So to Speak Steam Charts & Stats

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Very nice entry level japanese learning game

Great game to reinforce N5-ish learning goals

[i]So to Speak[/i] is a Japanese language-learning game where you match the correct word with its object. It is the best language-learning game I've ever played (take my words w/ a grain of salt anyway, since I'm not actively seeking out the language-learning genre in general). The game does it right in many aspects. The first notable one is the concept of "listen first, read later." Another is that it incorporates [i]the language[/i] as many of you shall encounter in real life—travelling to Japan for pleasure—unlike other "serious" lessons that revolve around working culture, drill down too deep too early (like a huge family tree), or focus on 敬語. In this game, you'll slowly build up your vocabulary alongside a bit of simple grammar. The vocab is around N5 level and covers your basic day-to-day life, which is quite adequate if you're planning to visit Japan for a week or two. Now—if you're equipped with some knowledge of Japanese—heads up that in this game, some kanji don't have a corresponding reading, and some spoken words don't have a corresponding kanji (only kana available). For example, there is no kanji 見 that directly links to the meaning of "see"; however, this kanji exists accidentally as a proper name, so you can use it to match the word "see" anyway... This might annoy some who wish to tag all the words (like me lol), but I guess that's a quirk of language in the real world: you'll occasionally encounter hapax legomena. This relaxed-matching also comes with a downside: it might accidentally match homonyms. For example, a word like "like" in the context of "it looks like" can be matched to 好き; or the English particle "to" can be matched to と. Despite that, the game is fun and functional. It still has room for improvement, IMO: First, the dictionary on the right panel of the screen could use a redesign. Right now, it's not quite acting as a "dictionary," but more like a collection of every conversation & signage instead. So it's quite hard to find the word you need despite having the "search" box. I think this dictionary could be better split into 3 tabs: [list] [*] [b]conversation[/b]: records every convo/sign in chapter order (the current behavior); [*] [b]dictionary[/b]: records only words, like a traditional dictionary; [*] [b]favorite[/b]: a blank page for players to pin the words themselves. [/list] The favorite page will likely solve many issues in the game and let the player tackle it with their own technique. For me, I'll use that page to record common words and all of the particles, so when I hear a sentence: 「さくらははるにぴんくいろになるよ。」 I'll try to match the [i]particles[/i] first in order to structure the sentence (and not mistakenly tag はは as 母 lol). So the structure becomes: 「さくら—は—はる—に—ぴんく—いろ—に—なる—よ。」 Which is now clearly: 「桜は春にピンク色になるよ。」 Secondly, the game is not quite serious about matching the exact word. In particular, Japanese has 〜ある and 〜いる, which convey very similar meanings but have different usage details (likely comparable to "be/is/am/are" in English). Maybe—just maybe—this needs to be matched exactly for players who wish to seriously learn the language (maybe a "hard mode" will do). Lastly, the game sometimes interprets a natural Japanese sentence into a natural English sentence. This, of course, makes the sentence sound [i]natural[/i]. But it also loses the language's nuance. For example: 「お母さんに電話をかけているよ。」 Is translated to: "I am talking to (my) mother." — losing the [i]phone[/i] part. While this is [i]perfectly[/i] fine in translating something for mass media, in the context of language-learning, I don't think it works... Instead, I think the learner should embrace weird translations that keep nuance intact. I'm more than thrilled to see DLCs for this game (which might expand the vocab to N4–N3, more grammar, or a variety of scenarios, e.g., police station, doctor's appointment, a date, etc.) 頑張ろう、みなさん！

🌸 A promising learning tool buried under technical issues 🌸 As someone starting Japanese from absolute zero, I was genuinely surprised how effective this game was in helping me learn. It mixes visual and auditory cues with vocabulary in a way that really sticks — hearing a word, seeing it in context, and having to search for it all work together beautifully. It doesn’t feel like studying; it feels like discovering. But... oh, the technical problems. The game lost my save file once. Completely gone. I had to restart from the beginning — frustrating, but I was still willing to give it another try because of how useful it was. Then, it just stopped launching entirely. No matter what I do, it won’t start. I’ve tried troubleshooting, but nothing helps. This could’ve been a glowing review. The educational value is real — for beginners like me, this is the kind of tool that makes Japanese feel approachable, even fun. But when the tech issues wipe your progress and then shut you out altogether, it's hard to recommend it in good conscience. I want to recommend it. I really do. But until the technical issues are resolved, I can’t. It’s a beautiful idea wrapped in a broken shell.

So to Speak is a language learning game that is uniquely immersive and fun to play. Puzzling out the meanings of Japanese words based on context clues is very satisfying, but a lack of reinforcement for a good deal of the game's vocabulary means that it should not be considered a replacement for a well-sequenced textbook and/or spaced repetition flash cards. That said, playing So to Speak is a heck of a lot more fun than using Anki (I say this as a longtime Anki user), and you could easily replay the game multiple times to make up for the lack of reinforcement in the campaign. As a game, the campaign is well-designed: puzzles are challenging but never difficult, and the cute Stardew Valley-esque art communicates concepts clearly. Towards the end, I did come across a handful of odd, "sticky" puzzles, and I felt I had to resort to guessing a few more times than I would have liked. The campaign should probably take most people 15 to 20 hours to complete. As a learning tool, I'm not 100% sure I love the sequencing of the linguistic content, and having to repeatedly solve sentences for "iru", "aru", and "desu" is tedious, but if you buy this game as a fun, relaxing supplement to your Japanese studies and you don't expect it to be anything other than an enjoyable alternative to flashcards, I think it's more than worth the price. Worth mentioning that the game does have some rough edges here and there. UI elements were occasionally buggy or didn't always function as expected. In terms of user experience, some greater consideration could be given to accessibility and different user preferences for playing with mouse or keyboard. I wrote about issues I experienced in [url=https://steamcommunity.com/app/1779030/discussions/0/600785448933305847/]this post here[/url], but none of them are deal-breakers. The lack of cloud saving is the only clear negative, and could be a consideration for someone who is going to be playing on multiple PCs. Overall, So to Speak is a fun and relaxing educational game, and if you are looking for an entertaining supplement to your beginning Japanese studies, it is well worth the money at full price. It creates an impressive sense of immersion a lot like how it is living in a foreign country where you don't know the language. Compared with similar educational games like the Learn Japanese to Survive! series, it is more substantial content-wise and feels like it would be better for actually learning Japanese. [hr][/hr] One last thing: I would highly recommend playing the game without romaji. Personally, I think that romaji should be off by default. I know some people get overwhelmed by hiragana and katakana in the beginning of their Japanese studies, but take some time to learn them (and do some introductory studies if you haven't)---I think you'll get more out of the game and be glad you did it!