"My Japanese Coach" just released for the Nintendo

[JeanOfmArc]

As the subject states, the first English, North American-released NDS game (I believe) for Japanese-learners has just been released! I haven't gotten it yet, though I plan to, and will leave a mini-review of the program on these forums once I've given it a week or two (to be fair in my review). If anyone else gets it, please share your critique!

[Aliceffekt Kani]

I bought it too . I have very little time to learn as much japanese as I can, I will try it out in the airplane on the way to japan. I ll have 22 hours to play around with it. I will give my toughts when I get there .

[wccrawford]

has just been released!

Lies, lies! -cries-

My amazon preorder still states the 27th is when I'll receive it, and I don't see it online anywhere. Everyone hates me!

(I've been looking forward to this title for months now. Being so close to having it is painful!)

I kid about the lies part, of course.

[ehuntley83]

I bought the game this morning!
I had been waiting for it for so long, so I'm glad I was finally able to pick it up.

From the short amount of time I've been able to spend with it so far (i.e. 45 minutes or so), I think it has great potential as a Japanese learning tool.
After you start the "game", you create a profile (out of 3 available slots) and take a pregame assessment test. You are asked to identify a variety of words based on various translations - i.e. English to Japanese, vice-versa, listening comprehension, etc. After the assessment timer is up, or you get 2 words wrong in a row, you then begin the game based upon the level you tested at. This prevents more experienced students from having to trudge through previously learned subjects.
From there you go on to "Lessons". These lessons are themed ("Months", "Days", "Colors", "Kana", etc.) and you use a variety of tools and games to "Master" the vocabulary or kana.
The games are normally pretty fun and the tools are great. The tools include the ability to compare your recorded speaking to the game's speaker's and the ability to practice writing by comparing your writing to the "proper" stroke order and form.
As you "Master" vocabulary you unlock more lessons and the pattern continues throughout the game. I believe that there are over 10,000 vocabulary to learn and possibly the kanji as well (I haven't gotten as far as kanji yet, but I know it is taught. To what degree it is taught, I do no yet know.)
Separate from the game portion of the title is a "Reference" section. This includes a dictionary, phrasebook and a sketchpad. All useful and some utilize the speech and writing tools in addition to their obvious functions.

Like I mentioned, I've only spent a short while with the game so far, but I'm already pleasantly surprised and I am looking forward to seeing just how in depth My Japanese Coach can take a student into the Japanese language. I'm not sure if conversational tools (like those found here, on JPod101) can be replaced by the game, but it certainly seems like a must-buy for DS owners who are studying Japanese.

がんばれ!

[phalos]

Just got home with it. It's wonderful. I learned the interface from "My Chinese Coach", and was able to jump right in.
It should give me something to play around with while I wait for the bus.

Now if only the Green Goddess was available on the DS...

Cheers,

[wccrawford]

I'm managed to get my hands on a cart, and I'm very impressed. I've played the Spanish and French ones, and they were great.

Japanese Coach blows them out of the water. In addition to the word search games and stuff, it drills you on writing the characters as well. I've only unlocked 6 games, and 2 of them are for actually writing the characters.

I honestly didn't expect it to be this good... I thought it would just be a good vocab source.

[Aliceffekt Kani]

Here's a couple of screencaps I took .

[untmdsprt]

It looks like a good game, but unfortunately it may not be sold here in Japan. Is romaji the only option on the game, or will it display everything in hiragana?

[wccrawford]

It looks like a good game, but unfortunately it may not be sold here in Japan. Is romaji the only option on the game, or will it display everything in hiragana?

It starts off in romaji while it teaches you hiragana. There's a greyed-out option to 'display kana as romaji' (or something like that) in the options, so I assume later it will stick to kana at that point. It even says on the tips that it's best to get to kana as soon as possible.'

[Taurus]

It looks like a good game, but unfortunately it may not be sold here in Japan.

You could buy it online...

[untmdsprt]

I seriously need to get me a credit card!! It's tough only being able to pay for things by cash only. I certainly don't want to keep sending money back to the states just to be able to use my debit card.

[WalterWills]

Anyone know about release dates for Europe/Asia?

Just that I ordered this game a while ago, from play-asia.com, which was probably a mistake if it's only been released in the US so far. I can't wait to play it.

[wccrawford]

Anyone know about release dates for Europe/Asia?

Just that I ordered this game a while ago, from play-asia.com, which was probably a mistake if it's only been released in the US so far. I can't wait to play it.

GameFaqs lists Nov 7 for EU, nothing for Asia (not even tba). Given the nature of the game, that doesn't surprise me. Wikipedia says the same.

[Taurus]

I've only just started playing, but I'm not *too* impressed. I think it's fine because it encourages you to think about Japanese some more, but I'm not sure I think the games/drills are that useful.

So far I did the level test and got everything right and it still won't give me the option to use kana as the default (I find thinking about romaji now makes my head hurt). And I still feel like the lessons that I'm having to do are a bit too low level for me. That's fine, but it feels like you have to play through a fair number of games to earn enough points to open the next lesson.

Of those games, I think the gopher game and the memory game are a bit ham-fisted - they seem to distract me from the act of engaging with and learning words. And in the flashcard game, I keep getting cards where the voice will read out a syllable and I have to select the correct one from a selection of ROMAJI! So the voice will say 'mi' and I'll be given a choice of four cards that say 'mi', 'me', 'e' and 'Boy'. Surely that is pointless?

So I think it's fine, but not amazing.

[wccrawford]

So the voice will say 'mi' and I'll be given a choice of four cards that say 'mi', 'me', 'e' and 'Boy'. Surely that is pointless?

So I think it's fine, but not amazing.

Make sure you don't have the romaji option turned on in the options panel. It sounds like you might, because I'm pretty sure (at only level 9) it was showing them in kana to me in the Flash Card game.

(In defense of my level, I'm only level 9 because I messed up on the months... I never did do well at knowing September was month 9, etc, even in English.)