Japanese: The Game Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Objective
• The Cards
• Sentence Color Pattern
• Anatomy of a Card
• Setup
• The Turn
• Game Modes
• Starting a Sentence
• Improving a Sentence
  • Particles
  • Adverbs
  • Improved Example
• Example Turn
• Politeness Mini-Expansion
  • Godan Verbs
  • Ichidan Verbs
  • Special Verbs

Components

The Original Core Deck contains the following cards:

• Easy Reference Card: 1
• Godan Conjugation Table Cards: 2
• Verb Conjugation Cards: 2
• End Particle Cards: 3
• Particle Cards: 13
• Copula Cards: 6
• Adverb Cards: 5
• Noun Cards: 20
• Adjective Cards: 7
• Irregular Verb Card: 1
• Ichidan Verb Cards: 6
• Godan Verb Cards: 6

Objective

Build Japanese sentences to score points. The first player with at least 20 points wins.

The Cards

Each card in Japanese: The Game represents a word in Japanese. The cards are grouped into various colors representing their parts of speech (such as nouns and verbs). The colors are:

• Blue: Nouns. People, places, & things. Some are physical; some aren't. (Examples: garden: 庭 (niwa); heart: 心 (kokoro).)
• Indigo: Adjectival Nouns. Non-physical nouns that can act like adjectives, usually by adding "na". (Examples: ease: 楽 (raku); easy: 楽な (raku na).)
• Purple: Adjectives. They describe nouns & states of being. They end in "i". (Examples: small: 小さい (chiisai); big: 大きい (ookii).)
• Red: Verbs. Action words. A subject performs the verb. Transitive verbs have an object. (Examples: eat: 食べる (taberu); run: 走る (hashiru).)
• Vermilion: Copulas. Copula is just a fancy word for "words that mean is," like am and were. (Examples: です (desu); だ (da).)
• Orange: Adverbs. These describe how or when an event plays out. (Examples: now: 今 (ima); always: 何時も (itsumo).)
• Yellow: Interjections. Words that give clues about the speaker's emotions. (Examples: Oh!: あら！ (ara); Look!: ほら！ (hora).)
• Green: Particles. Some particles tell you what role a noun plays in a sentence. (Example: が (ga) marks a word as the subject.)
• Teal: Counters. These help you count, like "three sheets of paper." (Examples: Liters: リトル (ritoru); Sheet of Paper: 枚 (mai).)

Sentence Color Pattern

In Japanese: The Game you build sentences by playing cards out of your hand. Any sentences that you form must follow a specific color pattern to ensure that it remains a complete Japanese sentence. Please use the following diagram (also included on your Easy Reference Card) when building your sentences. The diagram, from left to right, shows:

1. Interjection (yellow).
2. Adverb (orange).
3. Nouns (blue), each followed by a Particle (green), as many as you want.
4. Adverb (orange).
5. Predicate (required), with three options:
   • can be an Adjective (purple); or
   • a Verb (red); or
   • a Noun (blue) plus a Copula (vermilion).
6. End Particle (green).

Anatomy of a Card

Cards in Japanese: The Game are designed to quickly reveal information that is important to their function in the game as well as their function in the Japanese language. The diagram shows a verb from the game and labels the function of each part:

• Color Bar & Part of Speech: The card's part of speech: noun, verb, etc. with color visual aid.
• Card Name: The card name outlined in the color of its part of speech.
• Japanese: The word written in normal Japanese.
• Meaning: Basic translation(s) into English; alternate meanings may be given in the explanation.
• Explanation: Card explanation with any special rules.
• Example: The word used in a sentence or two. (Some words are conjugated.)
• Pronunciation: Pronunciation help for English speakers.
• Points: The point value of the card.
• Furigana: Pronunciation help for Japanese speakers.
• Sentence Cloud: This white cloud behind the text will line up the words in your sentence to make them easier to read and use.
• Badge: Badges help you use words that have special rules.
• Bar Code: Scan with the App to hear Japanese Pronunciation.
• Card Number: If you can't scan with the App, enter this number.

