[fuaburisu]

I had a quick try at the second Kakitori Kun game. The second opus does not have the kanji/reading practice that progresses with example compounds for every character, for the first 6 years of school in Japan.

On the plus side, the second opus has improved the screen transitions, it's much more handy now you can practice the characters one after the other, only after 10 it asks you whether you want to go back to the previous menu or continue. It also has hiragana and katakana now.

There are some nice additions like the bushu test where you can learn the name of the character components.

I would go for Kakitori Kun v2, but if you're beginner I'd couple that with another good title like Bunshou Yomi TRAINING

Thanks for your replys!

fuaburisu Wrote:The second opus does not have the kanji/reading practice that progresses with example compounds for every character, for the first 6 years of school in Japan.

This especially was helpful. All the reviews have been so good about the first one but i have not been able to find reviews on the second. With everyone talking about how good the first one is, i worry most about what is being taken OUT of the second one.
I have the rocket kanken 2 and my weak point is the reading. So does the kakitorikun have kanji/reading practice for the kanji after the sixth grade?

fuaburisu Wrote:I would go for Kakitori Kun v2, but if you're beginner I'd couple that with another good title like Bunshou Yomi TRAINING

i like the sound of that (and I am a beginner). Guess I will just have to go put some pants on...

Lately I've been interested in the novel collection 「一度は読んでおきたい日本文学100選」.
I have the impression that this has been covered somewhere on this forum, but I couldn't find the thread.
Could anyone provide the link to a previous review, or alternatively write a short comment about why you find this game great/terrible?
Thank you!

[ファブリス]

nac_est I don't think I posted a link to those titles on the forum. There are two titles, including that one above, which have a collection of novels you can read straight on the DS. One had a better interface but overall they were both pretty good. Nothing much to say about the "game" really. Both titles let you bookmark the position in each of the packaged novels, and let you flip back and forth and such. I don't think either one had a zoom feature though, but they are not difficult to read. So the verdict I guess is rather what novels were included and whether you like those authors or not... try to find the official site.

PS: to my knowledge these are "novel collection" titles that came out, in release date order :

- Ichido wa Yonde de Okitai Nihon Bungaku 100-Sen
- Toshokan DS Meisaku & Suiri & Kaidan & Bungaku
- DS Bungaku Zensyu


Not so new (thx Jarvik!) title for "problematic Japanese" :

問題な日本語 公式サイト

問題な日本語 has apparently been in stores since the middle of last year. It was just never *ahem* released until today.

It's built into my denshi jisho anyways (both are based on a book of the same name).

Thank you ファブリス. I had looked at the official site, but I'm sadly ignorant about Japanese literature, so most of those authors are unknown to me.
I was wondering what level of japanese would be required to read them. Perhaps, being classics, the language is a little outdated/complicated?
If that's the case I'll postpone the purchase and concentrate on something else first.

[ファブリス]

Jarvik7 Wrote:問題な日本語 has apparently in stores since the middle of last year. It was just never *ahem* released until today.

Doh! I guess I'm looking in the wrong places (^_-) .. here's a better list of Recent and Upcoming titles on the Nintendo DS.

I got the Kanken DS2 last Christmas but I am still only at 50% completed for level 10. The only way I know how to get the percentage points up is by doing a challenge test. the 40 minute test give 3 percentage points and the 10 minute challenge gives about 1. When I do the training it doesn't seem to boost the percentage which is a bit annoying because the only thing I struggle with is the reading. So my question is, is there a faster way to get through it?
Also got my kanken score back today and passed level 10! woot woot! I can read like a first grader now! anyone else?

I got through the 9th kyu a while ago. I can read like a second grader. I feel special!!!

I'm using Kanken on my Nintendo DS.

Initially it was challenging, as I can't read all the instructions (a friend helped) but it really is good for learning readings. And it's fun. There are several different kinds of exercices, including producing contextual readings from Kanji, writing the correct Kanji for contextual readings (always displayed in Katakana), Stroke number identification, etc.

One thing that has helped as I work through these excercises, to is record unfamiliar Kanji I encounter along the way (I'm only half way through Heisig) and look them up in another book (Henshall and Sakade has a great index of readings. I find I can usually make stories for these new Kanji along the way -- I hope they don't conflict significantly with anything I encounter later in RTK1.

Another note: My Katakana reading skills were weak until I started using this.

Just started playing with Bunshou Yomi Training last night... that's a nice little program there. It wasn't too hard for me to read the directions, but it might be tricky for a complete novice.

I've also been using the first "part" of Kaki-Tori Kun as well. It has a lot of interesting words/compounds/readings I hadn't seen yet. Also good stuff.

