Review of “Sashingo: Learn Japanese Through Photography”

“Sashingo: Learn Japanese With Photography” offers a straightforward concept that you might guess just from the title. In this game, you find yourself wandering through a tiny version of Shibuya, Tokyo, armed solely with a small polaroid camera. As you explore freely, every time you snap a picture, the camera zeroes in on an object within the frame, presenting you with its Japanese name along with the relevant Hiragana or Katakana characters. While not specifically goal-driven, the game encourages you to discover as many words as possible across the map and save these snapshots in your album.

The open-ended structure of Sashingo presents a fresh and imaginative way to introduce players to basic Japanese vocabulary and phrases. You have the option to engage in a mini-exam where the game challenges you to photograph an item that corresponds to the given word. This creates an enjoyable blend of exploration and language learning. Sashingo excels at this educational integration. Words are clearly pronounced for the player, accompanied by an in-depth manual offering practical phrases for basic communication in Japanese. It seems to go beyond what Duolingo offers. While Duolingo is undeniably an effective learning platform, it doesn’t exactly rank high on the fun scale. Sashingo, in contrast, makes the learning and practice process more engaging. There’s no pressure of being graded, allowing you more freedom in choosing which vocabulary to build.

Despite my fascination with Japan, having visited multiple times, the language barrier persists. I’ve dabbled with Duolingo, and my partner has completed several Japanese language courses. Yet, the real hurdle in mastering a language is consistent practice and the necessity to actively use it. It’s often the only path to improvement. Herein lies Sashingo’s limitation—it doesn’t quite serve as an ideal starting point for learning Japanese. While its educational methods for teaching vocabulary are authentic, it falls short in covering the basics and offering interactive experiences to help you grasp everyday language use. Although the manual delves deeper into these aspects through reading and audio phrases, the game itself doesn’t reinforce this learning, which makes retention challenging.

Interestingly, my partner, with her very basic grasp of Japanese from her classes, enjoyed watching me play and was eager to assist in deciphering the words. She easily recognized terms like bottles, bicycles, traffic lights, and cars, and was thrilled to learn new words like construction site, garbage bin, and cardboard box—words rarely highlighted in her lessons. This is where Sashingo shines, acting as a supplementary tool to broaden vocabulary while adding a fun, interactive element to practice. However, the ‘game’ section feels somewhat underdeveloped. While you can experiment with various filters—which become available after you pass a test—the options for capturing your photographic style are limited. Features like an excellent zoom and focus are present, but you can’t tilt the camera or snap selfies. This limitation could leave fans of photography games, like myself, wanting more, as the game leans more towards being an educational tool.

Ultimately, Sashingo: Learn Japanese with Photography serves as a delightful supplement if you’re already on the journey of learning Japanese. Its charming art style and the miniature depiction of Shibuya make exploration enjoyable and help you discover numerous Japanese words. Yet, it doesn’t quite fulfill the role of a comprehensive language-learning tool or a photography game. Nonetheless, if you’re on a flight to Japan, it offers a fun opportunity to learn a few words and phrases that you might find handy once you land.