Rules

Below are the rules for Japanese: The Game.

Contents

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). Please look at the following table to see what
each color represents:

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:

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 following diagram shows a verb from
the game and shows the function of each part:

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” on page 3)
   • Improve one or more existing sentences. (See “Improving Sentences” on page 4)
   • 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 on page 5 of the instructions.

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 (vermillion cards)

Each of the examples above (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.

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.

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 look like the following:

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. His hand now looks like this:

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:

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: