Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (In Japanese) Pt: 4

Whee!!! We’re past the launcher menu! Time to play the game! What’s that you say? More menus? *sigh* Alright, let’s get translating…

BrothersTitle

Now I’m gonna go ahead and assume that means “Push Start” but let’s look up what that kanji letter says just to be sure. After all, since I’m using an XBox One controller… there is no start button.

押 - お - common – push;

(お) 8 strokes. JLPT N3. Jōyō kanji, taught in junior high. push, stop, check, subdue, attach, seize, weight, shove, press, seal, do in spite of Kun: お.す、 お.し-、 お.っ-、 お.さえる、 おさ.える On: オウ

What a guess! Since してください means “please”, and we know that を is a particle that expresses the direct object of a sentence, then 「STARTを押してください」 means “Please Push Start”.

I didn’t fully realize that the below was a menu my first time launching the game… I had just quickly jumped in and taken a screen capture to send to a friend so I could confirm that the 日本人 in the language settings didn’t indicate that the rest of the game was going to be terrible quality. But now that I realize we’re at another menu not an introduction… so, let’s check it out too.

TitleScreen

So プレイ translates to “Play” no problem. That bottom one is 終了「しゅうりょう」, which we saw on day one of this exercise, so we know it means “quit”. But then we have some newness. 遊び方 confused me at first, as I didn’t realize it’s two separate words. 遊び and 方.

遊び - あそび - common - playing;

(お) 12 strokes. JLPT N3. Jōyō kanji, taught in grade 3. play Kun: あそ.ぶ、 あそ.ばす On: ユウ、 ユ

方 - かた - common - direction;

(お) 4 strokes. JLPT N4. Jōyō kanji, taught in grade 2. direction, person, alternative Kun: かた、 -かた、 -がた On: ホウ

遊び方 then becomes あそびかた, literally “playing direction” or “How to Play”. So the full line becomes “How to Play & Options”.

実績 - じっせき - common - achievements;

(じっ) 8 strokes. JLPT N3. Jōyō kanji, taught in grade 3. reality, truth Kun: み、 みの.る、 まこと、 みの、 みち.る On: ジツ、 シツ
(せき) 17 strokes. JLPT N2. Jōyō kanji, taught in grade 5. exploits, achievements, unreeling cocoons Kun: n/a On: セキ

And at the bottom right, is the prompt that the A button does something (probably accept, or confirm), but let’s look it up anyways:

選択 - せんたく - common - selection; choice; option;

(せん) 15 strokes. JLPT N3. Jōyō kanji, taught in grade 4. elect, select, choose, prefer Kun: えら.ぶ On: セン
(たく) 7 strokes. JLPT N1. Jōyō kanji, taught in junior high. choose, select, elect, prefer Kun: えら.ぶ On: タク

Alright, well, I suppose we should check out the “Achievements” just to see if we’re right:

bandicam 2016-02-21 02-00-35-009

I wasn’t expecting it to be entirely empty. A bug maybe? Possibly related to Steam being in Family Mode. But it looks like it’s trying to take me to my profile’s Achievements page for the game. So that’s one point for accurate guesses, I guess. Alright, let’s try “How to Play and Options”.

HowToPlayAndOptions

Score! Not much to translate here. 遊び方 was just on the last page, and means “How To Play”, while 設定 was on the very first menu screen, and means “Settings”. I had to look up クレジット because ジ is not the same as the “deh” sound in “credit”, but… well, クレジット means “Credit”. That means this page only has one new set of kanji to look up:

戻る - もどる - common - to turn back; to return; to go back;

(もど) 7 strokes. JLPT N3. Jōyō kanji, taught in junior high. re-, return, revert, resume, restore, go backwards Kun: もど.す、 もど.る On: レイ

One thing that I kind of “know” that hasn’t been covered in any of my blogging yet, is that る is a type of verb.

Luckily the credits are in English. I don’t think I could have handled attempting to translate the names. Frankly… given that I never even look at the names in English, I don’t think I would have bothered. And since it’s now almost 3am, I guess it’s time to call it quits for the night. I guess we’ll look at 設定 and 遊び方 next time. 🙁

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