Zolnir wrote...
Since you guys necro-ed this back to life, I'll just answer goblehook even though he must be gone for at least a million years by now. =3
Answer: Yes. I went to a Japanese language class but the student was busy, so the furthest I learned was some polite greetings, helpful papers, Hiragana and Katagana. And my Katagana recognition is still horrible. But since I'm Chinese and hence have prior Kanji knowledge, I could basically read Japanese with no problems at all (unless they go bloody ancient and technical).
I kind of did the same. I got pretty far with my Japanese course, but my knowledge of vocabulary and kanji is limited (I'm Chinese as well, but I SUCK at reading it, speak fluently though), so I can read all the hiragana/katakana, and I understand a lot of the grammatical end of things... but I can't read anything except the simplest of mangas without aid.
And to keep things relevant, it's nice to see a group actually working on the translation of this. It's also a bit surprising that the group openly states that the translator of the demo did a poor job.