My Japanese coach for the DS a review

[JadecloudAlchemist]

Some of you might want to learn Japanese and you tried with those books that make you sound stupid when you speak to Japanese(I have been there!)

The Nintendo DS came out with a learning program called MyJapanese coach. I had a chance to play it so I thought I would give a little review.

First thing you do is take a test to see how much Japanese you know.
Don't worry my wife a Japanese native got 1 or 2 wrong she says she was not paying attention(sure what ever) It then rates you on your ability. My wife a native got Elementary so don't read to much into it.

It starts out with some basic grammar words. You click on the word and it pronounces the word. It also shows you the Hiragana of the word so you can read it. It allows you to record your voice and compare it with the audio voice. It then shows you how to write the word. You then get to play games that help you remember the words. Hit a word allows you to look at the word in Hiragana or in Romanji to remember it. There is also Multiple choice,Flash cards,crossword puzzle,and Bridge builder.

The Bridge builder games is excellent because it teaches you how to make sentence structures in Japanese. There is also a Dictionary,Phrasebook and sketch pad.

The only gripe I really have with this is if you are practicing writing Katakana or Hiragana and you write it sloppy the AI thinks it is correct. This can cause bad form. Also some of the Hiragana is put together instead of seperate. But I think it does a great job for those who don't have money to afford Rosetta stone or actual classes. It is much superior than learning from a book.
I picked up My Chinese coach to see how well they presented Chinese and my Chinese is no where near my Japanese. But all and all for those wanting to learn a new language this may be a good deal depending how much time and energy you put into it.

 

[Sukerkin]

My missus bought me a DS and this programme for Christmas. It's not at all bad for grinding in the basics of the language I reckon. I still prefer listening to Hitomi Sensei and Paul Sempai over at Japancast but that's by no means an indictment of My Japanese Coach.

 

[kaizasosei]

Begin learning kanji right away. Better to know hiragana and katakana first, but there's no way around the kanji. It is the secret to making sense of the language. Not learning kanji is comparable to japanese people that don't bother learning romaji thoroughly and phonetically use katakana to remember foreign words. Really just making things more complicated-an impossible task.
There's no way around studying. Unlike budo, more than 80% must be done alone.
Good books by hadamitzky.

j

 

[Bruno@MT]

Thanks.

My sensei speaks and reads/writes japanese, and has explained a bit about the language in general, in order to make it easier to understand how the names of techniques are made up.

I am wholly unqualified to make this statement, but imo the kanji are essential. It is incomprehensible that the ken in kenpo means fist and the ken in kendo means sword, until you see that they are written using different kanji that are simply pronounced the same. With the kanji, you can see where 'ken' has which meaning.

I'd like to learn Japanese and visit Japan sometime, but for now (little kids) I can't fit Japanese lessons in my schedule. So maybe this would be a nice way to learn some Japanese and make a start.

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

begin learning kanji right away. Better to know hiragana and katakana first, but there's no way around the kanji. It is the secret to making sense of the language. Not learning kanji is comparable to japanese people that don't bother learning romaji thoroughly and phonetically use katakana to remember foreign words. Really just making things more complicated-an impossible task.

I Agree you should know Hiragana and Katakana first being they are 1.easier to write 2.teach you how to put words together. Kanji should eventually be learned I don't think the My Japanese coach teaches Kanji but there are Kanji dictionary for the DS.

It is incomprehensible that the ken in kenpo means fist and the ken in kendo means sword, until you see that they are written using different kanji that are simply pronounced the same. With the kanji, you can see where 'ken' has which meaning.

Oh ya the Kanji helps alot. Sometimes someone asks me what a word means and I have to say I have to see the Kanji because it can mean more than one thing. Sometimes a Kanji means something literal but might have to change the meaning in English to make sense. For example on one of the threads I translated the meaning of a word as Fist foot MERGING way even though the Kanji was like friction/massage it made no sense so the closes thing I could think of was merging. I have heard great things on MyChinese coach in that it does teach tones which is a big deal in learning Chinese.

 

[Aikikitty]

I bought this game a few months ago and I like it a lot. I was working on learning Japanese off and on (off when I got lazy:duh and I found this game to be a good for reviewing and I've been learning a lot of new things too.

Robyn