Having a DS helps with extra practice a lot. Highly recommended.

Does it help to have the kanji games even though one might not be through RTK1 all the way? I'm about 315 characters in so far, and plan to get a DS later this month if I can. Which games, if any, might be good for practicing penmanship if one isn't finished yet? I know I couldn't read the instructions, but if the games are pretty self-explanatory, then I wouldn't need to.

The only one I would recommend-- and with strong reservations-- for people who haven't finished would be Kakitori-kun, and that would be because if you use the writing part of it, you can drill proper stroke order, and drill how to "write" the kanji properly. RTK's approach to orthography isn't what I'd call ideal.

BUT-- the kanji in Kakitori-kun are arranged by school year, so it won't correspond to RTK's order. Also, the actual kanji drills won't be much help, because they're also done by school year.

I don't know anything about the Bimoji Training... it's supposed to be a DS game that helps you write beautiful kanji... maybe someone here has tried it?

If you can, it would probably be more effective to just focus extra time on RTK, and use the DS still as a carrot to keep you going. That's what I did.

Bimoji training and kakitori-kun are very similar, but bimoji training is more focused just on the aspect of drawing the characters, and your drawing appears on the screen more like actual brush strokes.

I honestly haven't found much value in either of them, besides just drilling your stroke order. They also show you if your characters aren't drawn properly, but trying to use a little stylus to scribble on a tiny screen is hardly what I would call an ideal method of displaying penmanship in any case, so I don't really find any value in that. When I draw poorly on the ds, its usually more the fact that I'm trying to draw on the ds, than the fact that I really can't draw it well...

Yeah... actually I have a real pen-sized stylus that I use for those kinds of programs. (I got it with my Sharp Papyrus Denshi Jiten.) The larger size makes it feel slightly more realistic. These programs are good for learning stroke order, but not necessarily for penmanship. The larger stylus makes characters look better, but they still look kind of ugly.

For learning to write "good looking" characters, I'm starting to experiment with a "ボールペン字" book I ordered from Kinokunia NY. (ISBN 978-4-405-05562-9) You can preview it on amazon.co.jp. (But I bought it elsewhere because amazonjp's shipping prices are insane.) Now I just need to head to the website that prints up free graph paper to practice with.

I'll write a quick review of a new game that just came out, English of the Dead (people, you can't make this stuff up!)
One of the most notable things about this game is the awesome box art, which features a zombie wearing glasses and a graduate hat As you can tell from the title, this is a game for learning ENGLISH, but it happens to be slightly useful for learning some Japanese too. The game itself is basically like the old House of the Dead arcade game, or the Typing of the Dead spin-off that came from it.
The game basically works like so: Zombies appear onscreen with a Japanese word (with kanji), and then you have to write the ENGLISH meaning of that word. The handwriting recognition is quite good. There are three difficulty levels to choose from. On the easiest difficulty, it will basically show you the english word and you just have to copy it. On medium, it will leave some letters out of the english word. Hard is probably what most people will be interested in, as it simply shows you the Japanese word, and the number of letters that the english word is. There is also a seperate difficulty for the level of words that it will use. There are five levels of vocabulary there, and on the easiest it will have some simple stuff like "she", and it adds more difficult vocabulary in the harder levels. If you hesitate for a second or two after it shows the Japanese word, it will speak the English word that you are supposed to write. There are also some segments of the game where it will show a Japanese sentence, and then an english translation with a word missing, and you choose the correct word from 4 choices. These aren't really helpful for the person learning Japanese, I think, as the answers are quite obvious.
So getting down to business, how useful is this for learning Japanese? For someone who just completed RTK, it can help you learn to recognize some new vocabulary, and help you try to guess compounds based on their kanji, but that's about all. It's a fun diversion though, unlike a lot of the other kanji "games" out there. You won't pick up any readings for the kanji here though, and as far as I can tell, there's no mode to study the vocabulary outside the game, though I may have just overlooked it. Also since it's just throwing individual words at you, you don't learn any context.

Quick question...

How correct are the translations for the sentences in the J-E dictionary of 漢字そのまま楽引辞典?

I've been using a few sentences lately and...~ Well I guess it's good to know. I like the example sentences (or 'parts of sentences' more often) and I want to use them in Anki but ... Are the translations ok?

(I usually add new words just like that, words with context, to mnemosyne. But today I figured I could as well add them as words *and* add a sentence which uses the word to Anki.)

Thanks in advance

According to information I have found, the dictionary for NDS uses the Genius dictionaries for J>E and E>J, and Meikyo for J>J. These are apparently used in many other electronic dictionaries as well.

