Wrong stroke order/direction/count

Hiragana: [ok]か[/ok]　な　も　や　よ プ
Katakana: エ　カ　チ　ネ　ノ　ヒ　メ　[ok]ヤ[/ok]　ワ　[new]ヲ[/new]

Some are correct in the lesson where they're introduced but wrong in the mini-games. Some are just plain wrong everywhere. か is right in some mini-games, wrong in others. I mean, FFS, how could they release a product where a ONE-STROKE CHARACTER is messed up? Maybe the kanji are all just fine, but I'm not counting on it.

On the other hand, if you choose a verb in the dictionary, it gives you a table with tenses (formal and informal), verb bases 1-5 and te and ta, and other conjugations (request, imperative, volitional, etc.), which is pretty nice for a beginner like me.

ETA: I've gone through it systematically this morning, and I must modify my list slightly. Looks like the hiragana か is correct in most places (I'm sure I saw it wrong in a mini-game, but I can't find it now, so giving the benefit of the doubt). Also, katakana ヤ looks correct as well. On the other hand, I found a new baddie: katakana ヲ. Also, since three of the six Y-row characters are messed up, half of the -ya -yu -yo characters are messed up too. That rattling sound you hear is my eyes rolling around in my head. It's really too bad.

Last edited by annabel398 (2008 November 02, 12:40 pm)

Yes, well I'm now up to lesson 50, after a week, and I really don't like it.  The games are awful too, some are romaji only, others are totally useless for learning, for example the whack a mole effort, and the memory game which has a too strict time limit.  The bridge builder game, which is a sentence maker, starts with all the word tiles all jumbled on top of each other, so you have to spend time drag them all over the screen to initially read them, and they also are in romaji, at least at lesson 50.  The only games I'm using are the flash card Japanese audio to English word game, and the multiple choice English to Japanese game.  I just don't want to practice wrong kanji and kana stroke order.

mentat_kgs wrote:

Hi, I just got both Tales games for the DS, the old Tales of Innocence and the one that came out the 18th, Tales of Hearts. Both have audio dubbed.

I also have Tales of Innocence, is there a way to stop the text from auto-advancing in the beginning though? >_<

Upcoming kanji "game":

Japan, 15 January
毎日新聞社協力 最強の漢字ドリル5万問
(Mainichi Shinbunsha Kyouruoku: Saikyou no Kanji Drill 5-Man Mon)

http://soft.mycom.co.jp/dsetc/kanjidoriru/index.html

http://www.famitsu.com/game/coming/1219138_1407.html

http://www.amazon.co.jp/毎日 … B001IDYN8S


Not much else for a good while... (source)

Just noticed this one too...

Zaidanhoujin Nippon Kanji Nouryoku Kentei Kyoukai Kounin: Kanken DS 3 Deluxe

http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/ds/home/957871.html

Kanken DS 3 due 9 April according to Gamefaqs.  No idea what improvements will be made over Kanken 2...  There is also no mention of it on the rocketcompany.co.jp website as far as I can find...

There is also a second English language Japanese trainer due soon:

Mind your language: Japanese

http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/ds/data/955337.html

Gamefaqs date is old, Amazon reckon it has been pushed back to Mar 13th.

http://touch-ds.jp/mfs/st87/index.html
It has videos that show the features of DS美文字トレーニング
It is to make your writing neater and prettier. There is also a special pen that comes with the game. You can also connect with five other people and see which one of you has the best handwriting.

Last edited by Smackle (2009 March 01, 1:35 am)

For kakitorikun, I prefer the first version, it is much more usable/useful.

parryh wrote:

ps
I'm also interested in Tadashi Kanji Kakitorikun, or the new version.. I hear it's great for writing practice (esp. since it enforces you to write the correct stroke order - but does it give you much chance to do reading practice? Also - given that my kanji-writing ability is very low - i.e. starting from the very basics, would I be better getting the 1st version that has only 1006 characters, or the new version with all 1945 Joyo characters?
I'm thinking perhaps I need to buy 2 games -
1) one of the Tadashi Kanji Kakitorikun games for accurate writing practice
2) one of the Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshuu games for lots of reading practice
All comments / advice gratefully received.

Besides the fact it covers more Kanji, the main difference between Kakitori-kun 1 & 2 is that the drills are not split by kyouiku year which makes that section less useful for a beginner; however the tests and drills in nazotte oboeru are much better anyway so if you are getting both I dont see that this is much of a problem. 

