Tales of series importers, how much Japanese do you know?

[natsu-no-hoshi]

This is something I always wanted to know, especially in the Tales fandom, since there are a good amount of games that weren't released in English. Yet most fans are familiar with all the games to some extent.

So, yeah. Are you a native speaker/fluent? Proficient in reading/hearing and understanding basic game dialogue? Following along using guides/translations? And/or know enough hiragana and katakana to get by?

Myself, I'd say I'm semi-fluent, although I didn't start out that way. When I played Tales of Phantasia on the super famicom I only knew like, 10 kanji. ^^; (When I played the playstation remake again a few years ago I realized just how much stuff I missed in those early playthroughs)


Have Tales games inspired anyone to learn the language, or are there Japanese words/concepts you've learned particularly from playing Tales games? (Aside from "mamoru")

Apologies if a thread like this already exists.

[Ryuuka of the 7th Flame]

I watched the Symphonia OVA and can now show incredulity towards someone being an angel in 4 different ways. That is all.
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The ember is dust before the wind...

[Junkos]

Only a few random words, and I "know" most of them only by ear; don't ask me about reading. I did learn how to distinguish arte names by comparing kanjis and such.
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[Prester Guild]

[Abicion]

I just button mashed through all the dialogue when I imported ToS.
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SOON.

[Slivius]

What I know of japanese comes solely from listening to anime series and conversations of japanese people in real life.

I'm at a point right now where I can rewatch a series and roughly know what the main characters are saying/ are talking about solely through the audio (which is usefull if I'm grabbing something to eat/ drink and don't want to put the episode on pause).

There's also quite a lot of "stock phrases" which show up in nearly all anime series which give me a rough idea of what's going on when watching a raw.

Oh but wait, I don't import games.

Oh but wait, I don't really watch animes anymore either.
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Also known as Sliv, Slivvie, Quilvius, Slivendiferious, and slivijizzisious

Ruilus wrote:

Holy hell. Yesterday was a blur of wine, whiskey and brandy. I can't remember where I left my sofa.

[Yume Hanabi]

I think I'm pretty fluent (JLPT N2 if that means anything, planning to pass N1 next year). I only rarely need my dictionary anymore when playing Tales games. Playing and translating Tales has helped me improve a lot =)

I know around 1000 kanji, I think? It's hard to know how many exactly...
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~Find my Tales of translations on LJ or on Tumblr~

[rothcol_shepard]

Enough to hold up a general conversation, nowhere near fluency though.

Generally I have no issues following the plot in these games, but it helps when they are fully voiced though.

I take weekend classes and self-study as my sources.

As for kanji, I'd guess I know maybe around 200 or so? So yeah, when I play imports I need to pull out the dictionary fairly often but I don't mind it so much as it just helps me learn a bit more.
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Currently playing: テイルズオブエクシリア

[Arn]

Only kana here, I don't care much for Tales story but I catch glimpses of what's happening by hearing and looking at the cutscenes.

Besides I already know mostly of the game story/characters by reading other sources like Aselia and gfaqs.
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[a745]

I can understand it well enough when I hear it, though when it comes to reading, I only know a handful of kanji, and pretty much all katakana and hiragana. I need to rely on a dictionary when I'm reading. I do OK on conversations. But yeah, I still do make mistakes, since I don't really have any formal education on it.
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Please order from Play-Asia or CDJapan through us to fund for our Tales of Xillia contest!

[cutepresea]

I can read it pretty decently.
I'm okay with listening, but my tendency to not be able to focus kinda gets in the way of that at times.
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[Andre]

[Veghesther]

for me NOT at all its just that most tales of games use the same arte/spells as all the others (and use the same Kanji) for all those moves as well.

So I can win battles in import tales of games just fine and use auto translated wiki's/fansites for everything else (its walkthrough/subquests.)

[mortimer09]

Most of the katakanas, some hiraganas and very few kanjis (10-15 I think)

[Flamfas]

[Dede]

I can read katakana and can understand a few things if it's spoken