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|  | |  | | | My Japanese Coach | | | | | SKU:
DH16428 | | In Stock | | Availability:
Usually ships in 1 business days | | | | | | 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. | | | | |
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| | Product Details | | Product Length: | 5.0 inches | | Product Width: | 5.25 inches | | Product Height: | 0.5 inches | | Product Weight: | 0.2 pounds | | Package Length: | 5.3 inches | | Package Width: | 4.9 inches | | Package Height: | 0.7 inches | | Package Weight: | 0.2 pounds | | Release Date: | October 14, 2008 | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 101 reviews |
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| | Game Information | | Platform: | Nintendo DS | | Media: | Video Game | | Item Quantity: | 1 |
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| | Features | Explore Japan as you learn Japanese from your own personal teacher, or senseiCompare your pronunciation of the sounds unique to Japanese with native speakersLearn and practice writing Japanese Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji characters using the DS stylusPlay 12 different types of mini-games that test your grasp of the structured lessonsBuilt-in dictionary and phrase book with over 12,000 words and hundreds of useful phrases
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 101 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
103 of 109 found the following review helpful:
 Have used many other programs and this is by far the best! Oct 18, 2008
By M. Saunders
Let me start by saying that I have been studying Japanese off and on for many years now. I learned some of the basic words and simple sentence structures as well as to read and write Katakana. However, I've never made a serious attempt to go beyond that, until now.
I have used many computer Japanese learning programs and found all of them to be totally inadequate. I was cautiously optimistic about this DS title, but for under $[...] I decided to give it a try. Wow, I am impressed! The lessons are well structured and introduce around 10 words per lesson (from what I've seen so far), unlike books which want you to remember dozens and dozens of words right from the start. The voice quality is superb and (unlike most other recordings I have heard) does not speak so fast that you can't follow it. I love the feature where you can record your voice and compare it to the native speaker's, including comparing the wave forms. This helps you learn the correct timing and pace when speaking. The games are fun, but you need pretty fast reflexes for the whack-a-mole game unless you set it on easy.
This program does have a few flaws. The stroke order for a few of the kanas is off (stroke order is VERY important in writing Japanese correctly). Also, hiragana is introduced too slowly in my opinion, but this is probably intentional as to not scare off people who have never written in Japenese. That being said, if you are serious about learning Japanese this shouldn't be your only resource anyways. I highly recommend Easy Hiragana: First Steps to Basic Japanese Writing (Passport Books) and especially Easy Katakana.
Despite these minor issues, I think that any serious student of Japanese will benefit immensely from using this program. Motivation and determination are required to learn any language since it takes a huge investment of time and study. Using something that is as engaging as this will keep you interested. Plus, it is a game system after all, so if you need a break you can always pop in Zelda for a while! ;)
176 of 193 found the following review helpful:
 I really wanted to love this program... Nov 02, 2008
By Kathy Grace
I can tell that a lot of people are in the same boat as me. They've been waiting for a DS program that teaches Japanese (with an English-language interface) for so long. They had such high hopes! It has a cute sensei! Whack-a-mole! A thousand lessons! Yeah, lots of romaji... but we can get past that!
Unfortunately, it also has some serious errors in the writing training. Specifically:
Incorrect hiragana: na mo ya yo
Incorrect katakana: e ka chi ne no hi me ya wa wo
In other words, about 15% of the basic kana characters are taught and/or graded wrong in this program. Count 'em, 14 kana have either wrong stroke order, wrong stroke direction, or wrong stroke count. AAAAAGHHHH! How could they?
No, really... seriously, how COULD they? The correct stroke order for kana is in any number of reference books. You could choose from a dozen or more on Amazon. It's not some arcane 18-stroke kanji--we're talking about characters with four, three, two.. even, for pete's sake, ONE stroke. (Katakana "no" should be drawn north-to-south, not the other way.)
The worst thing is, lots of people using this program are going to be brand-new to Japanese and won't even know they're being taught wrong.
Writing Japanese is not like writing English. You can write a "t" with the vertical line first or the cross stroke first, and nobody cares. But Japanese is not like that. Stroke order matters. Ironically, the animated Haruku-sensei harps on that point a lot.
Ya know, I read the reviews that said there were a few problems with stroke order, and I still bought MJC. I figured, what the heck, it's probably just one or two things, they're probably low-usage characters, whatever. Ack, wrong. I mean, some of these syllables are used a lot--a LOT--in Japanese. It's as though you were a non-English speaker being taught to write your Gs and Ss backwards and your Ns and Us upside down.
