Today I got this cute video in my Youtube feed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4rAU-CFWLQ
It grabbed my attention right away. A video game that helps you learn Japanese in a fun and entertaining way? I had to check it out! Anything but proper study, please!
The game is called Shashingo, from Japanese 写真 (shashin, photo) and 語 (go, language). As the name suggests, you walk around a city block and take photos of things. Whenever you take a photo, the game tells you the word for the object. You can then save the photo to your album. Additionally, you can flip the photo card in your album to see three relevant words for that object — adjectives, verbs and other nouns. After you fill your album with some photos, you can switch to search mode: the game tells you a word, and you have to find the object in the game world. Other than that, there's a little textbook with some basic words and grammar.
My first impression was, This game looks so pretty! I like the style — it's so vibrant. I took some photos and tried search mode for a while. But then I was like, Is that it? I have to agree with a Steam review I read that basically said: there's not enough gameplay for it to be a proper game, and not enough education to be educational. The author claims there's about 400 words in the game — I assume that means 100 objects and 300 relevant words on photo cards. But some of the words he chose for the game are questionable. There are some basic words, of course, like tree, bread and river; then there are words that are relevant to Japanese culture, like shrine, manga, cherry blossom, gachapon machine and maid cafe. I like all of those. But then there are questionable ones. Why the hell would I, as a beginner, need to know the word for "outdoor air conditioner unit" or "traffic cone"? And the game world is so tiny — there are all of two streets.
I like the idea and I hope the developer of the game will expand on it. It really needs more levels with different surroundings and objects, which I think he plans to do. But I'd also like to see some sort of conversation practice, some kind of basic dialogues. As of now, there are no human characters in the game. You can use it to help you memorize words and that's about it.
It made me think, what would a good language-learning game look like? There's no substitute for proper studying, of course, but there’s no reason why someone shouldn’t be able to come up with something that’s both educational and fun.
But please, check it out for yourselves if you're interested. Your opinion might be different from mine. Here's a trailer for Shashingo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0s9o094UF0
I was super excited to try it, and then I kept reading... nervous laughter I really do hope they'll update it and add more vocabulary and things. Sounds like a really neat game!
That was excellent! And I love that you’re writing longer, more complex sentences and so beautifully and naturally! Bravo!
@jssberry_lang I hope my disappointment didn't discourage you from at least checking the trailer. At the same time, if you watch the trailer, you see every feature the game has to offer, so don't get your expectations too high like I did. It's really neat, but its usefulness as a learning tool might be questionable.
@CocoPop Thanks for the corrections! It takes me less time as well — I used to spend a few hours writing a post, not to mention days of thinking about the topic; this one was spontaneous and took me probably all of 30 minutes!
Interesting, and it's definitely pretty! That is similar to how we learn new vocabulary in the real world.
Thanks for sharing! It reminds me of the app "Drops" which is also good for learning new words in a foreign language.