Japanese on the DS

[whitekitsune18]

Oh my! that was very fast ^^;;

Thank you so much that really helps I can go on now. I'll be making another thread with a kanji problem later. Thanks alot People

[SushiSweetie]

My sister bought me "My Japanese Coach" for my Nintendo DS for Christmas and I was wondering how well it works. I'm not expecting to become fluent or anything from it, but just wondering if it is effective in learning Japanese?

[Nemhy]

if you're a total noob then yes imo. I learned basic words *bought it few days ago*. You will probably have to replay things till you perfectly memorize the words. My personal method: spam the multiplke choice game of your lesson. Once you can associate each word with the romaji, cover the bottom screen and try to remember the actual word and how to pronounce. works for me hehe.

As you already know it is NOT a substitute for taking classes. this is more of a review/introduction software. The refrence book in it is pretty usefull if you carry your DS around. has alot of basic phrases

[RazerKill]

if i remember correctly there is already a topic about this game..
or at least related to it

[Tangram]

I found that it was a really great way of building a foundation with the language. I stopped using it after about 25 lessons, but I think that it helped me get through the hardest stage of Japanese - starting out.

[SceptileMaster]

It's what got me into Japan but as I got into it My Japanese Coach proved itself to be a flawed teaching tool.

The story being, I didn't really have much interest in Japan but then my brother got My Japanese Coach and said I should have a go on it. So I had a quick go on it and then got a little hooked on the thought of learning a new language. So I went through many 15 or so lessons on my brother’s game then bought my own copy and continued study with it. I then decided I should probably find out more about Japan and started looking up information on its culture and so on. Anyhoo I continued to use it for another few lessons which is where it starts showing its flaws. The grammar explanations for verb bases are one of the main points to be scolded. It is badly explained and feels rushed. The explanation also seems to be split between two lessons with vocabulary lessons in between is very annoying considering how it was badly demonstrated in the first place. It also does stuff like teach the bases and masu form but not even tell you what they do. It seems to expect you to just know some bits.

I got up to about lesson 35 before I decided it probably wasn't too much of a good idea to just continue using it. Especially since a lot of the vocabulary it teaches is while not incorrect in its translated meaning, but the game doesn't explain what context you would use it in and would lead a lot of people to use it wrongly. Using Sayounara to say bye to your friend at college when you’re just going out to pick something up then come right back for example.

But anyways because of that I started a separate save file and did the lesson unlock code to have a quick glance over what it would have taught me in future lessons before I moved onto a different primary source for my Japanese learning. Once glaringly bad thing that I noticed was the Kanji lessons which start around lesson 44 I think. They were not really explained well or in a good order and just threw kanji at you with a list of readings not telling you which is which and the examples didn't cover all the readings. I had no idea how anyone could learn from those lessons easily.

A lot of these mistakes I would not have noticed if I hadn't been also doing other study independent of My Japanese Coach so I was lucky. But some people won’t be using many external sources and could very well develop incorrect usage of the language. It started out not too bad and the mini games were pretty cool but overall I wouldn't rate it and would recommend learning another way.

[Koir]

Ten bucks got me a used copy of My Japanese Coach at EB Games. Here I go providing comedy with my flawed intentions and limited teaching tool!

[SceptileMaster]

I'm not saying everything it does is wrong but it's factual that it does many things wrong. Such as wrong stroke order for kana and many unexplained points about verbs. Also the odd vocabulary mistake seems to arise.