According to http://www.silverace.com/japanese/ejd/

Quote:There are two major sets of J/E & E/J dictionaries in use in EJDs today - Genius and Kenkyusha's New College...
...One notable difference apparent to native English speakers using these dictionaries is the differences in the level of writing level. The Kenkyusha entires and examples are written at a lower, more friendly level than those in the Genius entries. Thus, you'll find the Kenkyusha examples more like speech used in conversations; the Genius examples more appropriate for translating and understanding texts and novels.

I`ve been using sentences from そのまま for quite a while now, and have found the translations to be pretty accurate. The synonyms in Japanese under the English definitions also help with the words meaning, and thus help you judge weather the sentence is natural enough or not.

Oh, and they also seem better than most J-E online dictionaries I`ve come accross, so mabye it is a good place to copy from...

Just wanted to say that Dragon Quest IV remake for the NDS is the first rpg I've played completely in Japanese. I would highly recommend it because it's easy and the story is very easy to follow, a perfect jrpg for beginners.

The game is pretty short in terms of jrpg's and the characters are all pretty straight-forward without the typical social angst associated with the FF franchise. I just played straight-through without a dictionary or even mining anything. It was a fun experience and reminded me why I started learning Japanese in the first place. Walk-throughs are available online though if you get stuck. Which I did use a couple of times.

I think I will play one or two other games at this difficulty level before moving on to something more kanji-intensive. Probably DQ V and then Crono Trigger DS whenever it comes out.

Someone briefly mentioned the 100 novels game earlier in this thread, but I also found two other games that contain stories, so I thought I would check out all three of them and compare.

DS 文学全集 (DS Bungaku Zensyu)
Contains 100 books. There is only furigana on uncommon words. Most kanji does not have any furigana at all. Most of the story titles contain lots of kanji, so I didn't see anything I recognized offhand. One story I checked was over 4000 pages long! Most stories seem to be at least about 100 pages or so. The text is pretty clear and easy to read. You can also make the font size larger (there are two sizes). You can invert the screens if you are left handed. There is a quiz where it asks you some questions about your mood, and then shows you some books that it thinks you would like based on your answers. I think this has the best interface and usability of all three titles. Here is the list of books: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/ybnj/booklist/index.html
Verdict: Experts only!

図書館 DS (Toshokan DS)
Contains about 120 books. Books can be browsed by Genre, Title, and Author. Books are categorized under 4 genres: Japanese Literature, Ghost Stories, Mystery, and World Masterpieces. I see lots of familiar titles like Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, Le Miserables, Arabian Nights, Frog Prince, Dog of Flanders, and many others. The shortest story I saw was about 30 pages, while Le Miserables spanned 5 volumes, with the first one being more than 1000 pages. It's also pretty light on the furigana as well. You can change the font, but not the size of the text. The text is also a bit blurry and hard to read, no matter which font you go with. You also can't flip the screens. Here's the list of books: http://www.dorasu.com/ds/library/list.html
Verdict: Has some familiar western stories, so maybe good for Advanced learners.

日本文学１００選(Ichido wa Yonde de Okitai Nihon Bungaku 100-Sen)
Again, I don't really see any titles that I am familiar with, but I know nothing about Japanese literature, so that's to be expected. You can change the font size between small and larger, but you can't change the orientation of the screens. Furigana seems to be much more prevalent than in the other two titles, but it's not on the basic words. There are 100 stories from Japanese literature, but I didn't browse through them very much. The list of stories is here: http://www.spike.co.jp/bungaku/list.html
Verdict: Maybe good for advanced learners.

I just noticed on Amazon they are listing "My Japanese Coach" coming out on September 16. http://www.amazon.com/UBI-Soft-16428-Jap...B001BZ8EX8

This is a game designed to help English speaking people learn Japanese. I have my doubts, but I should reserve my opinion until it actually comes out. It might actually end up being pretty cool.

Yeh I saw that 'My Japanese Coach' as well.. I actually came to post about it here but you already have.

I always wondered why there aren't any Japanese learning software on DS.. There's french, spanish, etc.. And Japan has it's share of English learning tools.. So why has it taken 4 years to get Japanese learning software onto the DS?

In any case, I'm looking forward to it.

There is an article and associated gallery of screenshots on DSFanboy:
http://www.dsfanboy.com/2008/07/28/my-sc...t-coaches/

Not much kanji and too much romaji in sight for my taste, but I hope it turns out usefull in some ways.

Does anyone know anything about a UK release date for My Japanese Coach? (or My Chinese Coach for that matter, I'd quite like that too). Nothing on amazon.co.uk, nothing on play.com (UK), nothing on toysrus.co.uk, no UK release date on gamefaqs... I really hope there is going to be a UK release or I will be most displeased and probably end up giving a fair amount of money to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to import it.