Japanese Language Learning in VR
This was a really fun project because it was well outside what my group and I were used to. It was an unfamiliar problem space that encouraged us to think a little differently and have fun with it.
Professor Hatasa of Purdue University asked us to design a VR game to help his students practice their Japanese language skills outside of class. Our final deliverable was a demo video where we acted out what the game could look like.
It was a really fun experience and I’m very happy with the final result.
Project Goals
Aid students in learning the Japanese language through engaging in practice outside of class to strengthen skills for in-class engagement.
Familiarize and increase recognition of Japanese characters, specifically their sounds, shape, and stroke order
Mini game 1
User Group
The primary user group is students learning Japanese as a second language, with a specific focus on beginners. Within the current Japanese language learning curriculum at Purdue, this would be students in JPNS 101: Japanese Level 1 and JPNS 102: Japanese Level 2.
These users are looking for a fun and effective way to practice their Japanese outside of the classroom, as class time is focused on oral skills.
Understanding Japanese Language
The Japanese language doesn’t use the same mechanics as English. It uses syllabaries (pictured above) in which each symbol represents a sound.
Deliverables
This grocery shopping mini game is designed to help users practice sound-shape association. The shopping list is verbal, it gives the user a sound and they must select the ingredient displaying the character that represents that sound.
How to teach Japanese
Professor Hatasa wanted us to focus on 3 levels of understanding
Shape - sound association
Sound - shape association
Writing & stroke order
We developed 3 mini games, each focused on building one of these levels of understanding
Mini game 2
The ingredient selection mini game is designed to practice shape-sound association. Users receive an order with Japanese characters, they must then select the ingredient associated with that sound.
Pictured symbol represents ‘ma’ sound so user would add avocado to their sushi roll.
The sounds associated with ingredients would get shuffled each round so people don’t accidentally associate a sound or symbol with an ingredient.
Mini game 3
The garnishing mini game is designed to practice stroke order when writing Japanese characters. The user would use a sauce bottle to write different characters on finished sushi rolls.
Demo Video
It was really difficult to test our ideas because we didn’t have the resources to develop a full VR game just for prototyping. This is where we turned to body storming, in order to fully explore the experience we were designing. This was also the best way to demonstrate our ideas to people unfamiliar with the project. We recorded ourselves acting out what playing the game would be like as a demonstration. Not only was this very fun to record, but it was engaging to present and made it easy for our classmates to understand our project!
a video of what the game would play like from the perspective of the player