Video Games : My Japanese Coach

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from: UBI Soft

: My Japanese Coach
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List Price: $29.99
Amazon.com's Price: $19.99
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Amazon Maximum Age: 20 years
Amazon Minimum Age: 60 months
Binding: Video Game
Brand: UBI Soft
EAN: 0008888164289
ESRB Age Rating: Everyone
Label: UBI Soft
Manufacturer: UBI Soft
Model: 16428
Platform: Nintendo DS
Publisher: UBI Soft
Release Date: October 14, 2008
Sales Rank: 139
Studio: UBI Soft

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.com:
Thanks to UbiSoft's My Japanese Coach for the Nintendo DS, you can carry a tutor in your pocket that lets you learn a new language in as little as 15 minutes a day. With plenty of entertaining lessons, loads of fun-to-play mini-games, and a host of helpful features, this unique language coach will have you not only speaking like a native in no time, but reading and writing like on as well!



Carry a tutor in your pocket with My Japanese Coach. View larger.
Learn in Fun and Interactive Ways
My Japanese Coach is an installment in the My Coach series from UbiSoft series that teaches the basic pronunciations unique to the Japanese language. This convenient and easy-to-use tutor allows users to compare their pronunciation to that of native speakers via the Nintendo DS's microphone. It also lets you use the DS stylus to practice writing Japanese Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji characters.

My Japanese Coach takes you on a virtual tour of Japan while you're learning the language. Lesson plans take place in a wide array of Japanese locations, from the densest of population centers like Tokyo, to the idyllic Japanese country side. You actually get to explore Japan while you learn new vocabulary as you open each point of interest.

Learn From a Master
Meet Haruka, the in-game digital sensei, or teacher, that exists solely for the purpose of teaching you Japanese. After giving you a small placement-style test, Haruka will get you started working through the various stages of your lessons. Gaining mastery points by playing the various learning games allow you to clear each level. Once you master all the words given in a specific level, you move on to the next level.

As you work your way through over a 1,000 lessons, your language skills are constantly tested and sharpened by various mini games. My Japanese Coach includes 12 types of mini games, ranging from Flash Cards, in which you hear a word and have seconds to choose the correct English translation, to Bridge Builder, where you are required to string words together in the correct order to create a complete sentence. And with mini-games that add a clever twist to classic favorites--like Memory that forces you to match the same words in two different languages--you will be sure to have fun while you learn.

My Japanese Coach also features a built-in dictionary and phrase book that includes over 12,000 words and hundreds of useful everyday phrases.



Meet Haruka, the in-game digital sensei, or teacher. View larger.

Sharpen and test your language skills with mini games. View larger.

Use the DS stylus to practice writing Japanese characters. View larger.




Customer Reviews
Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Pretty good
It does really well with the hands on teaching. The games are aimed at different ways of making sure that you understand the lesson, and keep on remembering the previous lessons. Sometimes, the lessons get mastered too quickly when I keep repeating a game until I know I got it right. Languages are hard. This is a good medium to give a boost to learning Japanese.


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Good learning tool for budding Japanese students
I just got this game in the mail to help me speak basic Japanese with friends at school. They are all thrilled and i get a lot of help from them if I need it. I was hoping this game would help me a lot, but it is a tad overwhelming for students who don't already know any Japanese. I thought the starting lessons were a bit too hard for first time Japanese students. Never the less, you have to learn the basics before you move on to the other lessons! My advice would be to take the lesson seriously and really remember the new vocabulary they throw at you in each lesson. If it feels overwhelming at first, just take it slow!


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Learning Japanese
This was a gift for my boyfriend. He absolutely loves it! He says nothing but good things about it. He says it's as if he was in his high school spanish class. He loves the format of the game, the way they introduce new vocabulary in sets and then make you play the various games using those words until you've mastered them. He thinks this method of practice works well for him. He also enjoys the freedom of the game, in which you can just play for fun outside of the lessons at any time. A+. It was a great purchase and i would definitely recommend any of the My____ Coach games.


Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - My BORING Japanese Coach
Ok, so if you read the title of this review, you basically already know how I feel.

I picked this up (rented, thank goodness) to see how it was and if I could maybe learn some language while at work since I have a lot of downtime to wait. After playing it for about 30 minutes, I was done with it.

I don't think I'd have cared so much if it didn't force you to do the mini-games until you obtain a mastery score for a certain word. And certain mini-games didn't really force me to learn anything at all. For instance, the "Word Find" puzzle just made me remember that the days of the week end in "-youbi". Which, it's great to have learned anything--but it didn't help me learn what day is which.

I can see how someone might enjoy this game, and be able to learn a bit from it, since it does give pronunciations, but it also lacks the romanji all-together, it seems. Going from spoken word to the symbols is... well, kinda rough. For the most part, I'd suggest trying some books and other software to learn from. But, this is still usable as a decent supplemental teacher.


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Great, at first
Just got this game for Christmas and I must say I am completely addicted. I've been studying Japanese off and on for years from textbooks and computer programs but nothing has ever held my attention, or kept me entertained and interested like this game does. Overall I am still loving this game, but after a little while you'll notice some majors downsides...

1. It gives you a test at the beginning to see how much you already know and what level you should start out at. It started me off at level 9. However, whenever I went back to look at lessons 1-8 it had skipped me over a lot of things I didn't know - including colors, days of the week, months, & hiragana.

2. Lessons are unlocked based on the number of points your earn. This leads to my biggest gripe with the game - as I went back through lessons 1-8 to learn everything I didn't know, I kept receiving points and more lessons kept unlocking. This was fine up till Lesson 11 unlocked, but now that I've unlocked up to Lesson 15 I can no longer enjoy playing ANY of the games because all of the games are filled with information I haven't learned yet and know nothing about.

3. It also gives you too much credit, too fast. You're exposed to a new word and if you recognize it correctly about 5 times it adds the word to a list of "mastered words" but that's going too fast for me. Just because I know the word today doesn't mean I'll still remember it 2 days from now when I play again.

I see other reviews complaining about some incorrect stroke order on the kana, but I personally have no problem with it. I bought an Anpanman game in Japan that teaches little kids kana and the stroke order that game uses is the exact same as the MJC uses. All of the textbooks I've bought and studied from in the U.S. use a different stroke order than the games; I think either way is acceptable as long as it's legible in the end. Making such a huge deal about stroke order just seems elitist to me; I wouldn't give a care if someone studying English wrote their S's starting at the bottom, as long as the end result gave the same legible letter.

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