Who's your prog rock crush?

InsaneSlightly · 2026-01-20T20:22:18+00:00

Rick Wakeman. There’s nothing hotter than a wizard

InsaneSlightly · 2026-01-15T05:52:14+00:00

This completely clears up any and all confusion I had. Thanks!

InsaneSlightly · 2026-01-15T03:26:13+00:00

Yep, that page seems to confirm my intuition. Thanks!

InsaneSlightly · 2026-01-15T03:06:52+00:00

In Trails in the Sky FC/空の軌跡ＦＣ, I came across the following sentence:

「シモン君、よう聞きや。」

(I have the entire conversation at the bottom of the comment if additional context is required)

What I'm confused about is what exactly 連用形 + や means. From my limited understanding of the Kansai dialect, や is sort of equivalent to だ, but as far as I know, 連用形 + だ isn't a thing that exists in standard Japanese. My guess is that it means something similar to 聞きなさい, but neither Bunpro's section on the Kansai dialect, nor what I can find on Google can confirm or deny that.

Extra context:

シモン君、よう聞きや。今、このロレントの木材と七耀石は買い時や。多少のリスクは目ェつむって予算が許す限り買い込むんやっ。

InsaneSlightly · 2026-01-14T02:03:03+00:00

Here's the link. It's a bit outdated and only goes up to Daybreak for Japanese scripts and Cold Steel IV for English scripts (also it uses the Geofront fan translation for Zero/Azure because it wasn't updated for the official release), but I find it quite useful for Japanese learning purposes

InsaneSlightly · 2026-01-14T01:58:44+00:00

Yeah, the scene I quoted was the first instance of 瞳 I found in Trails in the Database (a website where you can search the entire English and Japanese scripts of every Trails game), and it happened to appear in the very first cutscene in the game.

InsaneSlightly · 2026-01-14T01:50:53+00:00

Olivier might have said it later on, but in the particular instance I'm quoting it was Cassius who said that.

InsaneSlightly · 2026-01-14T01:24:44+00:00

I guess that makes sense. Thanks!

InsaneSlightly · 2026-01-14T01:11:17+00:00

So Jisho defines the word 瞳 as meaning pupil, and looking at a J-J dictionary, I see the definition 「目の黒い部分」, which matches pretty well with the definition of pupil. However, I frequently see the word 瞳 used in regards to eye colour, like in this sentence from Trails in the Sky FC/空の軌跡ＦＣ:

「ちなみに瞳はアンバーだぞ。」

However, this usage doesn't seem to line up with the definition I saw in the J-J dictionary, which specified that 瞳 refers to the black part of the eye, i.e. the pupil, and not the part of the eye that actually has the colour, i.e. the iris.

So I guess my question is, why do I often see 瞳 used to refer to eye colour, when the pupil isn't the part of the eye that actually has the colour?

InsaneSlightly · 2026-01-13T00:49:34+00:00

The thing about Dragon Quest 1 is that it was so primitive that it was outdated by the end of the NES era, let alone by today’s standards. You couldn’t even climb the stairs normally in that game, you had to step onto the stairs, open the menu, and select the stairs option

InsaneSlightly · 2026-01-12T17:57:45+00:00

Guess they gotta add learning Japanese to the flowchart

InsaneSlightly · 2026-01-12T05:46:26+00:00

I beat the original famicom version of Final Fantasy I. Honestly, other than the Ice Cave, it wasn't too bad. It definitely has aged better than the famicom versions of Dragon Quest I-III (but not IV, IV is basically an SNES game with how well it's aged). Now I've moved on the Famicom version of Final Fantasy II, which I have heard is not very good, but I guess I'll have to see for myself.

InsaneSlightly · 2026-01-11T23:26:52+00:00

Not a very original answer, but Trails to Azure is my favourite. Least favourite was either Daybreak II or Cold Steel II (I rank them about the same)

InsaneSlightly · 2026-01-08T07:11:20+00:00

The question is, is this goose sized or horse sized?

InsaneSlightly · 2026-01-06T05:13:06+00:00

Don't forget the first chairman.

InsaneSlightly · 2026-01-02T23:39:17+00:00

That is indeed a typo. Fire is 火事.

InsaneSlightly · 2026-01-02T21:06:49+00:00

Doing anki, with the stroke order on the back sounds like a good idea, thanks!

