DS #2597: My Chinese Coach (USA)

[shakirmoledina]

I really hope this can teach chinese to a certain level tht u can read simple chinese
Jap obviously is better esp for gamers

 

[JPdensetsu]

Nfo added

Wow, Chinese

Japanese is better :S

 

[PyroJames]

This game should be called "MY MANDARIN COACH". It's a great game but if you want to learn Cantonese, you're out of luck.

 

[Renegade_R]

Cantonese is a very difficult dialect of Chinese to learn because it is based on a lot of slangs as well. Most teaching software can rarely touch upon Cantonese.

Anyways, to a gamer the Japanese one seems useful but to your overall lifestyle (if you ever consider actually going with it), I suggest learning the Chinese Mandarin one. Like it or not...one day you're gonna have to do business with one of those 1.3 billion people.

Starting Mandarin classes this September...I'm so excited.

 

[Orusaka]

This game should be called "MY MANDARIN COACH". It's a great game but if you want to learn Cantonese, you're out of luck.

I agree with the sentiment, but I doubt it would be a wise marketing choise. I don't think the general public would know that the main Chinese language is called Mandarin.

That said, has anyone who knows a bit of Chinese tried this out? I'd love to know about the mini-games, and how they've changed to allow for the teaching of characters. I don't have the time to learn Chinese to unlock the games to see what they will be like when the Japanese one comes out in a month. I'm interested, though, cause it could very well be a very clever repetition aid for my jap uni classes, or complete garbage. Unfortunately, probably the latter, but yeah, don't have time to take on Chinese to find out.

 

[CCNaru]

nobody ive seen speaks cantonese... i'll gladly take this one.

 

[Raviral]

I have always wanted to learn chinese. thanks.

 

[xJonny]

I'm guessing that this is simplified then, interesting.

If it had traditional characters, it may be useful to you uh.. Japanese learners, but probably not either way.

 

[AXYPB]

One of my friends speaks Cantonese. I'm sure he can work out the disparities if I decide to go all the way with this.

But I have my doubts about a full Chinese language learning tool that's only 512 Mbit.

 

[xJonny]

So yeah it is simplified and it's not actually that bad

 

[PyroJames]

Cantonese is a very difficult dialect of Chinese to learn because it is based on a lot of slangs as well. Most teaching software can rarely touch upon Cantonese.

There's a company called H&H and they do these great language programs for smartphones and PPCs. To my surprise, they created a really awesome Cantonese audio translator/learning program for PPC. First of its kind, I think. Really great stuff.

QUOTE(CCNaru @ Aug 28 2008, 09:21 AM) nobody ive seen speaks cantonese...

Really? I speak Cantonese and up to 10 years ago, it was the major Chinese dialect where I live. I mean, everyone that was Chinese and 90% of the people in Chinatown, spoke Cantonese. Now, Mandarin has seriously taken over and the ratio now is probably 50/50. A lot of people are also fluent in both dialects.

 

[Riz123]

nobody ive seen speaks cantonese...

Really? I speak Cantonese and up to 10 years ago, it was the major Chinese dialect where I live. I mean, everyone that was Chinese and 90% of the people in Chinatown, spoke Cantonese. Now, Mandarin has seriously taken over and the ratio now is probably 50/50. A lot of people are also fluent in both dialects.

Same experience for me..
Gonna have to learn that mandarin one day

but for now I REFUSE

Although I will try this game to see if it will benefit someone who understands the culture and pronounciations :S

 

[feds4u]

I am extremely curious about the usefullness of this product. I'd love to hear more impressions.

 

[Orusaka]

I am extremely curious about the usefullness of this product. I'd love to hear more impressions.

Well, I can certainly give you my impressions of the series. It's approach is casual language learning, and at this it is really good. If you're looking to learn a few words (or a lot of them for that matter), and some basic sentence structures, this series is really good. However, I never found the grammar explanations to be sufficient. They're very dumbed down to appeal to the lay-man, which, hey, might be right up your alley, but as a linguist, I find them lacking. However, combined with a grammar book, or internet resources, it could possibly give a very nice casual learning experience, and let's face it, if you're looking to learn language through a game you probably are looking for the casual experience. That said, actually mastering language is hard without some sort of osmosis, whether it be classes or actually living where the language is spoken. Point is, it's hard to learn if you're not using it. In this sense, a game probably won't get you very far.

 

[NightKry]

Nihau, My Chinese Coach! Time to have kanji nightmares! (

)

Actually 'ni hao', I'm Chinese lol. Just thought I should point that out for you. Since you're trying to learn Chinese and all that.

Meh, everybody from Hong Kong speaks canto. Which is like 60% of my school, here in Canada O.o
Canto is actually much harder than Mandarin.... I've been tryin to pick it up by listenin to ppl talk at school in vain.... IMO, Canto sounds crass...

 

[pilotwangs]

Im gonna check this out,always wanted to learn another language(besides French).

 

[Curley5959]

lol, Im guessing you learn French in school?? I had to in Yr7, Im now in Yr9 and it was rather hard, mainly the tests..

btw Thanks for supporting PokedexDS

 

[BlueStar]

Hey! That's interesting.. would probably sell more if it were released before the Olympic games.. oh well..

The japanese one was dated to the same day as this one.. hoping to see it soon

Seriously? Japanese? I've been waiting so long for a decent Japanese learning program for either the DS or PSP.

Edit:

http://www.amazon.com/My-Japanese-Coach-Ni...S/dp/B001BZ8EX8

Amazon has it listed with a Sept. 23 release date

Hmm, I'll definitely give that a go I think. Although it will probably teach you useless crap like "Where is the toilet" and "What time does the train leave" rather than "Single Player" "Options" and "Versus"

 

[Curley5959]

probably..

 

[tsunaze]

it would be failing more than russian.