5 ms·

I'd recommend playing the excellent SNES game Mother 2 (マザー２）, a huge hit in Japan and nobody complained about the text being difficult to read. Or you can wat

I'd recommend playing the excellent SNES game Mother 2 (マザー２）, a huge hit in Japan and nobody complained about the text being difficult to read. Or you can watch one of the let's play videos with narration here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F_UrqsO2JQ0&list=PLC4EWNG6GsuY5SExvHdnN9l9nP_ghz5vo&index=2&t=0s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F_UrqsO2JQ0&list=PLC4EWNG6GsuY...

edflsafoiewq 7y ago
Itoi intentionally eschewed kanji so that players would "not read the text by sight, but out loud, cherishing the sound of each and every letter".
innocenat 7y ago
But games don't show you pages and pages of Hiragana. And it's old games -- it's accepted technical limitation. Have you read pages and pages in Hiragana? Or even paragraphs? It's not fun, and it's take a lot of concentration.
- redthrow 7y ago
  It's no harder than having conversations in spoken Japanese where you don't see any text, kanji or otherwise. It would look awkward initially, but that's just because people are just used to the status quo which is kanji-kana mix.
  - innocenat 7y ago
    Spoken Japanese has intonation and rhythm which make identifying word boundaries and homonyms easier. Reading hiragana (especially without space as word boundaries) is totally different. Reading long hiragana by speaking aloud help, but there is still a problem of ha/wa and he/e.
    - redthrow 7y ago
      Using space is a given if you write exclusively in kana. See Kanamoji-kai: http://kanamozi.org/ http://kanamozi.org/ Also, the very reason there are so many homonyms in written text in the first place is because of the kanji (over)usage - that is, because people think there are visual cues they are less careful about choosing words that are also understood easily by people listening to the words. When people speak, at least if they are a competent speaker, people tend to avoid the overuse of homonyms (mostly kango).

edflsafoiewq 7y ago

Itoi intentionally eschewed kanji so that players would "not read the text by sight, but out loud, cherishing the sound of each and every letter".

innocenat 7y ago

But games don't show you pages and pages of Hiragana. And it's old games -- it's accepted technical limitation. Have you read pages and pages in Hiragana? Or even paragraphs? It's not fun, and it's take a lot of concentration.

redthrow 7y ago
It's no harder than having conversations in spoken Japanese where you don't see any text, kanji or otherwise. It would look awkward initially, but that's just because people are just used to the status quo which is kanji-kana mix.
- innocenat 7y ago
  Spoken Japanese has intonation and rhythm which make identifying word boundaries and homonyms easier. Reading hiragana (especially without space as word boundaries) is totally different. Reading long hiragana by speaking aloud help, but there is still a problem of ha/wa and he/e.
  - redthrow 7y ago
    Using space is a given if you write exclusively in kana. See Kanamoji-kai: http://kanamozi.org/ http://kanamozi.org/ Also, the very reason there are so many homonyms in written text in the first place is because of the kanji (over)usage - that is, because people think there are visual cues they are less careful about choosing words that are also understood easily by people listening to the words. When people speak, at least if they are a competent speaker, people tend to avoid the overuse of homonyms (mostly kango).