Gaming🎮 So to Speak gamifies the teaching of basic Japanese, but you shouldn't sleep on this fun retro puzzle game even if you have no aspirations to learn th

[Royal_Lizard]

About eight months ago, I impulsively decided I wanted to learn Japanese. To be honest, it wasn't something that had ever occurred to me as either beneficial or indeed especially possible for me before; but because modern life does have its upsides sometimes, I was able to act on this whim so fast that, before it had the chance to pass, I was stuck into my first-ever Japanese lesson, courtesy of Duolingo.

Fast forward 237 days and the green bird has yet to find occasion to chastise me for skipping a day, and although I'm hardly fluent — and would undoubtedly be flustered out of any proficiency I possess if an actual Japanese person actually attempted to speak to me in actual Japanese — I've made some definite progress. I can slowly sound out the video titles on the Japanese Pokémon YouTube channel and understand all the Japanese equivalents to "BLAM" and "POW" when I read manga, that sort of thing.

Duolingo is decently gamified already as far as language learning apps go, but naturally I was very excited when I first heard of So to Speak: an indie puzzle game coming soon to Steam and Itch.io, which aims to teach English speakers the basics of Japanese vocabulary by having them navigate their way around a charming pixel-art Japanese town. At least in my experience, as someone who loved their gaming hobby so much they made it their job, you can never have too much gamification.

Read more