Oh well... apart from that, how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
The interface is cute. I'm not crazy about most of the games I've unlocked so far... I find myself going to my three favorites again and again: flashcards (set on hard, so you get only audio cues); writing cards; and multiple choice. Those three will actually teach you something (word search in romaji?? really now). The placement test is not thorough enough--I don't know the days of the week at all, but somehow I got skipped past that lesson.
The vocabulary seems fairly well chosen (although they do start off with a strange selection of verbs--I would never have put kagayaku [glow], shinu [die], or osu [push] among the first two dozen verbs to learn in a foreign language). I wish there were exercises that actually gave you practice conjugating verbs, but perhaps that comes later on in the program. The audio is nice, and the fonts are readable. There's a dictionary, which also subsets to your learned-words list, and lots of tracking info. There are slots for three players (handy in my three-person household).
I dunno--I STILL really want to love this program, but I'm afraid Ubisoft (or whoever actually did the content) did a crappy job with it. If they got that many kana wrong, how in the world is one to trust the kanji? I'm going to bite the bullet and go buy Kakitori Kun 2 from an import house--it's got a Japanese interface, but I'll figure it out eventually, and I'll be confident I'm learning how to write correctly.
P.S. Guess I should add... if your main goal is to speak Japanese, this program should be fine. I know that not everyone places as high a value on being able to write Nihongo correctly as I do.
[EDITED TO ADD: The dictionary has a very nice feature: click on a verb and you'll get three pages of verb-specific info: formal and informal conjugations for non-past, past, neg non-past, and neg past; a list of bases 1-5 plus -ta and -te; and more conjugations (volitional, imperative, etc.) This is cool. Shame about the kana blunders, though--they've poisoned the well.]
30 of 35 found the following review helpful:
 Never thought learning Japanese could become addicting . . . Oct 17, 2008
By Schiz
Well, it finally came out, and I bought it RIGHT away from my nearest game store. My Japanese coach is for the nintendo DS That helps you to learn Japanese. You learn to read kanji, write in Japanese, listen to Japanese, vocabulary, useful phrases . . . so far it seems to be worth the money I spent on it ($30).
The back of the case says that there are over 1,000 lessons, 1500 phrases, and close to 10,000 words in this game. I'm going to guess that at the moment, I know maybe 500 phrases, 300 kanji, and about 2500 words (and that's all being generous I bet). I could potentially DOUBLE my Japanese knowledge of Japanese if I finish this game, so I'm excited.
Anyways, a quick game review. You start off the game by taking a placement test in Japanese. They ask you 50 questions, usually relating to a vocabulary word, or how to read a certain kana character. If you miss two, then it stops the quiz and calculates your starting level (I scored 50/50 and moved directly to lesson 11.) The lessons are rather simple. It sticks to one type of topic, for example, using the "desu" form. The game gives you a couple of examples, introduces 10 new vocabulary, and then stops halfway thru to ask you if you want to practice what you have learned. This usually is in the form of a quiz/game, which are integral to "leveling up", or unlocking the next lesson. Only after you fill up the mastery gauge of each vocab/phrase/character, will you be able to move on.
Having only just started, it seems like aside from mastering the romaji versions of the vocab through memory games and listening (maybe 10 more types of games as well), you can also work on writing your hiragana and katakana, which will progressively become more difficult and become inserted into more of your lessons as you master them (I can only assume that at a certain point, most of your lessons will be conducted entirely in Japanese, or at a level concurrent to your Japanese skill). It should also be noted that you can record your voice when learning new phrases, and listen to the game read them as well. There are also some really cool bonuses in the game too. There is a dictionary, phrasebook, and a really cool way to track your progress.
The game also tells you at what level you would be at if you lived in Japan. At the moment, I can express myself as much as a 1st Grader (363 words mastered), but that will change as I work my way through the game. This is a great game for anybody with a background in Japanese already and will help you to practice your weaker areas. Personally, I can't wait to get into practicing Kanji and learning some new words in preparation for the San-kyuu proficiency test this winter.
18 of 21 found the following review helpful:
 Not for Serious Students of Japanese Jan 13, 2009
By Snoo
First of all, a little background so you know where this review is coming from: I currently live in Japan and have been studying the language off and on for the past 8 years. That said, I still have a lot to learn and while I can engage in basic everyday conversation, I am far from being fluent. I have many years experience both teaching and learning foreign languages in academic and professional environments.
This piece of software seems to be quite popular with folks who have never tried to study Japanese before, but if you have any sort of training in the language it is a waste of time. If you can read and understand the following sentence, I'd definitely recommend that you save your time and money and don't bother with this piece of software:
watashi wa nihongo wo benkyou shimasu.
