My Japanese Coach - Coming to DS!!!!
:D Ubisoft has announced three new additions to the "My Coach" interactive learning series for the Nintendo DS. Amongst these that excites me most is "My Japanese Coach", which is scheduled for release on Tuesday, September 16th. Below description was copied from GameStop's website: http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=71956 Learn Japanese in a fun and interactive way. Learn Japanese using carefully structured lessons that guide the player through vocabulary and calligraphy exercises. Learn the basic pronunciations unique to the Japanese language. Use the Nintendo DS stylus to write Japanese Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji Characters. Entertaining and relevant mini-games – play through a series of fun and informative mini-games that reinforces the lesson content for the player. Key Features Explore Japan as each point of interest opens up your vocabulary. - Lesson plans take place within interesting locations ranging from Tokyo to the country side - Useful information for first time Japanese speakers planning to visit the country - The world map is identical to the Japanese map and the locations of the country Learn to pronounce sounds unique to Japanese by comparing your voice to a native speaker - Voice recording and playback feature of the DS allows the player to compare his or her accent to a native Japanese speaker. - Ability to listen and compare phrases not just words but also phrases as well. Develop your calligraphy skills as you trace over animations showing the proper way to write in Japanese - Write Japanese characters using the DS stylus and touch screen - Stroke order and comparison ability allows players to properly write hiragana / katakana / kanji Participate in mini-games that will -*test*-('") your grasp of the structured lessons featured in the game - 12 mini-games reinforce lesson plans and the ability to write in Japanese - Variety of mini games ranging from whack-a-mole, word search, bridge builder, and kanji writing Use the built in reference tool to look up useful words and phrases. - Japanese Dictionary and phrasebook with over 12,000 Japanese words and hundreds of useful phrases. - Strong reference points and serves as an independent tool from the game that’s very practical and useful. Don't know about the rest of you, but this is one of those rare items I think warrants pre-ordering.

Kind of old news now, but the release date for this has been pushed forward to October 14th.

Ah, well, turned out the "ship date" was the 14th. Was actually available in stores yesterday, the 15th. Picked up my copy already. Haven't had time to play with it much yet, but I have confirmed it has a categorical "Phrase Book" and a searchable Dictionary, both of which feature an astounding number of entries featuring voice playback of the correct way to say them!

I was looking at this in the store. Would you recommend it based

It's kind of a subjective thing really as obviously not all forms of teaching works on all people. The educational method employeed in My Japanese Coach has so far been pretty straight forward stuff wth the blending with somewhat repetitive games to enforce memorization. So from a long time gamer's perspective, this was just what the doctor ordered. Before I comment any further though I should state that I've only just unlocked the fifth lesson. Believe there to be a hundred lessons in all. You have to stick with it, as the first lesson seems a bit slow, and you can't access the games' main menu until you've passed lesson 1. But once lesson one is completed you'll be able to access the all the extra features, such as dictionary, phrase book, etc.... All in all, you'll unlock a total of twelve different learning oriented mini-games as you progress through the lessons. At present I've only got three of the games available: Hit-a-Word - It's Whack-a-Mole with words. Had this game to glitch on me a couple of times during lesson 2, hasn't happened since and wasn't that big a deal really. What happened was the mole kept appearing for a couple of seconds after getting a score of 100, which caused each additional mole hit to make the score drop. Multiple Choice - Just what it sounds like, a word appears on the top screen and you have four choices to choose from on the bottom screen. This is timed too, giving it the feel of a real -*test*-('"). Word Search - Crosswords with a timer. None of the randomized puzzles have had overlapping words yet, but it still proves a challenge, for me at least. So to answer your question, it is, in my personal opinion, worth owning.

I will probably pick it up. I'm hoping it will increase my Japanese skills enough to notice while watching anime. I suppose I'll be lucky if it accomplishes that.