FREE HALF DECK RELEASE OFFICIAL RULES – 4/5/2014
Copyright © Bernhard Hamaker, 2014
FOR UPDATES TO THE RULES OF THIS GAME, VISIT
JapaneseTheGame.com/QR or scan this code →
JapaneseTheGame.com - Facebook.com/JapaneseTheGame - Twitter: @JapaneseTheGame - And on Google+
OVERVIEW: Japanese: The Game (J:tG) is played by using cards to create Japanese sentences and get points. 20 points wins!
CARD TYPES: Each J:tG card is a Japanese word. They’re grouped into colors by their “part of speech” (such as Nouns and Verbs):
Blue: Nouns - People, places, & things. Some are physical; some aren’t. Examples: dirt = tsuchi; love = ai
Indigo: Na Nouns – Non-physical nouns that act like adjectives with particle “na”. ease = raku; easy = raku na (None in this deck.)
Purple: Adjectives – They describe nouns & states of being. They end in “i”. small = chiisai; red = akai
Red: Verbs – Action words. A subject performs the verb. Transitive verbs also have an object (see below). eat = taberu; sing = utau
Vermilion: Copulas – Copula is just a fancy word for “words that mean `is’,” like “am” and “were.”
Orange: Adverbs – These describe how or when an event plays out. tomorrow = ashita; probably = osoraku
Yellow: Interjections – Words that give clues about a speaker’s emotions. Oh! = ara!; “…ne” = …am I right? (None in this deck.)
Green: Particles – Some particles tell you what role a noun plays in a sentence. Ex.: “ga” marks a word as a subject.
Teal: Counters – These help you count, like “three sheets of paper.” Liters = ritoru; head (of cattle) = tou (None in this deck.)
CARD DESIGN: The anatomy of a card reveals its meaning and function:
Card Name
Sentence
Cloud
Meaning
Part of speech
Example
Bar Code
Pronunciation
Points
Furigana
Japanese
Explanation
Badges
Card Number
The card name outlined in the card’s color
This cloud lines up the words in your sentence to make
them easier to read and use.
Basic translation(s) into English. Alternate meanings
may be given in the Explanation.
The card’s part of speech: noun, verb, , etc.
The card’s word used in a sentence or two
Scan with the App to hear Japanese Pronunciation
Pronunciation help for English speakers
The point value of the card
Pronunciation help for Japanese speakers
The word written in normal Japanese
Card explanation with any special rules
Badges help you use words that have special rules.
If you can’t scan with the app, enter this number.
SETUP: You need at least 25 cards per player. (Half Decks come with 36.) Players may either share one deck or each use a personal deck. (We’ll
call it “the deck” either way.) Oldest player goes first. This is not necessarily an advantage.
TURNS: To start your turn, draw one card. If you then have fewer than six cards, draw until you have six. On your turn, you may start a sentence
or improve as many of your sentences as you like OR pass OR end your turn by discarding a card and drawing another. Done? Play proceeds right.
START A SENTENCE: Japanese sentences are elliptical, meaning they fill in any blanks. That makes your job easy because all you need for a
sentence is a “Predicate”: a Verb, an Adjective, or a Noun plus a Copula. (Don’t worry, it’s color coded.) The Predicate Badge is at the bottom of
every RED Verb, PURPLE Adjective, and VERMILION Copula card. (They’re color neighbors!) Here is one of each type of predicate:
Verb
Adjective
Noun + Copula
Each of the predicates above is a complete Japanese sentence; their subjects are implied. The first, Tataku, means to hit or strike something.
Because it doesn’t have a noun attached to it yet, we fill in the blanks with anything that makes sense (since we have no context) and get, “I hit
things.” It could just as easily mean “I strike you” for all we know. What you assume here doesn’t affect game play, so have fun with it.
The second predicate, Urusai (loud), is an adjective. Translated, it becomes “It is loud” or “You are loud” or “Something is loud.”
The third, Ike Desu, is the word for Lake plus a copula (which means “is”). There’s no subject in this sentence, so we could just say, “It is a lake.”
IMPROVE A SENTENCE!: We add nouns to a Japanese
predicate by using “particles,” which are short words that tell
us the purpose of each noun in a sentence. The particle Wa
(the green card to the left) marks the noun before it as the
subject of the sentence. You can see the particle card is
offset upwards from its neighbors.
Particle cards are different in that they
have peach-colored notches for other
cards to overlap them, like this. 
The notches may indicate what type of
word goes on either side of the particle.
(If blank, it doesn’t matter what goes
there.) In the sentence to the left, wa
marks the noun Dog (Inu) as the subject.
So it reads Inu wa kagu, or “The dog sniffs (something).”
To further improve our sentence and score more points, we
can add an object to the sentence by marking a noun with
the object-marking particle wo
(presuming you have a noun
and wo in your hand). Let’s
use Me (Watashi). You can put
Watashi Wo before the Inu wa
part or after it—it doesn’t
matter—because Japanese
sentences use particles, not
word placement, to show a
noun’s role in the sentence.
(See left.) Now we have the
sentence, Inu wa watashi wo
kagu, meaning “The dog sniffs
me.” Rock and roll, homey.
You’re speaking Japanese.
You will build grammatically correct Japanese sentences as long as your cards follow this color pattern:
See the Reference Card included in your
Half Deck.
(Any exceptions to this pattern will be
explained on the cards.)
