New vocabulary course, today we will see "video game franchises". And beware, this vocabulary course will be very heavy : 40 titles of video games among the best known, in my humble opinion.
Video game franchises, there are many so, as usual, I had to make choices and I selected only names in katakana to force you to practice a little. With any luck, there may be the name of a video game or a franchise that marked your childhood. 40 names of video games, 40 names to copy and copy.
This is an opportunity to review a little what we saw in this part : the accents, the pause, the lengthening.
Let’s start.
ピンボール
. Pinball
テトリス
. Tetris
スペースインベーダー
. Space Invaders
ドンキーコング
. Donkey Kong
スピードレース
. Speed Race
ベア・ナックル
. Bare Knuckle
メトロポリスストリートレーサー
. Metropolis Street Racer
メガマン
. Megaman
レイマン
. Rayman
クロノ・クロス
. Chrono Cross
クロノ・トリガー
. Chrono Trigger
パンチアウト
. Punch Out
ソニック・ザ・ヘッジホッグ
. Sonic The Hedgehog
ソニック ヒーローズ
. Sonic Heroes
ソニック ロストワールド
. Sonic Lost World
ソニック カラーズ
. Sonic Colours
ソニックマニア
. Sonic Mania
スーパーマリオブラザーズ
. Super Mario Bros
スーパーマリオワールド
. Super Mario World
ペーパーマリオ
. Paper Mario
マリオカート
. Mario Kart
スーパーマリオメーカー
. Super Mario Maker
セレステ
. Celeste
ポケモン
. Pokemon (from English "Pocket Monster", "ポケットモンスター")
キングダム ハーツ
. Kingdom Hearts
メトロイド
. Metroid
メトロイドプライム
. Metroid Prime
ピクミン
. Pikmin
アウトラン
. Out Run
ペルソナ
. Persona
アンダーテール
. Undertale
ゴートシミュレーター
. Goat Simulator
リトルビッグプラネット
. Little Big Planet
スーパーモンキーボール：バナナブリッツHD
. Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD
ホロウナイト
. Hollow Knight
マインクラフト
. Minecraft
ポータル
. Portal
カップヘッド
. Cuphead
パックマン
. Pac-man
イコ
. Ico
And if you want to talk about a series of video games rather than a specific game, you simply add the word シリーズ which means "serie" in English.
メトロイドシリーズ
. Metroid series
メトロイドプライムシリーズ
. Metroid Prime series
ソニックシリーズ
. Sonic series
ペーパーマリオシリーズ
. Paper Mario series
マリオカートシリーズ
. Mario Kart series
キングダム ハーツ シリーズ
. Kingdom Heart series
...
For those who are... as old as me (I am no longer a "young" but don’t we say that being "young" is in the mind !) and who have knowledge of certain anecdotes in the history of video games, you know that, in the 80s and 90s, most video games coming out of Japan changed their name when they arrived in the United States, to be more adapted to the western public. So, if you are looking for video game names (title in English) dating from that time, you might end up with a completely different English katakanized title.
For example, if you search for "Street of Rage" in Japanese, there is a 99% chance that you will end up with ベア・ナックル (Bare Knuckle) since, in its original Japanese version, the game was released under this title.
Then, the games "Super Mario Bros" in Japanese is translated スーパーマリオブラザーズ where ブラザーズ is actually the word "brothers" in English. In the American version, the word "brothers" was abbreviated "bros".
I think that the theme of video games will probably not speak to everyone. I admit that, if I chose this theme for this course, it is because I myself like video games. It’s one of my cute sins.
Finally, be aware that in Japanese, some people sometimes wonder whether it is necessary to have solid knowledge of English to be able to study the Japanese language since the Japanese have taken back many English words that they have katakanized and that they use daily. To this question, I answer that it is a plus to have good knowledge of English. After, if not, it doesn’t matter. If I give you English words, then I also give you the translation. And these are never particularly complicated English words. In other vocabulary courses, we will cover topics where you will still have a lot of English katakanized words to learn, including the lexicon of clothing and new technologies. You also have names of sports that are taken from English. We will see it all bit by bit.
Still in the theme of video games, you have lots of other vocabulary words from English like :
バンパー
. the bumper
リング
. the ring
Here, a few more vocabulary words to learn.
This course is now over. Read again the lesson, practice reciting and writing your katakana and... there you go. We are for the moment on very simple vocabulary lists, this is only the beginning but very quickly, we will approach larger themes, more complex words so be careful! Be very serious in your learning because the more we advance, the more vocabulary you will have to remember in addition to the courses. All this is very important, if you are studious, you will succeed.
After having trained to copy again and again all these video games titles, you will be unbeatable on kanatana !
Have a good day everyone.
NOTE : it seems that the word シリーズ (series) is more used than the word フランチャイズ (franchise), perhaps because the former is easier to write and pronounce for Japanese people.
Besides, if you observe the word フランチャイズ, carefully, you may have noticed something rather strange. Don’t worry, it will all be clearer when we see "The new combinations" in katakana.
Introduction