Buy My Japanese Coach

I found this game in a used gaming store this past weekend. I've been studying Japanese for a while now (recently taking up the torch again) and thought it would be something fun at work.

It begins with a multiple question quiz and if you get two wrong together, it stops the quiz right there. I'm not certain if that is the best way to go about it. You might know 20 words and just get lucky or are just lucky to begin with. Regardless, where it stops is which lesson it begins you at. Everything up to then is considered "mastered" by the program.

There are (guessing) around 260 lessons and 12 games to play. As you get higher, you unlock more games and lessons.

The thing I loath about this is the writing. A lot of people have mentioned this (stroke order and whatnot) but I dislike it for another reason. I don't know about you but my handwriting on this types of things has always been horrible. There is no "clear" when you're doing the games and any accidental "touch" to the screen counts as a stroke. The game doesn't particularly care about "how" the character looks either, as long as it's in the right squares (the character input as four boxes.) They show you one way of stroke order, but I found I could put the characters in a different way. It's just frustrating.

The lessons are interspersed with the games and you can't go onto the next lesson until you've "mastered" the words in the lesson. You "master" by doing the games, which throws in all the words you've "mastered" with an emphasis on the words you've had that particular lesson. So, you don't really jump from lesson to lesson. There is some time inbetween.

Also, in the lessons, there are places were you can record your voice speaking the words to compare with a native speaker. You can even play them together for a more realistic gauge. If they do teach Kanji, I'm not at that point in the game.

Finally, it comes with a dictionary, phrasebook, a "where you are" section, and a sketchpad.

This is a nice game. It's not a one stop language learning kit but honestly, if you think you can find one, good luck to you. I bought this to take to work when I'm on my breaks and/or lunch. I think it's comparable to a language learning book.Get more detail about My Japanese Coach.