• Development
  • Programming
  • Security / Hacking
  • Web Design/Scripting
• Japanese
  • Tips & Tricks
  • Reviews
• Martial Arts
  • Tips & Tricks
  • Reflections
  • Random Thoughts
• Miscellaneous
  • News
  • Technology
  • Video Games

My Japanese Coach

Posted on | November 11, 2009 | 4 Comments

I think these series are fairly familiar to those of you who are studying a language, but if not, “My Japanese Coach”(comes in other languages) is a video game for the Nintendo DS. The game itself, as in control/menu, is in English but it teaches you Japanese(or whatever language you get it in).

My Own Japanese Coach!?

“すごい！(sugoi!)” is what you should be saying right now. I haven’t gotten very far in this game as I haven’t had it for long, but so far this game is absolutely marvelous. The interaction is superb. You get to play little mini games to help you learn to memorize whatever is being studied. You can’t move onto the next lesson until you’ve mastered all of the items you learned in the previous lesson. This makes it so people don’t fly too quickly through lessons and actually get to force themselves to at least know the items decently before being able to go on.

The greatest thing about this game is that the lessons are quite short. Too often you find a game, book, etc that tries to teach you way too much per lesson. If anything, one might suggest My Japanese Coach teaches too little per lesson, if it weren’t for the fact that you can simply move onto the next lesson when you’re done, if you know the other items well enough.

The other thing is that the game is actually enjoyable. I don’t enjoy just normal alone study sessions. Sure, I can study in a class for a long period of time(I’ve done 7 hours of in class time, that’s 7 one hour classes, in a single day just for fun), but I can’t study for more than 30 min to an hour at a time when alone with just a book. I get too bored. Keeping these games short and fun makes it easy. I just pull the game out whenever I’ve got a few minutes of free time. Waiting for a commercial to finish? Riding passenger in a car to somewhere? Sitting in a jail cell? Then pull out your NDS and play this game! You’ve got time to spare so use it wisely! The last one was a joke obviously…maybe…

Buy an NDS if you don’t have one, just to play this game!

* Update *

Al posted  a link in the comment sections, which helps identify and point out that later down the road there are some problems, mostly with stroke order of characters that you need to be aware of. Here is a link to the article.

I have currently only been using the program for vocab extension, not focusing on the stroke order games, but of course I’m really not that far into the game anyway.

Author: Zyaga

I'm a Computer Programmer / Web Developer, though I have quite a lot of other hobbies and interests. You can usually find me studying Japanese, Blogging, watching Anime(for hours at a time), or possibly even practicing some Martial Arts. My brain runs rampant so I have to fuel it's fire by having many hobbies to switch back and forth from.

Comments