My fourth DS game for learning Japanese arrived in the mail yesterday. Kanken DS 2 + Joyo Kanji Jiten (漢検DS2+常用漢字辞典) is the name of it. The thing that excited me the most about this DS title was the dictionary (jiten or 辞典). After messing around with it for an hour I have to say that the thing I am most disappointed with is the dictionary. However, everything else is much better than expected. I think this may even end up being a more useful tool than my previous favorite, Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshuu Kanzenhan.

Let’s take a brief look at some of the features with some screenshots I took.

The above screen is a practice test at level 9. There are 10 levels in Kanken 2 corresponding to the 10 levels of the Japanese Kanji Aptitude Test (Nihon Kanji Nōryoku Kentei Shiken, 日本漢字能力検定試験). Level 10 is the easiest level and level 1 is the most difficult.

The format looks fairly similar to the quizzes in Tadashii Kanji Kakitorikun Kanken Taisaku. However, Kanken 2 is far superior in my opinion. With the above on the top screen, the user writes らいしゅう, one hiragana character at a time, on the lower screen. After touching OK the next screen appears.

Now the user writes にちようび (日曜日) and so on. The quizzes are more interesting than those found in Tadashii Kanji… or Nazotte… as the content varies and is not the same format over and over again like those games. For instance, after filling in the hiragana for several kanji marked in red a different task is required as follows.

Now the user has to write the number of the stroke highlighted in red. What happens if you make a mistake?

In this case I wrote 10 instead of the correct answer of 9. One thing I really like about Kanken 2 is that instead of just taking me to the next task I am given the option of going to the dictionary for this character. If I click on the orange box I go to the dictionary.

The dictionary is usually three pages wide. Above I am showing you photographs of two of those three pages. As you can see the dictionary doesn’t offer much more than the Nazotte… dictionary. The dictionary has stroke order, on and kun readings, number of strokes, and radicals. That’s it. Nazotte… doesn’t have radicals, but it has all of the other items.

If a Kanken 3 ever comes out I hope Rocket Company (the software publisher) adds three things to the dictionary: example jukugo, a brief definition in Japanese, and two or three meanings in English. This would be very useful for both Japanese and gaijin users of the program.

Other than the addition of radicals, there are two other things about the dictionary that make it superior to those found in Tadashii Kanji… and Nazotte… The first I mentioned above in that you can leap to the dictionary whenever you miss something. The other is that you can look kanji up by sound. For instance, you can write kei (けい) and be taken to a screen with every kanji that has a kei reading. You can also click on any of the kei kanji to be taken to the dictionary screens for that particular kanji.

In summary, (although if there is interest I’ll post more screenshots and discussion of this title on this blog in the future) the games and quizzes in Kanken 2 appear to be much more enjoyable and varied than those in previously mentioned DS games teaching kanji that I’ve experienced. The character recognition is better than My Japanese Coach but not as good as Nazotte… However, Kanken 2 doesn’t give the false positives that Nazotte… sometimes does. Another complaint of Kanken 2 is the size of the characters on the screen. Nazotte… is much easier on the eyes. Still, my prediction is that I will be using Kanken 2 much more than Nazotte… in the future simply because it is more entertaining while accomplishing the same goal of kanji mastery.

Posted on December 16th, 2008 under Japan. Tags: japanese language, Japanese Language Study Methods, kanken, reviews. Comments: 2

After many attempts I finally passed the seventh level tests on Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshuu Kanzenhan (なぞっておぼえる大人の漢字練習完全版) for the Nintendo DS. If you can read the above Japanese and are wondering what アル is, that’s my name–Al.

The first six levels corresponded to how Japanese kids learn kanji in school–200 or less a year. The 7th level was a giant leap forward and hence was much more difficult to get through. Not only are the kanji much more difficult, on average, than those in the first 6 grades (kyōiku kanji 教育漢字), but there are also over 315 to learn and be tested on in Level 7. Ouch!

Level 8 appears to give users a minor break with “only” 286 kanji to learn. Would you believe me if I said I’m not that excited to jump into another 286 characters right away? 😉

The above screenshot shows that I can read kanji better than I can write them which is good for me since I rarely have to write them.

Here are a few more screen shots I haven’t previously shown. I’ll walk you through them in case you are thinking about purchasing this game. Explanations will be below the photos.

My normal routine is to do “Today’s practice” (the upper left big button). There you get 5 new kanji to learn and practice reading and writing. After doing 4 of these for a total of 20 characters I move on to “Promotion test” (the middle left big button). To pass the test you have to read all 20 of the kanji recently learned in “Today’s practice.” The characters are presented in random order and you never know if you will have to provide an on or a kun reading. The jukugo words may, or may not, be the same as those you were given in “Today’s practice.”

After passing the reading test, I take the writing test for the same 20 characters. Again, the questions are presented in random order. The recognition of my writing is very good by the program–much better than My Japanese Coach, but sometimes you are given a false positive if you are slightly off or haven’t drawn the last stroke.

After completing all of “Today’s practice” and “Promotion tests” for a level (except the final comprehensive exam for a level which is much more than 50% more difficult when it is over 300 characters instead of 200 characters or less) I go into “Weaknesses” (the middle big button on the right).

The above screen shows that I cleared out the final 4 kanji I previously made a mistake on by correctly writing them this time.

Once you have mastered all of your previously missed kanji under “Weaknesses” you earn the above certificate.

The above screen indicates that you have no previously missed kanji to review since the top button is grayed out. The lower button can never be cleared out. It provides short, 10-question quizzes (5 reading and 5 writing) for any kanji you have ever missed in the program. If you click on the lower button you see the following:

This means that at some point I incorrectly read 260 kanji and incorrectly wrote 541 of the 1,322 kanji studied so far. You can’t reduce these numbers by taking the 10 question quizzes and answering them correctly. This is good as you can always come back to review these kanji that you may now know fairly well without having to wade through the ones that you know really well and never miss.

The 60% indicates that when I have taken these 10 question quizzes of previously mistaken kanji I score an average of 6 out of 10 correct (usually 4 or 5 out of 5 for the reading and 1 or 2 out of 5 on the writing in my case).

I would like to see the creators (Nowpro) of this program put out a new edition of Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshuu Kanzenhan. While this is the best DS game for learning Japanese that I have tried so far, three enhancements would make it even better.

1) On the screen showing the on and kun readings, include a definition in Japanese and English.
2) On that same screen include three or four example jukugo.
3) When a user makes a mistake reading or writing a kanji (in any setting including the tests), take the user (or at least allow the user via a button option) to go to the on and kun reading page mentioned in 1 and 2.

If you have mastered this DS game then you are in luck. Nowpro is coming out with a variation early in 2009. Advanced students of the Japanese language will want to check out the latest offering in this series: Imi made Wakaru Otona no Jukugo Renshuu Kadokawa Ruigo Shinjiten Kara 5-Man Mon (意味までわかる大人の熟語練習 角川類語新辞典から5万問).

Posted on December 13th, 2008 under Japan. Tags: japanese language, Japanese Language Study Methods, Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshuu. Comments: 4

I’ve been playing around with the site readthekanji.com for a few days now. This site is a nice tool to improve your skills in reading Japanese (not just kanji) and in preparing for any level of the JLPT.

The registration process is painless and free. It doesn’t even require an email address. You do want to register as doing so allows you to track your progress. You will be shown the characters you are having the most difficulty with so that you can focus in and master them.

If you are just learning hiragana and/or katakana you can start at that basic of a level too. Otherwise you can choose to start at JLPT 4, JLPT 3, JLPT 2, or JLPT 1. Even if you start at a higher level (like JLPT1 or JLPT2) you will still be tested on more basic kanji. I recommend you read this page before beginning.

Happy studying!

Posted on December 3rd, 2008 under Japan. Tags: japanese language, Japanese Language Study Methods, japanese links. Comments Off on Read the Kanji

My Japanese Coach for the Nintendo DS is selling really well on amazon.com. It is ranked #1 in its category ahead of titles like Spore Creature, Cooking Mama, and Nintendogs. It’s in the top 10 for all DS games. I hope this shows other game developers that there is demand out there for a product that teaches Japanese to those who speak English. After playing the game for a few hours now, I’m hoping a Japanese company produces a similar title without all of the mistakes.

And what are the problems? As mentioned previously, intermediate students of the language are going to have to play the game for hours, maybe even days or weeks, before they learn something new. There is a way to skip to Lesson 30, but the developer has yet to reveal that cheat code. Hiragana yo and na, as well as katakana ka, ne, no, hi, and wa, show an incorrect stroke order. The characters are sometimes drawn poorly. Katakana i, for instance, shows the middle line way over to the right when it should be right down the center of the screen. The character recognition is not nearly as good as in some other kanji learning games like Nazotte….

Something else that would be nice to have in this game is a kanji lookup dictionary like that found in Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshuu Kanzenhan or Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten.

Based on the popularity of this title I hope Ubisoft will employ a native Japanese person to improve a second version of My Japanese Coach. If they don’t, maybe some other company will take up the charge to create a bug-free Japanese learning game that will be of use to both beginners and more experienced Japanese learners. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Until then, My Japanese Coach is still good for beginners who don’t mind learning a few things incorrectly but is frustrating to those past the beginner level who will get more out of Nazotte… and other titles aimed at Japanese people.

Posted on October 24th, 2008 under Japan. Tags: japanese language, Japanese Language Study Methods, my japanese coach, Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshuu. Comments: 5

The first DS game aimed at English speakers learning Japanese has finally hit the market. My copy of My Japanese Coach arrived from Amazon in the mail today. After playing with it for 20 minutes I have some good things and some bad things to say. I’ll give you more complete reviews in the coming weeks.

The first thing I was happy with is the placement test. I thought, “Great! Now I don’t have to go through dozens of levels before learning anything I don’t already know.” Unfortunately, even if you score perfect on the placement test with tons of time left on the clock you will only skip the first 10 levels.

I also can’t change to kanji/kana until I get through 20 more levels. I can change the difficulty level for games, but they are still too easy if you know much Japanese.

The next problem is a bigger one. I noticed the stroke order as taught in My Japanese Coach is incorrect for some characters. Those include the hiragana yo and the katakana ka. I hope those are the only two, but I’m guessing there will be more. (After all, I’ve only played the game for a less than a half hour.)

The games look fun, varied, and comprehensive so I don’t think anyone that wants to learn Japanese will get bored quickly. I’m excited to delve further into all the features, and will share them with you, but I wish the creators at Ubisoft would have made things more friendly to intermediate and advanced users. More importantly, I hope there aren’t many Japanese errors being taught (like incorrect stroke order).

Posted on October 22nd, 2008 under Japan. Tags: japanese language, Japanese Language Study Methods, my japanese coach. Comments Off on My Japanese Coach for the Nintendo DS