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French and Spanish for your Nintendo DS | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| ipanema Newbie United States Joined 6338 days ago 37 posts - 38 votes Studies: French | Message 1 of 17 05 May 2008 at 11:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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I searched for this topic and haven't found it, so here goes.
I recently discovered a neat little "edutainment" game for studying French or Spanish on the Nintendo DS. "My French Coach" and "My Spanish Coach" by Ubisoft. I got the French version, so I'll talk about that one here, however, I'm sure the Spanish version is pretty similar. There's also a version for working on your English called "My Word Coach". Pros: - $20.00 bucks! new and about $10.00 used. If you already own a Nintendo DS, this is a great price tag. It seems its not readily available in brick-and-mortar stores, but can be easily ordered online. I just got a copy from amazon.com within a few days. - Fun and Addictive. Its an "edutainment" game, so there's plenty of interactive little games to keep you engaged and interested. In fact, it can be quite addictive. I find myself often having the "Okay, just one more lesson" experience. -Chock full of vocab. There are 10,000 words and 700 phrases. O_O Quite an impressive list of vocabulary to keep you busy. - Fully recorded. Each vocab word and phrase is fully and clearly voiced by a pleasant native speaker so you never have to worry how something is supposed to be pronounced. -Awesome voice recognition feature!! This little feature is almost worth the price alone. Because the DS has a built in mic, you can play the French word, record yourself saying it and play the pre-recorded voice and your own recording at the same time to see how "off" or "on" you are. A truly invaluable feature. Especially for French which is notoriously difficult to pronounce for many. -User friendly and easy to navigate. Very easy little program to use. I haven't needed to refer to the manual once. -Graded lessons. It has 1,000 lessons. The game keeps track of your progress with the words you've "mastered" along with charts and graphs. -Great reference. Every English and French vocab word and phrase used is listed along with a handy search feature. There's even a "sketch pad" for jotting down notes with the stylus. -Touch screen interface. The DS has two full color screens, one output screen on top and a touch pad/output screen on the bottom. The game uses its DS capacity quite well. -Portability. The DS is highly portable, light-weight and easy to carry and store. Perfect for studying on-the- go! Cons: -What? No articles with the nouns? For some reason, the makers of the game decided to omit the appropriate masculine, feminine and plural articles that are supposed to accompany the French nouns (of course they're included in the phrases in the game, just not the single vocab words). The Spanish version is probably the same way. This annoys me. As a native English speaker, I'm often baffled by why the table is feminine, for example, but its just something that I've learned to accept. We all know how important it is to learn the article with the noun, why are they not stressing the importance of this with this game? Eh, whatever. >_> -You've got to have a DS. If you don't already own a Nintendo DS, you'll have to pony-up about $130.00 for one. This game may not be worth it to you. However, if you do decide to get a DS, I can say that's its a great little game machine for adults and kids alike. With games like "Brainage", "Sudoku", "Phoenix Wright" and "Professor Layton", there's plenty of awesome grown-up, edutainment type games to choose from. -Random glitchiness. There's the occasional little glitch. Nothing too serious. Certainly not enough to make me flush the game down the toilet in frustration. -Not as much grammar explanation as I'd like. Its very vocab heavy with some grammar sprinkled through-out. I actually like learning about French grammar, so I would like more, but its not a deal breaker. Bottom Line: If you study French or Spanish and have a DS, just get this game. Its fun, inexpensive, well made and has a ton of vocabulary and some useful grammar. I'm quite impressed with Ubisoft's thoughtfulness when creating this game. Its not perfect, but well worth the price and I don't think you'll be sorry. And if you do decide to get a Nintendo DS, you'll love it. Its a great little machine with lots of wonderful games. And hey, if you hate My French/Spanish Coach, you can just re-sell it on amazon or ebay. Or re-gift it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ssizz Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5898 days ago 66 posts - 72 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin, Korean | Message 2 of 17 06 May 2008 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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I appreciate this post, because I had no idea about these! I'd heard of Kanji learning tools on the DS but nothing for
other languages. I'm tempted to go out and buy a DS just for the Spanish, but I'm wary about spending that much money when I already have a plethora of Spanish learning stuff already. Somebody needs to work on a Hanzi game for the DS and then I'd probably be up for it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6578 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 3 of 17 07 May 2008 at 3:27am | IP Logged | ||
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There's a nice-looking product for learning Chinese coming up, but the interface and explanations will be in Japanese.
Chuugokugo Gakushuu 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5890 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 17 07 May 2008 at 7:20am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey, i have this product too, i will give some more of my own opinions
Pros It forces it into your memory due to the excersises you must do (forcing you to remember) to move on £20 in UK in most stores (WH Smith, Woolworths, Comet, PC World, Game and more) Cons There's 1000 lessons. If you do 1 a day (about 15 minutes) you will spend 1000 days doing it (near 2.5 years) - but this is also a Pro, long lasting Endless memory excersises - This is good because you really remember it after. But, for someone who uses Memory techniques and such, it can get repetetive (this program uses rote to teach) Overall, Very good program to learn French vocabulary, from beginner to advanced, but i wouldnt rely on it to learn the whole language. TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6724 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 5 of 17 07 May 2008 at 8:24am | IP Logged | ||
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I was thinking about getting this for a friend but changed my mind when I saw another review that mentioned the article's problem. It just seems ridiculous not to include it at all with the vocab, I don't think I would be able to learn properly without worrying about whether this word was masculine or feminine etc.
But I do own a kanji game, Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshuu Kanzenhan, which I love. It is meant for native Japanese speakers, not foreigners but I'm finding it really useful for learning kanji compounds and onyomi. My friend actually owns an English training game(Eigo ga Nigate Otona no DS Toreiningu), which I had a go on and was a bit puzzled by. A lot of the activities seemed to just involve listening to a sentence and then writing the English on the touch screen, which takes a long time, because of English spelling. The highest level activities were really difficult, and I even struggled a bit. It included such lessons as clips from Casablanca and a conversation on a police radio!! The Chuugokugo game looks awesome though. If it gets good reviews I think I might buy it myself, I just love all the semi-educational games for the DS! There's a fair few English educational games but the range for Japan is just amazing! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ssizz Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5898 days ago 66 posts - 72 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin, Korean | Message 6 of 17 07 May 2008 at 9:38am | IP Logged | ||
Nice! Do you know if they have plans to it to English and export it over to the States? A Hanzi game for the DS would definitely be worth the price. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5890 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 17 07 May 2008 at 10:25am | IP Logged | ||
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"There's a nice-looking product for learning Chinese coming up, but the interface and explanations will be in Japanese.
Chuugokugo Gakushuu " The link is to a site in Chinese. Not very good if you want to LEARN chinese lol. TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ssizz Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5898 days ago 66 posts - 72 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin, Korean | Message 8 of 17 07 May 2008 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think you made a mistake...the site he linked is in Japanese.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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