Weskhan Posted August 29, 2008 at 02:10 AM Report Share Posted August 29, 2008 at 02:10 AM http://www.ebgames.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=71955 My Chinese Coach, a Nintendo DS Chinese learning game, shipped about 2 days ago in North America. I've been using it so far and it's helping me review and is great for learning new words. Gives tons of lessons, speech into the microphone to match the speaker in the game, and character help. Gives you a placement test when you first start to see what level you're at, but I got all the problems right and still had 20 seconds left and it cut me off and put me at lesson 10. Which is fine, because now I'm on Lesson 17 (out of a LOT) and have learned a few new words and reviewed many. Highly recommended if you have a NDS. Information from EBGames Learn Chinese in a fun and interactive way • Learn Chinese using carefully structured lessons that guide the player through vocabulary and calligraphy exercises. • Learn the basic pronunciations unique to the Mandarin language. • Use the Nintendo DS stylus to properly write Chinese Kanji Characters. • Entertaining and relevant mini-games – play through a series of fun and informative mini-games that reinforces the lesson content for the player. Key Features * Explore China as each point of interest opens up your vocabulary. o Lesson plans take place within interesting locations ranging from Beijing to the country side o Useful information for first time Mandarin speakers planning to visit the country o The world map is identical to the Chinese map and the locations of the country * Learn to pronounce sounds unique to Chinese by comparing your voice to a native speaker o Voice recording and playback feature of the DS allows the player to compare his or her accent to a native Mandarin speaker. o Ability to listen and compare phrases not just words but also phrases as well. * Develop your calligraphy skills as you trace over animations showing the proper way to write in Chinese o Write Chinese characters using the DS stylus and touch screen o Stroke order and comparison ability allows players to properly write difficult kanji words * Participate in mini-games that will test your grasp of the structured lessons featured in the game o 12 mini-games reinforce lesson plans and the ability to write in Chinese o Variety of mini games ranging from whack-a-mole, word search, bridge builder, and kanji writing * Use the built in reference tool to look up useful words and phrases. o Chinese Dictionary and phrasebook with over 12,000 Mandarin words and hundreds of useful phrases. o Strong reference points and serves as an independent tool from the game that’s very practical and useful Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gleaves Posted November 7, 2008 at 11:42 PM Report Share Posted November 7, 2008 at 11:42 PM I've gone through about 10 lessons of My Chinese Coach, so I figured I'd offer my thoughts for any perspective buyers. The game is divided into lessons and games. The lessons are brief. They each offer 5 to 10 new vocabluray items, 3-4 example sentences, and some brief explanation. Once you make your way through a lesson, you play games to gather points. These points allow you to unlock the next lesson, new games, and new titles (I am a Kindergartener). It takes about ten minutes to finish a lesson and then play enough games to unlock the next lesson. I'm only on lesson 20, so the later lessons could be different. There does not appear to be a way to skip ahead further than lesson 10. The best part about the lessons is the recording function. You listen to the native speaker, then record your voice. Then repeat or move on. You can even listen to the native speaker and yourself at the same time. The game makes it so easy to do this, you actually feel a little guilty if you don't work up the guts to listen to yourself. The game does not have any karaoke-type rating system of your speech. It just records and plays back. The "games" are timed quizes. They are quick and cover decent ground. Multiple choice has you picking the right character when you see the Eglish word on the screen. Flashcards has you choosing the right English word when hearing the Chinese. Fading Characters is a game where you draw a character that just appeared on the screen. Fill in the blank has you spelling out in pinyin missing parts of a sentence. A tones game has you picking the right tones of a spoken word. All of them feel productive (Others I don't mention didn't feel as productive). You can play whatever games you want, however many times you want. So if you wanted to advance through the entire game just by playing the listening for tones game, I think you could do that. The game has its annoyances. The font size of the characters is too small. A character like 暴 is barely recognizable (The game is entirely simplified character set). There are also occasional typos as well, but these seem pretty rare. The game claims to have 1000 lessons (Only Lessons 1-30 are unlocked initially). I found the 1000 lessons to be a fishy claim. I did some research (.29 seconds of googling) and found this blog post. Basically, lessons 1-100 are scripted. The rest is just clumps of 10 new vocabulary terms. I'm fine with that, honestly. Overall, a solid $30 supplement to your other studies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houzi88 Posted May 1, 2009 at 08:04 PM Report Share Posted May 1, 2009 at 08:04 PM Yeah, I'm almost done with the game. (probably 14 more lessons) It's a great game and I only play flash cards and I don't like learning the Hanzi on that game. I learn it on paper and books and stuff. Great game to buy!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpg31337 Posted June 15, 2009 at 05:08 AM Report Share Posted June 15, 2009 at 05:08 AM I noticed this 'game' is now available in the iPhone app store for iPhones and iPod touches. Has anyone given it a shot yet? I'm interested in buying it, but was hoping someone else had already tested it before I buy it and find out it has major bugs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treece Posted June 15, 2009 at 04:13 PM Report Share Posted June 15, 2009 at 04:13 PM I have just purchased this game as I plan on studying Chinese next semester, and seeing as how everyone says this is a hard language for an english speaker, I decided to start off with something that would give me a heard start. It's very exciting for me, and I think that for someone wanting to learn it, or keep up with the language that it's very helpful! THough like the first poster said with the typos, a newbie (like me) would not know what is misspelled or wrong, so I can only take this at face value. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skillphiliac Posted June 16, 2009 at 03:51 PM Report Share Posted June 16, 2009 at 03:51 PM I had a quick glance at for interest's sake, but no, this won't do for anyone. It is an incredibly bad start for newcomers (the stroke orders of respective characters is awful, really, really awful), you can't expand your options when it comes to learning vocabulary... no. It could be a decisionmaker, but I'd rather spend the money on some good university level textbooks with an audio-cd. Sometime in the future, I am going to develop my own training program, based on decent material, not messing up things. Oh boy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prodigal Son Posted June 19, 2009 at 09:56 AM Report Share Posted June 19, 2009 at 09:56 AM agree with previous poster.. I tried the DS version and found it a poor implementation considering the potential of the DS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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