Wagotabi: A Japanese Journey

i have been trying to find the perfect game/app/program to help me learn the japanese language for over a decade at this point, including a few other games on steam which i was not impressed with. the most notorious being duolingo which is an absolute nightmare to learn japanese through. though i currently only have an hour into wagotabi, i'm already a fan. the game plays similar and is reminiscent of early pokemon games, so there's already some familiarity and it's quite comforting. this may not seem important, but i think it works because learning a new language is incredibly daunting, so coming into a game that plays similar to such a popular childhood game puts the brain at ease so more focus can be put into the actual subject matter. the gameplay is enjoyable but does not take away from the main focus which of course is learning the japanese language. the game teaches you hiragana, katakana, and kanji as well as grammatical rules. something i noticed with wagotabi that other programs fail at is wagotabi is not afraid to teach you kanji right off the rip. my personal frustration with a lot of japanese language programs i've tried is that many of them hold off on teaching kanji and make it seem like an insurmountable task to learn. i feel this has stagnated my learning, so i'm really happy that from the beginning of the game they are already teaching kanji instead of making it seem big bad and scary. i hate that this needs to be said, but it is so refreshing that the vocabulary and phrases you learn are actually useable!! you learn practical, necessary phrases instead of whatever ludicrous ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sentences other apps and games teach you that you will probably never use in your life. for example, the first level/lesson of this game is navigating an airport and then locating your correct bus using the phrases and rudimentary grammar. this is so much more helpful than just being thrown hundreds of random vocab words that you'll forget in a day. not just that, but on wagotabi you can also set a limit for how many new words you learn in a day. the game will give you a pop-up once you've hit this daily limit to which you can choose to exit the game or keep exploring. very helpful for people like me who can admittedly get a little too overzealous when learning a new language. in all, if you're looking for a game that actually works, try wagotabi. don't waste your time or money on other apps or games. as someone who studies multiple foreign languages for fun, wagotabi is not only a fantastic tool for learning japanese but a comforting daily or nightly ritual to unwind. cannot recommend it enough

學了一段時間，其實還不錯。前幾日突然出現新的女聲音，不習慣也不喜歡。而且單字有幾個還發錯，遊戲中給了3次反應，還是沒改善，...真的很可惜。

This game helps in learning words, grammar concepts, and kanji. It helps develop your Japanese Brain very well by allowing you to build Japanese sentences yourself and slowly immersing you in the language. The only complaint, it does not teach hiragana or katakana very well. I suggest using tofugu's anki decks on hiragana and katakana before playing this game. It will take you three days to two weeks tops.

If you are completely new to Japanese, this game might be a little too fast. But if you have taken or are currently taking classes, this would be perfect.

とても面白いと便利ゲームです！

At the start, I didn't plan to learn Japanese at all, though I was curious to learn a bit for my future trip to Japan when I discovered this game on Steam. Finally, it got me interested enough so that I still continue to advance in the game, and I even started to look into learning more outside the game. It helped me to start Japanese in a painless way and to get more motivation to learn more outside the game. I would not be able to advance as much and keep the motivation with just a book. I strongly recommend this game for beginners.

im someone who can read both hiragana and katakana but suck at grammar and kanji so i appreciate aids like this to help reinforce the basics into my thick weeb trash skull