Japanese Learning Games: When Learning Japanese, Do as the Japanese

When learning Japanese, a simple but commonly overlooked trick is to go directly to the source and use the methods and games that native Japanese people actually use to keep their language skills sharp. Most programs or other devices aimed at teaching the language are designed for foreigners. They aim to teach basic and fundamental concepts, which are great, but using just those methods won’t allow you to pick up on subtle nuances in the language that can’t really be taught. Here are five popular Japanese games that are actually played in Japan and will help you immensely with your language acquisition.

1.   Shiiritori: Shiritori, which means “take the bottom,” is probably the most popular Japanese word game. Basically one person comes up with a word (it has to be a noun), and the next person takes the last syllable of the word and creates a new word. This process keeps repeating itself until someone repeats a word or says a word that ends in the syllable “n.” This is because there are no words in the Japanese language that begin with “n.” This game is really great at improving your vocabulary and familiarizing new learners with the syllabic nature of the Japanese language.

2.   Henohenomoheji: Henohenomoheji is a drawing of a face made up of seven Hiragana characters (he, no, he, no, mo, he, and ji). Who would’ve thought? Basically the he composes the eyebrows and the mouth, the no are the eyes, the mo is the nose and the ji is the face. Although henohenomoheji is the standard face, you can get creative and create different faces and looks with different characters. For example another popular face is the hemehemkutsuji, which is a more feminine version. The me looks like an eye with lashes and the ku and tsu are more delicate facial features. Try and come up with as many different combinations, as this will help with your familiarity with Hiragana and Katakana, and not to mention it’s fun!

3.    Anaume: Anaume, or filling in the blanks, is a riddle game, with a twist. Like any traditional riddle game a person comes up with a riddle and an answer to it. But to make it a little fairer, the guessers are actually given the answer. Actually, that wouldn’t be fair, so instead the first and last syllables are taken out and they are left with the characters in the middle. Based on that, they have to try and guess the answer. It’s a simple game but it can actually get pretty tricky!

4.    Kaibun: Kaibun, which when translated means “circle sentence,” is basically the equivalent of palindromes in the English language. And if you aren’t familiar with palindromes it’s simply a word, phrase or sometimes even sentences that are read the same way forwards and backwards. But since the Japanese alphabet is radically different from the English one, instead of having the same letters back and forth (or in Japanese top to bottom), it’s based on syllables. This game really helps to familiarize you with the Japanese alphabet and improve your vocabulary.

5.   The Kanji game: The Kanji game, as its name implies, is supposed to help you learn Kanji. The objective of the game is to think of a Kanji character and then describe the character solely based on what it looks like. Describe an item, tell a story, and just use your imagination! Sometimes, the more ridiculous the better, because the more they stand out, the less likely you will be to ever forget that Kanji character. 

For more games and other fun methods of learning Japanese please check out my website.