Time for another language pick up from a Nintendo Switch game! This time it’s from Gnosia, the single-player social deduction game modeled after the popular social game, Werewolf.

Japanese: どうやら全員、腹は決まってるみてーだな。

Hiragana: どうやらぜんいん、はらはきまってるみてーだな。

Romaji: douyara zenninn, hara ha kimatterumitee da na.

The interesting part of this speech part is the second part of the first sentence. 「腹は決まってるみてーだな。」

The meaning is, the person has made up their mind. The literal translation is, “their stomach has decided.” Why stomach? That’s just the way it is! There are many emotion related words in Japanese that involve the word stomach. For example, 腹が立つ (はらがたつ stomach is standing – means to be angry), and 腹黒い (はらぐろい stomach is black – means to have evil intentions).

The later part of the phrase, 「..みてーだな。」is a slangy, informal from of みたいですね。The clause to add to the end of a verb to mean, “looks like.” So the character is saying that it “looks like everyone has already made up their minds.”

Good stuff! I’m enjoying this game. Fun in short bursts. One loop only takes about 10-15 minutes, and it feels pretty casual. I am mainly playing it as a way to get some casual Japanese reading practice, because you really can’t gloss over all of the text in this game and still play it… You at least have to get the jist.

Remember, if you want to play this game in Japanese you have to get it on the Japanese eShop. The US eShop version of Gnosia does NOT have the Japanese text available, so if you want to play this in Japanese you’ll need to get the Japanese version. A lot of games for the Switch are truly region free and will switch languages based on your system settings, but Gnosia, unfortunately, isn’t one of them.

Check my Twitter account @Japannewbie for more occasional Japanese language tidbits from games.

The Nintendo Switch is region free, and many (not all) games, including the demo for Project Triangle Strategy, have the full Japanese text and audio available in the U.S. release of the game. No need to import from Japan! This is an amazing resource for gamers who are learning Japanese. Here’s my latest grab!

Japanese: 若いな。千載一遇の機会を逃したな。

Romaji: wakaina. senzaiichigu no kikai wo nogashita na

English: You’re young. You just missed the chance of a lifetime.

千載一遇 (senzai ichiguu) is a four-character phrase that means, “once in a lifetime.” More literally, it means out of one 1,000 one will get it only once. Like most of the language I post on this site, I didn’t know this phrase before playing the game. The word 機会 kikai is simply opportunity, and the verb 逃した is past tense of ‘nogasu’ which means to miss.

Language aside, who is hype for this game? Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together was one of the first Japanese-language games I imported and played as a kid. My flying winged dude with the spear was ultra powerful. The game was hard, so slow going, but so interesting. Now that I’m older, turn-based strategy games really hit the sweet spot.

I hope Project Triangle Strategy has some sort of permadeath. Even if it’s not real permadeath like Fire Emblem hard mode, I hope there is something to force the player to be extra careful during a battle. The tension that is created by permadeath makes me think a little longer about each move, and bite my nails a little harder when the AI is moving, which really brings out the “strategy” aspect of a strategy game.

So far it looks like Project Triangle Strategy will have plenty of voice acting, which I love, and combat details like altitude advantages, and the ability to push enemies off ledges and onto adverse terrain. So fun!

Check my Twitter account @Japannewbie for more occasional Japanese language tidbits from games.

The Nintendo Switch is region free, and many (not all) games, including Octopath Traveler, have the full Japanese text and audio available in the U.S. release of the game. No need to import from Japan! This is an amazing resource for gamers who are learning Japanese. Here’s my latest grab!

Japanese: 俺は人ではなかった

Hiragana: おれはひとではなった

English: I wasn’t even human.

Romaji: ore ha hito deha nakatta

A more literal linguistic translation would be “I wasn’t even a person,” because the literal translation of “human” in Japanese is 人間 ningen.

This Japanese phrase has the same intention and feel as when we say, “he’s not even human” in English. The character is remembering his past deeds and saying that they were so heinous, that he wasn’t displaying human decency and so doesn’t even deserve the label of being called a human being.

There are cases where the Japanese language will use the more literal term 人間 in this sense of value as a person. Notably, in the title of the famous book Ningen Shikkaku by Dazai Osamu, which is translated to No Longer Human. (人間失格 Wikipedia) (The full text of Ningen Shikkaku on Aozora Bunko)

By the way, the English localization that appears in the game says “No, I wasn’t even human.” Thanks to underbuffed.com for making this English video available. I’d never play a long game like Octopath Traveler twice to try to capture both the English and Japanese lines, so I’m thankful the folks at underbuffed have documented this so I can compare.

Enjoy!

Links:

Underbuffed.com: Again with Alaic – https://underbuffed.com/octopath-traveler-again-with-alaic/ – Underbuffed.com has a huge repository of Octopath Traveler side quest details. I never would have finished all the side quests without it.

Check my Twitter account @Japannewbie for more occasional Japanese language tidbits from games.

The Nintendo Switch is region free, and many (not all) games, including Monster Hunter Rise, have the full Japanese text and audio available in the U.S. release of the game. No need to import from Japan! This is an amazing resource for gamers who are learning Japanese. Here’s my latest grab!

Japanese: もう周辺はてんやわんや！

Hiragana: もうしゅうへんはてんやわんや！

Romaji: mou shuuhen wa tenya wanya!

てんやわんや is a very fun, sort of old sounding expression that means that everything is topsy-turvy, chaotic, upside down and hectic. The word 周辺 just means this area, or “around here,” and もう technically means “already.” The friendly dango seller is just saying that “things are so crazy and hectic around here! (Because a Osaizuchi has appeared around the shrine ruins .)

Another note on Monster Hunter Rise, in this version of Monster Hunter you can play with anyone worldwide. The previous Nintendo release of Monster Hunter, MH Generations and MH XX, were separate games so if you bought your game in the US it was only English and you couldn’t play with players in Japan. In Monster Hunter Rise lobby creators have an option to restrict their lobbies to people from the same “language” — which seems to really mean which country’s Nintendo Online subscription the person is on. Oh Japan… linking language with country again as if it is a worldwide phenomenon… But I digress. Enjoy playing international Monster Hunter!

Let’s find some tenyawanya in the wild!

Here is a movie from the 1950s called Tenyawanya.