Setup

1. First, decide whether each player will have their own deck or whether all players will be sharing a single deck.
2. If each player is using their own deck, make sure that each player's deck has at least 25 cards. If all players are sharing a deck, make sure there are at least 25 cards per player in that deck.
   • Example: You have 4 players who are sharing a deck, the shared deck must have at least 100 cards.
3. Shuffle the deck(s) then have each player draw 7 cards.
4. Figure out who the oldest player is; that player goes first.
5. Each player takes turns performing the actions described in "The Turn".
6. Play continues until a player has 20 points on the table or until a player's deck runs out of cards. If a player's deck runs out of cards, each player takes one last turn (without drawing new cards), after which the player with the most points on the table wins.

The Turn

1. Perform one or more of the following actions:
   • Start one or more sentences. (See "Starting a Sentence" below.)
   • Improve one or more existing sentences. (See "Improving a Sentence" below.)
   • Discard a card and draw another. This ends your turn.
2. Your turn is over, play continues counter-clockwise.
3. Draw cards until you have 7 cards in your hand.

A full example turn is shown under "Example Turn" below.

Game Modes

Singleplayer

• Mode 1: Build sentences trying to use as many cards of the deck as you can.
• Mode 2: Build and improve your sentences to get to 20 points in as few rounds as possible.

Cooperative Play

Build and improve sentences together or separately. Take turns or don't. Have fun. Learn Japanese! Fall in love (optional).

Versus

At the end of each turn, total up the points that you played on that turn, then subtract 1. This result is your "turn points." You may remove cards from your opponents' sentences equal to your turn points as long as only grammatically correct sentences remain. You may also remove fewer points than you are entitled to. Removed cards go into a discard pile. For example, if you play 5 points worth of cards on your turn, you may remove 4 points worth of cards from your opponents' sentences. But all affected sentences must still follow the color pattern when you're done.

Starting a Sentence

The Japanese language is very flexible, allowing you to omit things such as subjects and objects (blue cards in Japanese: The Game). This means that starting a new sentence is very easy. To start a sentence in Japanese: The Game, you simply need to play a Predicate. A Predicate is one of the following:

• An Adjective (purple cards)
• A Verb (red cards)
• Noun (blue cards) + Copula (vermilion cards)

Each of the cards that can form a predicate has the following badge in the bottom-right corner: a Verb badge, an Adjective badge, or a Noun + Copula badge.

Each of the examples below (叩く, tataku; 煩い, urusai; and 池です, ike desu) is a complete Japanese sentence and can be played to earn points when starting a sentence. Let's see what the above examples might mean when played (words in italics are implied):

• Tataku: to hit or strike. "I hit things" or "I hit you".
• Urusai: loud or annoying. "It is loud" or "You are loud".
• Ike: pond, Desu: is. "It is a pond" or "Here is a pond".

When starting a sentence, you can play any cards as long as they match the color pattern shown on page 1 under "Sentence Color Pattern". For example, the following sentence could be played as a starting sentence that means, "The dog sniffs". If we didn't place a subject in this sentence, playing just Kagu, it would mean "Someone sniffs something." Any unstated words in a Japanese sentence are inferred, so the subject and object of this sentence are okay to omit. You do not have to play all the colors of cards in the pattern, but when you do play them you will lay them down in the order shown. For example, you may play a blue noun and a green particle without an orange adverb after them, and then finish your sentence with any predicate.

All verb cards have the "Transitive/Intransitive" badge. Only sentences with a transitive verb for the predicate can have a direct object in them. A direct object is a noun that is followed by the object marker particle を (O). This is the transitive badge. A sentence with an intransitive verb for the predicate cannot have a direct object, so nouns within that sentence cannot be marked with を (O). The intransitive badge reminds us not to use を (O) in that sentence. (Sentences with an adjective or noun+copula predicate also cannot have direct objects.)

The Animate (dog picture) / Inanimate (scenery picture) badge on nouns is for verbs that require the subject of the sentence to be animate or inanimate. None of those are in the Core Deck, but they can be found other decks of Japanese: The Game.

All nouns in a sentence must be followed by (1) a copula if they're in a predicate or (2) a particle if they're not in a predicate. The raised position of the particles is a reminder that they're required for nouns. Every noun not in the predicate of a sentence will be followed by a particle.

Improving a Sentence

You can improve any sentences that you previously played in the game. When improving a sentence, you may add any cards from your hand to your sentences as long as the new sentence still follows the pattern shown on page 1 under "Sentence Color Pattern". Two common ways to improve a sentence are by adding an adverb or by adding a noun followed by a particle. These are discussed below.

