Hi!
Further to those news, today I read these three:
段々生活は通常に戻って嬉しいです。
Had another failed immersion session today. This time it was me attempting to play Ocarina in Time in Japanese. Even though I’ve played it I’ve-lost-count-times in English, I’m not 上手 enough to play a game, even a familiar one, without furigana. I did talk to all of the Kokiri around and got the sword and shield, but quit after talking to Mido.
Sigh…back to graded readers I go…
You can try playthroughs on youtube. Many vtubers read aloud the dialogues when playing. It will be good immersion since they also react to it.
I wouldn’t count that as a fail at all. You might not have been as ready for it as you wanted to be, but I’m sure you got something out of it 
If you really want to try your hand at playing games in Japanese, maybe start with a Pokemon game? The kanji version doesn’t have furigana either, but overall the context is much easier and less dense so I found it to be rather pleasant to play through. Even if I went through a couple games at n4ish (more incomplete n4 ish), I was still able to progress through the game grabbing info here and there.
All Pokemon games for the switch are able to be played in several languages, just note once you start you can’t change the language. I did let’s go Pikachu first, then most of shield. I only looked up necessary information for progression, like “you want me to what now?” , but for 80-90% I just played through leisurely reinforcing things I already knew not worrying to much about missed information unless I was really curious about commonly occurring words
You can give it a shot if you don’t absolutely despise Pokemon
Yeah, when I decide to seriously try to play a game in Japanese, I was going to pick a Pokémon game (I love Pokémon!) since it’s easier than Zelda. Since I went through all of that trouble to download the Japanese N64 Expansion Pass on my Switch, I figured I might as well get some use out of it. But maybe not right yet!
Omg I didn’t even think about that. Japanese 64 expansion pack! I never knew I needed this 
Also don’t be afraid to just jump into playing Pokemon! It doesn’t have to be the right time, or a dedicated serious playing session. Just goof around and enjoy. You can always restart it later. There was a site I found that had every move listed from jap to eng. I found it really helpful for ones I couldn’t figure out from the description. For anyone else stumbling across this in the future, PokéJisho
All this talk is making want to go play diamond
Oh, that is nice! When German was my language learning focus, I (kinda) played through X and Alpha Sapphire. I wasn’t familiar with the German names, it was confusing trying to translate what that unknown Pokémon/move/town/character was. Cool that there is a translator for JP! Maybe I’ll dust off my 3DS and restart Alpha Sapphire.
The fact that you can play JP Switch Online games is great! Jumping through all of the hoops to download and play them is a bit of a pain though…
And in case Pokémon still happens to be too difficult, I can highly recommend playing Yo-kai Watch 1:
Oh, and Game Gengo has a video explaining why he thinks it’s a good game for beginners if you wanna learn more about it.
Agreed! I never got into learning podcasts and anime are still too hard, but I can watch vtubers play games for hours 
I never would’ve thought to try yokai watch, but after seeing the video it looks banger. Thanks for the suggestion
It definitely wasn’t on my radar either before Game Gengo mentioned it in an earlier video. I actually bought a Switch to play it (and other Japanese games once I’m good enough) and I have zero regrets 
I hope you’ll enjoy it too!
Not immersion, but I read about Scriptorium and tried it with bunpro. It would take me 3 tries to write the sentence correctly. EX
私が、一人でお皿を洗わなくてはいけないということですか correct
私は一人で皿を洗わなくてはいけないということ? wrong
The video for example didn’t work. So I answered the question. Read sentence out loud twice. Then write the sentence without checking my phone. Read my written sentence. Read origianal sentence out loud. Write again if different.
It was demoralizing how hard this was.
This is also really hard for me in my native language. (english).
Same with shadowing. I can’t shadow in English, Shadowing in Japanese feels impossible.
(shadowing is speaking along with audio)
idk if youre interested but i find reading vns to be a good way of playing “games” in jp as well as much more interesting than graded readers. It may be hard and take time, but with a good text hooker and a lot of determination, you can push through a vn and (mostly) understand whats going on.
Like i would rather read steins;gate or other interesting vns at an 85% comprehension level (with a texthooker and yomichan you will be able to understand whats going on) than understanding 95% of whats going on.
I think actually having read works that are only in japanese and targeted towards japanese people (untranslated vns) is pretty neat and makes me feel more fufilled than reading graded readers (although if you enjoy graded readers keep on doing it).
i personally recommend vns because a lot of the lines are voiced, dictionary lookups are super easy, and you can read them line by line at your own pace. Although if youre goal is to “play a game”, idk if vns have enough “gameplay” as theyre more picture books than anything.
one downside of vns is be prepared to make a lot of lookups with yomichan, because for us not very 上手 people there are quite a few new words. But overall i would say if you are getting tired of graded readers it might not hurt to give an interesting vn a shot (if you think youd be into it)
My friends invited me out to starbucks afterwork so I looked up 全23種類！デカフェ（ノンカフェイン）のおすすめドリンクを一挙紹介 | スタバに暮らす (starbucksfreak.com) I’ll get パッションティー
I try to google basic info in Japanese. Today I looked up “小豆炊飯器でたく” and got this answer
小豆を洗い、炊飯器に３倍量の水と共に入れ炊飯スイッチを入れる。
再び炊飯スイッチを入れる。
スイッチが切れたら、静かにボウル等に移し、水分を吸わせつつ冷ませば完成。
Not 5 minutes, but something.
I got lots of immersion Today
Played harvest moon[牧場物語] on switch for 5 hours.
The museum currator stole the black smith’s motorcycle. The carpenter was dissapointed that the bartender invited me to their date. And the florist’s grandfather is trying to set us up, much to her embarrassment.
Watching cat videos on NHK. Also [in harvest moon], Everyone is gossiping “she doesn’t own a cat, isn’t that dreadful?”
Hi,
Today I read some news in NEWS WEB EASY:
Have a nice Saturday
My favorite manga is has a third season
【青の祓魔師】作者が描いた「ポケモン」イラストがかわいすぎる。3匹のシャリタツが「神」と反響（画像） | ハフポスト LIFE (huffingtonpost.jp)
Recomened by bing.
[#]青の祓魔師 島根啓明結社篇 ｜ BS11（イレブン）|全番組が無料放送
looks like channel 11 at midnight on Saterday. Yay!
Read a few stories on the Tadoku and Yomu sites this morning.
I just booked a cruise around Japan with a friend for the end of May! I really need to kick my reading and listening into high gear, so I’m going to work really hard! I’ve got four months! ties headband around head
Read chapter 228 of Blue Exorcist at a manga cafe.
The Aemon Shiemi battle was amazing. Then segwayed into strategizing to take on Lucifer, Satan, Beelzebub, and other names that I don’t recognize. I understood it, but I think I need to read some earlier chapters.
