Emoni
先輩
- 20 Sep 2003
- 1,779
- 67
After a friend heading out on the JET program recommended this site to me Table of Contents / All Japanese All The Time Dot Com: How to learn Japanese. On your own, having fun and to fluency. | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time I've been looking for other ways to jam Japanese language into my everyday schedule. By no means has this been that easy, since after work and exercise I'm usually DEAD tired. I can usually jam a few hours in a day during a lunch break or before sleep, but that is about it. Moreover, I'm headed for grad school in Japan soon so Japanese is damn important.
I have a DS, and I have a few games for it, some that I'll be returning messing around with soon. These games have proven to be QUITE helpful for Japanese. I also began learning Chinese and Korean on the side when I have a little extra time, and I've found the DS to also be useful. I have to say, that the DS is probably the most useful little tool possible for learning Japanese. While the Ipod has a couple useful flash card tools, and the internet has a wealth of information, I have yet to find a better combination of everything than the programs for the DS.
So I figured I would post a handful of game/program recommendations for learning Japanese on the Nintendo DS that I have found significantly useful. I also hope that others will add to this list so that I might myself benefit further from this little wonder.
The format I am going to use is a four point rating system to keep it simple.
Concept: The main idea and type of game. A shooter? A dictionary? Adventure game? Kanji practice? Maybe a short summary of the story concept. Just the core of the game concept here.
Personal Fun Rating: Simple personal rating out of a score of 10 about the quality of the game/program.
Usefulness:How is this game/program useful for learning Japanese? What makes it lend itself to learning Japanese? A good dictionary? Useful vocab? Furigana tools? Maybe built in speech?
Japanese Language Level: Generally what level of Japanese is this product useful for? Is it helpful for beginners? Only for advanced language users? Maybe useful for all?
Without further ado here is my first set.
Title: Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten (Not to be confised with Kanji Rakubiki Jiten which does not have the kanji writing option!!
Concept: A Japanese to English/English to Japanese dictionary program. Can write kanji, hiragana, katakana, and romaji.
Personal Fun Rating: 6/10 It's a dictionary, not much fun of course, but mandatory never-the-less
Usefulness: Absolutely MANDATORY for anyone learning Japanese. Not only is it one of the best write-in Japanese dictionaries I have found, even in comparison to $300-$400 electronic dictionaries, but it quite cheap. Writing in the kanji is reliable as well. The only weakness is it's lack of Japanese pronunciations and a weak Jump feature for works in Japanese. Great for the price.
Japanese Language Level: All levels, from beginner to advanced. Once you reach advanced you may of course need a more robust dictionary however.
Title: Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshuu
Concept: One of the better kanji practice games. You are taught 5 kanji at a time, then quizzed on writing them and their reading. Fairly simple and clear cut. A few mini-games for more advanced kanji games. These seems to be a new version out as well but I'm not sure the difference.
Personal Fun Rating: 7/10 It isn't all that boring at all for kanji study! The writing of the kanji and the readings, along with sense of progress can be quite addicting sometimes.
Usefulness: This is a VERY useful program for learning readings and writing of kanji... with one downside. There is no dictionary to explain what these words all mean. So you are going to have to look up or know the words you are writing if you hope to know what they mean. Same goes with the core kanji meaning.
Japanese Language Level: All levels, from beginner to advanced. You can start from the first kanji for Ichi, to much later on. This is a very flexible program.
Title: Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass
Concept: Classic Zelda on the DS. A wonderful adventure game, but even better for Japanese language study! One of the first games I've seen to actually have a feature where if you tap on the kanji text, it will pop up furigana!
Personal Fun Rating: 8/10 It's Zelda, and it's damn fun. The game itself is very well put together and using the stylus for movement and action is done to near perfection. Can be a tad... easy of a game however.
Usefulness: GREAT for language study due to the furigana pop-up feature. This makes looking up any new words quite easy. A mix of different speech styles also gives an interesting exercises in decoding different patterns of speech.
Japanese Language Level: Intermediate to semi-advanced. You need to have some knowledge under your belt to start this one, and it may be TOO simple for truly advanced Japanese language students.
Title: 200 Mannin no KanKen: Tokoton Kanji Nou
Concept: Another good kanji memorization game, but with numerous modes and a higher level of kanji to learn than the previously posted above game. Instead of one sentence you go into further paragraphs where you can fill out the correct kanji or the reading.
Personal Fun Rating: 6/10 Somehow the interface is a bit more dull and has a slightly overwhelming cluttered feel to it. Still this is a kanji game so you can't expect massive excitement here.
Usefulness: Quite useful, since reading is put inside. However, since things can be timed, this makes it very difficult to look up new words on the fly. However, for pure kanji knowledge this is hard to beat.
Japanese Language Level: While you can start at a lower level, the fact that timers are put in and that you are going to a higher level eventually with full sentences means that you are going to be looking at a game that is from low intermediate to advanced, rather than beginner.