Particles

Particles are the glue of a Japanese sentence. They do things like mark the subject of the sentence or tell you what the victim of the verb is. In the example, は (wa) marks the card to the left of it as the subject of the sentence.

Particle cards in Japanese: The Game look slightly different from the others. The peach-colored notches represent where the other cards in the sentence will sit. If the notches have words (such as NOUN on the card), then only that type of card may be placed there. If they are blank then there are no restrictions.

Adverbs

Adverbs allow you to elaborate on your previous sentences by describing the way or frequency with which they were done, such as "always" and "slowly." There are no special requirements for playing these cards outside of following the color pattern shown on page 1 under "Sentence Color Pattern".

Improved Example

By using adverbs, nouns, and particles we have improved the sentence introduced under "Starting a Sentence". Here is the new and improved sentence:

いつ　いぬ　わたし　か 何時も犬は私を嗅ぐ itsumo inu wa watashi o kagu

The sentence above roughly translates to "The dog always sniffs me" and demonstrates how particles and adverbs interact with sentences in Japanese: The Game. Included under the cards is the pattern that the sentence used as well as the sentence written out in Japanese and colored accordingly.

Example Turn

Satoru is playing Japanese: The Game in versus mode against Kikumaro and is on his second turn. His hand and the table are shown in the printed example. Since he only has 4 cards in his hand, he draws another 3 so that he has a total of 7 cards in his hand.

Looking at what he drew, Satoru now realizes that he can improve his original sentence using 何時も (itsumo), の (no), 友達 (tomodachi), and よ (yo) which would score him 4 points and allow him to remove 3 points worth of cards from his opponent's sentence. So on his next turn, he plays those cards onto his original sentence, which makes it look like this:

いつ　ともだち　はん　た 何時も友達のご飯を食べるよ itsumo tomodachi no gohan o taberu yo

His sentence now says, "I always eat my friend's rice!" Since he played 4 points worth of cards, he can now remove 3 points worth of cards from Kikumaro's sentences. If he were playing against more opponents, he could distribute that damage any way he likes among one or more opponents. His turn is over and play continues counter-clockwise.

To see a gameplay video as well as more advanced rules, please go to the following link or scan the QR code below: https://www.japanesethegame.com/QR

Politeness Mini-Expansion

The politeness mini-expansion consists of two Polite Verb Conjugation Cards and two Godan Conjugation Table cards. You can either shuffle the Polite Verb Conjugation cards into your deck to practice polite conjugation or set them aside to focus on sentence building. Usage of the mini-expansion's Verb Conjugation cards depends on the type of verb you are conjugating. To see each usage, please look below:

Godan Verbs

To conjugate Godan Verbs, we have to make sure the end of the verb is in the appropriate "base". The black circle in the FOR GODAN VERBS section of the Polite Verb Conjugation card indicates that "BASE I" is the appropriate base for the Polite Conjugation. We form bases by using the Godan Conjugation Table card. In this example we are going to use the card 叩く (tataku) which means "hit." First, we line up the last character of the verb (in this case, the ending character is く, ku) with the same character on the left of the Godan Conjugation Table card.

When the card is lined up, we see this row of possible endings for our verb: KA, KI, KU, KE, KOU, ITE, ITA. Place the Verb Conjugation card so that all of the syllables to the right of the "BASE I" column are covered. Now the last syllable on the lined-up row is KI. This becomes the verb's new ending. So "BASE I" for this verb, "TATAKU", is "TATAKI."

Once that's accomplished, we follow the rest of the instructions on the Verb Conjugation card to follow our "TATAKI" with "MASU." Our transformation has turned the verb 叩く (tataku) into 叩きます (tatakimasu). ます (masu) is pronounced as MOSS.

Ichidan Verbs

Conjugating Ichidan verbs is much simpler. They all end in "ru" and the conjugation rule is written at the top of the Verb Conjugation card. Just place the Verb Conjugation card to the right of the verb and follow the rule. For the Polite Conjugation, you simply change the last syllable る (ru) to ます (masu). For example, the verb meaning "eat", 食べる (taberu), becomes 食べます (tabemasu). Now you're polite and we're proud of you.

Special Verbs

Rules for the special verbs SURU, IKU, and KURU are printed individually on the Verb Conjugation card. Just place your Verb Conjugation card to the right of the verb you're conjugating and follow the rule. For example, the verb 来る (kuru), for the Polite Conjugation, becomes 来ます (kimasu).