New Site for Learning Japanese with Nintendo DS!

[orochi_plus]

Hey everybody! First post here.
A friend of mine told me about this place and said it was a great forum for exchanging information on Japanese learning. I look forward to posting here!

I also wanted to let everybody know about a learning blog I recently started called Naruhodo! You can find it here:
http://naruhodojapan.blogspot.com/

We cover a wide variety of topics about learning Japanese, but our main concentration is using your Nintendo DS to study! There are so many great games out there for learning kanji, but so little information in the English press and blogsphere. We're hoping to change that at Naruhodo!, though. We've got reviews up on many of the DS titles released in Japan and current news about the Japanese language and education.

Check it out if you can!

[suzume]

orochi_plus,

Thanks for the link!

I have a T-mobile Dash, which has Japanese language software available through www.handango.com. Something for the DS has been on my daughter's wish list, so we'll check out your recommendations!

We'll be in Japan the week before Christmas, so we have to get serious!

Sue

[christrax66]

hi,
Also thanks for the link, does anyone know if this new game:Tsugawa Method on Nintendo DS will be available to buy in the Uk or can I order from Japan to Uk? Any help on this much appreciated? thanks

[Shumiston]

Go here to buy that Tsugawa game:
http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-9g- ... -1xxd.html

www.play-asia.com has tons of toys and games from asian countries. so i went straight there to look. However, kanji has been the most difficult part of my japanese studies thus far, and it is holding me back. So I will study harder before I buy it. Mainly because the whole game is in Japanese. By the way, do you need a japanese DS to play this?

[Rizu]

The DS is region-free, so your DS will work with import games.

[Shumiston]

The DS is region-free, so your DS will work with import games.

thanks

[jimmy33]

Can anyone come up with a short list of helpful DS games for learning kanji and the sort? I'm not even sure of the name of the one that has writing recognition for kanji to be honest... sounds very helpful! and beats the heck out of a 2k dollar electronic dictionary.

[jenl]

I have 漢字そのまま楽引辞典 (Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten) which is the Japanese/English dictionary - good so far. I also have Kanken DS and Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshuu - the former is better for practicing things in context (with elementary-school vocabulary on the easier levels), whereas the latter has hard vocab even with easy levels of kanji but is much better for actually practicing the writing because it shows you the stroke order and you can copy over it.

I actually went through all the reviews on Naruhodo! before deciding which ones to buy.

Naruhodo! has a review of Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshuu and I think also for Kanken DS - there's a new version of that coming out soon, too. Of course, the kanji-practice games have no English, so I either play them while sitting next to a computer with WWWJDIC open in a browser window, or write down vocab I don't recognise on a piece of paper and then look it up on the DS dictionary or on the computer afterwards.

The main thing I find - these force me to use proper stroke order because often your characters will not be recognised otherwise. Particularly Kanken, which tests you on proper stroke order as well.

Most of the actual 'game' parts in these are way too hard for me, also! But I'm improving, slowly...

[jimmy33]

Thanks Jenl,

In the time after I posted I went all out and bought the Casio XD-GW9600 instead of the cheaper NDS solution. Although I’m sure that the games help out a great bit for practice drills as you say. I did however try out “Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten” with an emulator and I would have to agree to say that you will get a lot of bang for your buck from this game and love the English definition support! (Although it seems to be very sensitive about stroke order for complex Kanji).