> it also uncovered things like "CONTINEKU" "METARU GIRU SORIDU" (Continue, Metal Gear Solid), and at first I was like... are these folks writing english with japanese symbols?
It's pretty normal for Japanese people to write English words in katakana, especially in things like games. Many program menus are perfectly readable by English speakers if you can read katakana. It's something taught in every Japanese school, so being skilled in it makes you look intelligent.
It was probably closer to KONEKUTTO and METARU GIRU SORIDO though.
Yes, it's surprising how many things you can figure out just by being able to read hiragana and katakana. Though there are a lot of things that tend to be anomalous, like the insertion of small tsu characters in places an English speaker would not imagine a glottal stop, even assuming an English speaker who even knows what that is.
Sometimes it really takes imagination. I have a family member who has an arcade game labeled "Hangly Man" (a Pac-Man clone). It took quite a while for it to dawn on me to reverse that back to kana (HANGURI) and figure out that it was meant to be "Hungry Man."
It's pretty normal for Japanese people to write English words in katakana, especially in things like games. Many program menus are perfectly readable by English speakers if you can read katakana. It's something taught in every Japanese school, so being skilled in it makes you look intelligent.
It was probably closer to KONEKUTTO and METARU GIRU SORIDO though.