc open on my free monitor (two monitors get split into PS3 and PC), I’m finding it incredibly easy to wind up with a good chunk of sentences.

AND I’M PLAYING A VIDEO GAME. AJATT IS AWESOME.