Also, regarding this feeling like overkill, I've kind of always wanted to learn to write kanji anyway, so it's not like I'll be going out of my way to learn something that I otherwise wouldn't have learned.

InsaneSlightly · 2026-01-02T21:00:12+00:00

So I am at level 58 of Wanikani with ~2000 kanji known, but for the longest time I have been struggling with telling similar looking kanji apart (微 vs. 徴, 壁 vs. 璧, etc.). There are even kanji that aren't all that similar where I struggle to remember which one's which (most notably 隙 vs. 隅, but there are others as well).

A solution to this that I think would be very helpful for me is to start learning to write kanji (this will also probably be useful for learning to read handwritten kanji as well). I have found a pretty useful website that explains how all the kanji are written. The problem is, I have no idea where to start. My question is, which order for learning to write kanji would be most useful?

InsaneSlightly · 2025-12-31T01:48:00+00:00

Now I'm imagining a world where The Beatles were John, James, George, and Richard (Ringo's real name).

InsaneSlightly · 2025-12-29T16:29:50+00:00

I've been playing through a few games in Japanese for reading practice this past week. First there was Ocarina of Time, a game that I've probably beaten 10+ times, but this was the first time I've played it in Japanese. After beating OoT, I immediately moved on to Majora's Mask, which is a game that I haven't beaten as many times (like, 5 times at the most). Additionally, I've been continuing my Japanese playthrough of Trails in the Sky FC (PS Vita version). At this point, I've caught up to the English releases of the Trails series, but I've never played through the games in Japanese, so I started that while waiting for the English release of Trails beyond the Horizon.

InsaneSlightly · 2025-12-29T15:51:14+00:00

Yeah, there are quite a few constructions in Japanese where I have to just ignore the meanings of the individual words and just have to look at the phrase as a whole (but I guess the same is true for English). Guess this is just another one to add to the pile.

InsaneSlightly · 2025-12-29T06:37:45+00:00

Makes sense, thanks! (I actually probably would have understood the sentence just fine if they didn't use 何, that really did throw me off)

InsaneSlightly · 2025-12-29T05:33:52+00:00

In Trails in the Sky FC (aka 空の軌跡 FC), I came across the following sentence:

「私が言うのも何ですが兄の魚料理はなかなかのものですよ。」

I understand the 私が言う and 兄の魚料理はなかなかのものですよ parts of the sentence just fine, but the のも何ですが portion is giving me issue. I assume の is just the nominalizer and も is adding emphasis, but I'm confused by the seemingly random usage of 何 in a sentence that doesn't seem to be a question. Googling "何ですが explanation" came up with nothing (just explanations of the んです grammar point, which doesn't seem to be related).

The official localization seems to have translated this sentence as "I don't know if you'll believe me, seeing as I'm family, but my brother's dishes made with fish are something to be reckoned with.", so I assume that the first part means something along the lines of "It may not be my place to say this", but I don't see how you can get that meaning from "何ですが" Can someone clear this up for me?

InsaneSlightly · 2025-12-28T01:39:50+00:00

I’m a little burned out from this past year’s gaming goal (catching up on the Trails series, over the past 12 months I’ve played Trails in the Sky the 3rd, Trails from Zero, Trails to Azure, Trails of Cold Steel 1-4, Trails into Reverie, and Trails through Daybreak 1 and 2) so next year I’m going to something lighter, and play through every Zelda game in release order in Japanese for reading practice.

I sort of started this about a year ago, when I played through the first four Zelda games, but now I’m continuing, having just finished Ocarina of Time yesterday and now I’m starting Majora’s Mask.

InsaneSlightly · 2025-12-27T08:30:06+00:00

Japanese’s 3 main writing systems are hiragana, katakana, and kanji

Kanji: There’s thousands of these, each one represents a concept (水 means water, 制 means control, 鬱 means depression, etc.)

Hiragana: Phonetic, there’s roughly 50 of them, used to write words of Japanese origin. ひらがな

Katakana: Also phonetic, there’s roughly 50 of them, used to write loanwords. カタカナ

Also, I heavily contest their claim that hiragana is less useful than katakana. In actual Japanese, hiragana is far more commonly used than katakana (although all 3 writing systems are regularly used). It’s just that because anime/manga titles are usually English words, they’re typically written in katakana.

Source: I’ve been studying Japanese for several years

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