If you mainly want the game to get your handwriting legible you may want to consider DS美文字トレーニング　(Bimoji training) or ユーキャンペン字トレーニング(U-Can Penji Training)　both of which come with a pen sized stylus.  Bimoji training uses the same marking engine as Kakitori-kun and carries on beyond the 1945 常用漢字. 

Penji training seems to have a more advanced training engine with detailed lessons covering the kana as well as kanji, and an area to practise the characters you have the most trouble with.  I'm not sure about the total number of Kanji covered with this one though.

Both of these titles are only useful to a learner when coupled with something along the lines of Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshuu because they will only teach you forms and stroke orders, not readings.

Last edited by chewtoy (2009 March 06, 8:58 am)

Checking it again, the Kanzenban's 雑学チャレンジ has over 100 types of tests (with 5 levels each). I've not unlocked all of them, the only food one I've seen is おでん. But I imagine there's more.

Also, unless they moved it somewhere else, that 合体漢字 game is gone. The games are mostly filling in parts of names or words (train stations in Tokyo, Japanese prefecture names, etc), or having to piece together phrases/idioms.

Last edited by albion (2009 March 09, 1:12 pm)

Nope, Japanese people don't take the JLPT, so they wouldn't make games for it. In the US, there's only that one Japanese learning game.

Jarvik7 wrote:

Japanese Coach is godawful. There is another Japanese learning soft out in the west but I haven't tried it yet.

That would be "Mind your Language: Japanese".  I tried the German version a couple of months and godawful would be an understatement.  I haven't been able to bring myself to trying the Japanese version.  Think Pokemon without the story and replacing the pokemon with vocab and grammar points...  You spend more time moving from place to place trying to find the right person to speak to than you do learning - hardly an efficient use of time.  Its supposed to be aimed at younger kids.  Maybe it works for them, it certainly doesn't for me.

EDIT: I have now endured a couple of hours of "Mind your language: Japanese".  If anything its worse than the German edition.  At one point I spent 20 minutes doing a minigame and all it covered was the -masu form of 5 verbs in romaji; in 20 minutes I could have done a couple of hundred anki reviews...  This makes My Japanese Coach look like the best language tool ever... (end edit)

On a more positive note, Kanken DS3 Deluxe is out now and it has a number of nice improvements over Kanken DS2.  The number of questions has almost doubled from 60,000 to 116,000 (I believe most of the extra questions are at the top end of the scale).  There is a "My Kanken" section that lets you pick the Kanji you are having trouble with to give you more focused tests. There are also some extra stats options, the most useful of which is a radar chart breakdown of your results when you complete a test giving you a good idea of the areas you need to focus on.

I have a mini review over on smart.fm, but you've read most of it already in the previous paragraph...

Last edited by chewtoy (2009 April 19, 3:42 am)

Hi everyone!
I´m buying some Kanji games for my DS.
I´m thinking of buying Kanken DS 3 and Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten (http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-hk- … -198v.html). Will this keep me busy for a while?
I basically want a decent electronic dictionary, and maybe some fun kanji games to keep me busy when I´m having spare time! Does this sound like a good investment, or would you guys recommend me some other games instead?
I haven´t read all the pages here, but it looks like you guys are liking the Kanken games at least!

PS: Does the DS browser that you buy as a cart work with Anki online-reviews? Or will it fail? Hehe

Thank you guys! I´m really grateful for your answers!

Zorlee wrote:

Hi everyone!
I´m buying some Kanji games for my DS.
I´m thinking of buying Kanken DS 3 and Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten (http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-hk- … -198v.html). Will this keep me busy for a while?
I basically want a decent electronic dictionary, and maybe some fun kanji games to keep me busy when I´m having spare time! Does this sound like a good investment, or would you guys recommend me some other games instead?
I haven´t read all the pages here, but it looks like you guys are liking the Kanken games at least!

PS: Does the DS browser that you buy as a cart work with Anki online-reviews? Or will it fail?

The DS browser is a curiosity at best. It is very slow and properly renders almost no websites. I don't think it works with Anki unless you run it through a proxy. There are some ancient posts about this if you search.

Something to watch out for with the Sonomama jiten: It's not an instant-on dictionary, which will dissuade you from using it, and it's physically impossible to look stuff up while you're playing a (Japanese) game in your ds.