Learn to Speak Mandarin with My Chinese Coach on Nintendo DS

Friday, June 12, 2009

When I heard out about My Chinese Coach for Nintendo DS, I just had to try it out.

The game begins by giving you a placement test. I scored at the Toddler level. My first lesson involved learning the names of family members.

In "Learning," you are presented with the simplified Chinese characters and their English translations. You can click to see the pinyin and to hear the pronunciation of the words in Mandarin. You can also record your voice speaking the words and compare it to the system's voice. & You can practice writing the Chinese characters.

In "Games," you can do mulitple-choice, where they present the English word and you choose the corresponding Chinese characters. Hit-a-word is the same concept where you play Whack-a-mole with the characters. Tones is where you have to guess which of the 4 tones the word requires. Fading Characters involves having you write out the Chinese characters in the correct stroke order. Flash cards involves being given the Chinese characters and the pronunciation while you choose the correct English translation. More games are unlocked as you progress. After a couple of lessons, I progressed to the rank of Pre-schooler. Woo hoo!

In "Reference," there is an English-Chinese dictionary and a Chinese-English dictionary. You're given the simplified and traditional characters, as well as the pinyin and English translations. The phrase book covers dining, shopping, travel, conversation, entertainment, emergency, and miscellaneous catgories. There's also a sketchpad for doodling.

Overall, I would say that this game is really cool, in that it gives short lessons to teach Chinese characters, the pronunciation, the pinyin, and the English translation. It's actually great for those who have had some prior experience with the language and just need to brush up. However, it's quite difficult to pass each level, because you are expected to be able to recognize, understand, and write out each simplified Chinese character in the correct stroke order. This is not something my preschooler could do, and I think my 1st grader would find it very challenging, too. For those who simply want to gain verbal fluency, and not necessarily literacy, it would be nice if the writing component were optional.