I can overlook the minor flaws in kana stroke order, but what is ridiculous is the fact that even if you ace the beginning level placement test with a 50/50 (100%) score, you only get placed up to lesson 11 -- learning overly simplistic vocabulary words like man, woman, and cat. The developers should have made the level placement test more diagnostic so that it could actually accurately assess ones true level. As it is, people with any sort of prior training in Japanese will have spend several days muddling through dozens of boring and useless lessons/minigames in order to unlock the higher levels which may be of actual use.
The game may give absolute beginners a very rudimentary introduction to Japanese, but even the teaching style leaves a lot to be desired and I believe beginning Japanese learners would actually get more out of visiting places like japanesepod101 (a free Japanese language learning podcast site) or buying a basic Japanese textbook like the Genki or Japanese For Busy People series and making flashcards to memorize their kana.
Japanese language training on the DS is a nice idea and I'd really love to see more language training software for the DS be made available in the future. However, "My Japanese Coach" is marred by a frustrating leveling system and a haphazard approach to learning the language.
14 of 17 found the following review helpful:
My Japanese Coach Oct 17, 2008
By J. Layne
Nov. 2, 2008:
Updating my review, I think if I could I'd have to knock this down another star. My initial happiness has been dashed. I just can no longer overlook the problems with stroke order, the uselessness of the romaji, the growing certainty that this is just a re-hashed French or Spanish game engine, and other quibbles. I'm at level 33 now and still there's too much romaji, when do I do kanji? If you're determined to stick with it, and very carefully work hard from other sources to correct the problems with this game, then you might do OK but I think I'm going to start putting more time into my books and online resources. Man, they came so close to getting it right though, oh well, maybe next time?
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original review, Oct. 16, 2008:
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I don't at all mean to be mean or anything, but I really doubt anyone will learn 75 words, 10 phrases, and 15 kana (perhaps Cindy means she "saw" them?) from a raw start in Japanese in 2 hours using "My Japanese Coach". Fantastic if you prove me wrong though. By learn, of course, I mean be able to use them relatively easily and well later on away from this software.
I got my copy yesterday, and yes, it's pretty fun, and yes, I'm sure you can learn something from it. I wish I'd had it when I was starting out & I also heartily recommend it for beginners. But for more advanced students, and busy adults, it's looking like it's going to take some patience to level up past the romaji (I'm on lesson 17, and still romaji everywhere, and darn those darned moles you gotta whack!). I can't wait to finally get to working on some kanji! I hope I get to work on some kanji...
Overall so far, to be honest, I'm kinda disappointed in it, it feels rushed. I don't like the whack-a-mole game and feel like I could better use my time to learn Japanese in a better way. The memory game is obnoxious as well. However, you can "level up" by playing the games you do like over & over it seems.
Some of the stroke orders for the kana are off, and this really shows up in the "Fading Characters" game, which also has some timing problems if you write really fast. I hate to be penalized when I'm writing in the correct stroke order so then have to switch to a wrong one to "get through".
To the good, the feature to let you record your voice to compare it to a native speaker is fantastic. The dictionary also looks very good, though nothing can compete with the superb "Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten". I really like some of the games, including the very addictive "Word Search", if only it was in kana!!! The "Phrasebook" feature looks fantastic, haven't really played with it yet. That + the dictionary might be enough reason to buy this if you're going to Japan.
Hope I'm not spoiling the fun here, I was waiting for a couple of months for my pre-order to come in, and I finally have it, and I'm glad! I would say, if you're a DS owner & have any interest in studying Japanese, go ahead & get it, it's cheap enough so you won't regret it. If you're just starting to learn Japanese I would say definitely get it. In either case, it can only serve as a supplement to real lessons of some sort, and you need to learn hiragana & katakana as soon as possible, and then rapidly get started on kanji. Spending too much time on romaji is something you'll regret, a LOT, later on.
The game is pretty unique, and I sure hope we see more like it. I really hope Ubi will come out with a more polished, advanced version, that doesn't seem so aimed at kids.
Just don't expect too much from "My Japanese Coach", and enjoy it for what it is. Oh, and like I mentioned, look out for stroke order, I've noticed that it expects the wrong order for "yo", and in some of the games it accepts some really shoddy input that it should correct you on. I highly recommend the "Manga de Kana" & related books to help you learn kana, get a cheap 3x5 notebook to carry with it & you're in business. Now go learn some Japanese!
See all 101 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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