Thanks for reading. I hope that these short several reviews have helped, and if you know and good DS programs/games that are great for Japanese Language learning PLEASE POST YOUR OWN REVIEWS!
I have a DS, and I have a few games for it, some that I'll be returning messing around with soon. These games have proven to be QUITE helpful for Japanese. I also began learning Chinese and Korean on the side when I have a little extra time, and I've found the DS to also be useful. I have to say, that the DS is probably the most useful little tool possible for learning Japanese. While the Ipod has a couple useful flash card tools, and the internet has a wealth of information, I have yet to find a better combination of everything than the programs for the DS.
So I figured I would post a handful of game/program recommendations for learning Japanese on the Nintendo DS that I have found significantly useful. I also hope that others will add to this list so that I might myself benefit further from this little wonder.
The format I am going to use is a four point rating system to keep it simple.
Concept: The main idea and type of game. A shooter? A dictionary? Adventure game? Kanji practice? Maybe a short summary of the story concept. Just the core of the game concept here.
Personal Fun Rating: Simple personal rating out of a score of 10 about the quality of the game/program.
Usefulness:How is this game/program useful for learning Japanese? What makes it lend itself to learning Japanese? A good dictionary? Useful vocab? Furigana tools? Maybe built in speech?
Japanese Language Level: Generally what level of Japanese is this product useful for? Is it helpful for beginners? Only for advanced language users? Maybe useful for all?
Without further ado here is my first set.
Title: Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten (Not to be confised with Kanji Rakubiki Jiten which does not have the kanji writing option!!
Concept: A Japanese to English/English to Japanese dictionary program. Can write kanji, hiragana, katakana, and romaji.
Personal Fun Rating: 6/10 It's a dictionary, not much fun of course, but mandatory never-the-less
Usefulness: Absolutely MANDATORY for anyone learning Japanese. Not only is it one of the best write-in Japanese dictionaries I have found, even in comparison to $300-$400 electronic dictionaries, but it quite cheap. Writing in the kanji is reliable as well. The only weakness is it's lack of Japanese pronunciations and a weak Jump feature for works in Japanese. Great for the price.
Japanese Language Level: All levels, from beginner to advanced. Once you reach advanced you may of course need a more robust dictionary however.
Title: Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshuu
Concept: One of the better kanji practice games. You are taught 5 kanji at a time, then quizzed on writing them and their reading. Fairly simple and clear cut. A few mini-games for more advanced kanji games. These seems to be a new version out as well but I'm not sure the difference.
Personal Fun Rating: 7/10 It isn't all that boring at all for kanji study! The writing of the kanji and the readings, along with sense of progress can be quite addicting sometimes.
Usefulness: This is a VERY useful program for learning readings and writing of kanji... with one downside. There is no dictionary to explain what these words all mean. So you are going to have to look up or know the words you are writing if you hope to know what they mean. Same goes with the core kanji meaning.
Japanese Language Level: All levels, from beginner to advanced. You can start from the first kanji for Ichi, to much later on. This is a very flexible program.
Title: Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass
Concept: Classic Zelda on the DS. A wonderful adventure game, but even better for Japanese language study! One of the first games I've seen to actually have a feature where if you tap on the kanji text, it will pop up furigana!
Personal Fun Rating: 8/10 It's Zelda, and it's damn fun. The game itself is very well put together and using the stylus for movement and action is done to near perfection. Can be a tad... easy of a game however.
Usefulness: GREAT for language study due to the furigana pop-up feature. This makes looking up any new words quite easy. A mix of different speech styles also gives an interesting exercises in decoding different patterns of speech.
Japanese Language Level: Intermediate to semi-advanced. You need to have some knowledge under your belt to start this one, and it may be TOO simple for truly advanced Japanese language students.
Title: 200 Mannin no KanKen: Tokoton Kanji Nou
Concept: Another good kanji memorization game, but with numerous modes and a higher level of kanji to learn than the previously posted above game. Instead of one sentence you go into further paragraphs where you can fill out the correct kanji or the reading.
Personal Fun Rating: 6/10 Somehow the interface is a bit more dull and has a slightly overwhelming cluttered feel to it. Still this is a kanji game so you can't expect massive excitement here.
Usefulness: Quite useful, since reading is put inside. However, since things can be timed, this makes it very difficult to look up new words on the fly. However, for pure kanji knowledge this is hard to beat.
Japanese Language Level: While you can start at a lower level, the fact that timers are put in and that you are going to a higher level eventually with full sentences means that you are going to be looking at a game that is from low intermediate to advanced, rather than beginner.
Thanks for reading. I hope that these short several reviews have helped, and if you know and good DS programs/games that are great for Japanese Language learning PLEASE POST YOUR OWN REVIEWS!
