Overview- Critic & User
Reviews - Videos &
Screenshots
News- Codes
& FAQs - Gameplay
Controls - Similar
Games
Answers
Bundles
Critic & User Reviews
IGN Review of My Japanese Coach
Reader beware: Japanese is not for sissies.
Not only does it tout three alphabets, a sentence structure that is the reverse of most Latin-based languages, and a hodgepodge of dialects, but it's based on a hierarchy of superior to inferior that has no real equivalent in English. This is not a language you can master in a matter of weeks or even months. It takes years of dedication to fully understand. So if you're looking for a quick fix that will help you understand your imported Naruto manga, look elsewhere (preferably a classroom). If however, you need something that will get you by while on a quick visit to Japan, than this is the game for you.
Tackling Japanese is a tough thing to do, but Sensory Sweep and Ubisoft give it a go in My Japanese Coach. Players get a crash-course in Hiragana (native characters), Katakana (foreign characters), and Kanji (Chinese characters) through a series of mini-games featuring cuddly critters and elementary gameplay (activities like "Hit-A-Word" and "Memory" should look familiar). Juggling three alphabets is no easy task, nor is learning about particles, verb conjugation, and how to properly address people of different social ranking. Luckily there's a dictionary and a phrase book to quickly look up more difficult content, or gamers can simply draw a picture of the object or idea they're trying to convey.
This is good stuff for those who want to brush up on their Japanese, but the game requires more time and patience for beginners. The reason? The difficulty curve gets very steep, and explanations come hard and fast. Players unfamiliar with the language need to prepare themselves to go over lessons over and over again before they get the swing of things.
Unfortunately there is a lot to cover when it comes to Japanese, and Sensory Sweep is under pressure to keep it concise. Thus verbs and sentence structure that takes weeks or even months to master in Japanese class are crammed into just a few lessons, and chances are players will quickly feel overwhelmed by all the information coming at them. It doesn't help that some of the game's translations are clumsy (like the explanations for "dake" and "shika"), and those with previous knowledge of the language may even find themselves feeling dubious about the clunky presentation of everyday conversation.
©2008-12-03, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Not only does it tout three alphabets, a sentence structure that is the reverse of most Latin-based languages, and a hodgepodge of dialects, but it's based on a hierarchy of superior to inferior that has no real equivalent in English. This is not a language you can master in a matter of weeks or even months. It takes years of dedication to fully understand. So if you're looking for a quick fix that will help you understand your imported Naruto manga, look elsewhere (preferably a classroom). If however, you need something that will get you by while on a quick visit to Japan, than this is the game for you.
Tackling Japanese is a tough thing to do, but Sensory Sweep and Ubisoft give it a go in My Japanese Coach. Players get a crash-course in Hiragana (native characters), Katakana (foreign characters), and Kanji (Chinese characters) through a series of mini-games featuring cuddly critters and elementary gameplay (activities like "Hit-A-Word" and "Memory" should look familiar). Juggling three alphabets is no easy task, nor is learning about particles, verb conjugation, and how to properly address people of different social ranking. Luckily there's a dictionary and a phrase book to quickly look up more difficult content, or gamers can simply draw a picture of the object or idea they're trying to convey.
This is good stuff for those who want to brush up on their Japanese, but the game requires more time and patience for beginners. The reason? The difficulty curve gets very steep, and explanations come hard and fast. Players unfamiliar with the language need to prepare themselves to go over lessons over and over again before they get the swing of things.
Unfortunately there is a lot to cover when it comes to Japanese, and Sensory Sweep is under pressure to keep it concise. Thus verbs and sentence structure that takes weeks or even months to master in Japanese class are crammed into just a few lessons, and chances are players will quickly feel overwhelmed by all the information coming at them. It doesn't help that some of the game's translations are clumsy (like the explanations for "dake" and "shika"), and those with previous knowledge of the language may even find themselves feeling dubious about the clunky presentation of everyday conversation.
©2008-12-03, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved