Minigames in My Japanese Coach
I’m up to Lesson 42 which means I now have 10 minigames within My Japanese Coach to choose from. Here is my assessment of the first five:
Multiple Choice is pictured to the left and is one of the most useful of the minigames for learning Japanese. It is also the one you will want to use if you want to quickly move up levels because you already know some Japanese. You can get through a level/lesson in about 2 minutes by playing Multiple Choice on Hard setting. After Lesson 30 you can do Multiple Choice in kana mode (as pictured) which is nice practice for those still learning to read kana. Before Lesson 30 you can only do it in romaji mode. When you click on the correct choice in this game, My Japanese Coach also says the word in Japanese which is good for listening practice.
Hit-a-Word is a Wack-a-Mole type game that is completely useless for learning Japanese. This game features no Japanese audio and measures only how quickly you can hit the screen.
Word Search is also completely worthless. You have to find hidden Japanese words written in romaji (even after Lesson 30) and draw a line through them. You will learn no Japanese in doing so, but you will waste a lot of time.
Fading Characters would be useful for learning how to write hiragana and katakana were it not for the fact that many characters are written with an improper stroke order, the examples written like a gaijin instead of like a native Japanese person, and if the character recognition software was as good as it is in other games like Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshuu Kanzenhan. My Japanese Coach’s character recognition is not nearly as good.
Write Cards is a little better than Fading Characters in that you don’t have to see the characters clumsily written by a gaijin before writing the word provided. You also get to hear correct, native Japanese pronunciation when you finish writing each word. Once you learn hiragana and katakana, though, Write Cards is of no further use to improving your Japanese.
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October 26th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Games like Memory and Hit-a-Word have some use. Rather than just learning Japanese, these games provide some mental exercise. I haven’t gotten passed level 30 yet, but does Hit-a-Word change to all kana after level 30? I remember sometimes it showed kana. If so, then it’d provide for a pretty good speed recognition exercise. If not, then yeah, it’s pretty worthless later on.
But personally, I don’t usually play those games. If Hit-a-Word does change to all kana after level 30, then I may use it.
October 27th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Hit-a-Word does change to kana after level 30. However, you only have to really recognize the kana once. After that, it’s all just reaction time. It could be useful if the moles were on the screen longer and only a small percentage had the correct word in front of them. But as it is they are up and gone so quickly and much more than half are the correct word. So basically you are just trying to hit them as quickly as possible rather than distinguish the characters. Maybe that is because I’ve only played it on Hard difficulty though.
October 27th, 2008 at 10:56 am
I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who’s finding fault with My Japanese Coach. I’m disappointed with the lack of a kana option for the first 30 lessons. At least, I wish that the preliminary test had allowed me to skip to lesson 30 instead of 11.
The incorrect stroke order for some of the katakana and hiragana also made me cringe a little.
I have picked up a couple of new words here and there, but otherwise, I feel that the grammar lessons are a little rushed. I agree with your previous post that the introduction of the five base forms seemed inadequate and bare. The one redeeming feature about the game is the audio and voice recording features.
I’m not even sure I can say that this is a good starting point for beginning Japanese learners–it seems like the money would be better invested in a simple textbook like Genki or Japanese For Busy People.
One thing I am curious about is if the game goes into kanji at all in later lessons. I’ve been using Kakitori to practice so far, but it would be nice to have an option geared towards a western audience. Also, about how in-depth with grammar does it get? (Sorry about these questions…)
October 27th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Sunya,
I will answer your questions in the next week or so. I just hit the Kanji lessons (starting with Lesson 44) so once I’ve gone through a few I’ll post more analysis. Right now I’m thinking My Japanese Coach is OK for beginners (in some respects) and practically worthless for intermediate and advanced students of Japanese. I’ll know more once I hit level 100.
October 27th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Lesson 49. I’m a 4th grader, yeah!
Would add that Memory is another worthless game. It’s basically just the game of concentration, at which I suck. Hard. It might be OK without the time limit. But it’s discouraging to be told that I haven’t mastered the word “suru” because I can’t remember the placement of the cards.
Neat blog, BTW. Where else can you find pictures of Norway & discussions of Japanese language learning materials? Bookmarked.