Here’s one more example with an adverb Itsumo (“always”) to show you what it’s like to follow the color pattern:
The sentence took this pattern:
Orange adverb,
blue noun, green particle, blue
noun, green particle, red verb.
We could have placed the adverb
before the verb if we wanted, like
this:
Our sentence is now Itsumo inu
wa watashi wo kagu. “The dog
always sniffs me.” Place as many
sentences on your side of the
table as you like. Your points are
the sum of points shown on your
cards. You may also rearrange your cards on your turn, but all sentences must be grammatical (i.e. follow the pattern) by the end of your turn.
WINNING:
SOLO PLAY: (Mode 1) Build sentences trying to use as many cards of the deck as you can. (Mode 2) Get to 20 points in as few rounds as possible.
COLLABORATIVE PLAY: Build sentences together or separately. Take turns or don’t. Have fun. Learn Japanese! Fall in love (optional).
COMPETITIVE PLAY: While you’re creating and/or improving your sentence(s), you accumulate points equal to the sum of the points on the cards
you play during your turn. You may use these points to “retire” cards from another player’s sentence worth up to one fewer points than you put
down during your turn, but you must leave the opponent’s sentence grammatically correct. A player’s retired cards go into the discard pile.
SUCCESS: The game ends either (a) the moment a player has 20 points on his or her side—this player is the winner; or (b) the first time a player’s
deck is empty at the end of his or her turn. In case (b), the player with the highest number of points on the table is the winner.
ADVANCED CONCEPTS: You can put an adjective before a noun to modify it like in English: akai kao means “red face” for example. You can also do
this with complete sentences as long as they don’t end in the polite copula Desu (or in other editions of the game, the polite verb conjugation
Masu). This also applies to verb phrases, like Kuruma wo taberu hito ga omoshiroi (“The person who eats a car is amusing.”) This creates a subsentence that modifies a noun, but you still need a predicate for the overall sentence, which is where ga omoshiroi comes into it. This grammar
concept will already be familiar to speakers of the language. If it doesn’t make sense, save it for later.
EXAMPLES
Noun plus Copula
These together mean “(He) is a friend.” We infer a subject.
Adjective
This means “(It) is awesome.”
Verb
This means “(I) think of (something).”
EXAMPLES LENGTHENED
This means “You are a friend.” The subject is marked, so we don’t infer a subject. We could infer “You are (my) friend,” though.
In this sentence, we’ve taken Sugoi and given it a subject. The subject is “her spatula.” In English, we use the possessive pronoun
“her” to explain that something belongs to a female. In Japanese, the concept of possession is instead represented by the particle
No and whatever precedes it is the possessor. You could also translate No as the word “of” in reverse order: “The spatula of her is
terrific.” But don’t worry if this takes a bit of getting used to; you still get the points if you don’t quite understand it yet.
So you know, the verbs in this deck are in what is called “plain form” or “dictionary form.” This is their most basic state, but they can
be conjugated into (for example) past tense, polite form, or passive voice. For that you would need the Conjugations Expansion,
which covers more advanced concepts and is available on www.JapaneseTheGame.com (along with Anime, Travel, and more). Plain
form verbs are “Imperfect Tense” meaning the action has not been completed yet. We have two ways of saying this in English: “I will
(verb).”; and “I (verb).” For example, “I will eat” in Japanese is simply “Taberu.” “I eat” is also “Taberu.” That keeps things simple.
EXAMPLE SENTENCES CONTINUED
This sentence means “(I) will think about philosophy.”
The particle Ga marks the noun before it as the direct
object of the sentence, meaning it’s the thing that’s
having something done to it; it’s the “victim” of the
verb. The subject is implied, so we can infer whatever
subject makes sense to us.
Below you can see that we could build onto this
sentence in many ways. As long as we follow the
color pattern, you’ll know that the sentence is
grammatically correct.
COLOR CODE (This is also on the Easy Reference Card in your deck):
So here’s a live example using the sentence above. It’s shrunk down so you won’t worry too much about what exact words we’re using. The fact is,
any noun can be swapped out for any other noun to remain grammatically correct. It may not make sense, like “your spatula is going to think about
my dog’s lake” for example, but it’s still grammatically correct, which is all it has to be to get you points. Have fun with it, make silly sentences, and
enjoy learning the structure of the language! This sentence follows the pattern by placing everything in its proper order. There is no interjection. It
starts with an orange adverb, then come nouns (each followed by a particle), then a verb and an end particle. If it’s in order, you get the points!
ADVANCED CONCEPT: Using adjectives and verb phrases to modify nouns
You can place a verb phrase before a noun so that the verb phrase describes the noun. You can also place adjectives before nouns
to describe them. Here’s a sample. If it’s a little confusing, again, don’t worry. You’ll get used to Japanese and be ready for it soon!
Kore wa ookii hon wo taberu inu desu means “This is a dog that eats large books.” The adjective Ookii (Large) modifies the noun
Hon (Book) by going before it. Ookii hon wo taberu (“Eats large books”) modifies the Inu (dog) by going before it. It’s that simple.
Copyright © 2014 Bernhard Hamaker. Japanese card text edited by Taka Yanagita. Copy edited by David Witzany. #PlayJapanese
JapaneseTheGame.com – facebook.com/JapaneseTheGame – google.com/+JapaneseTheGame – twitter.com/JapaneseTheGame