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| Let's Nihongo! | (Entered Aug. 23, 2008) | When in Tokyo... | |||||||
All of us expats have been there at one time or another. We wake up one day and realize that we've been living in our respective home away from homes for some time now, but still can't say much more than 'thanks' or 'beer' in the local language. So you sign up for some classes, or find a conversation partner, or heaven forbid, buy a book on the language and try to tackle it yourself. And what happens? The classes end up being too expensive, you never get around to meeting the conversation partner a second time, and the language books are boring. I know as I've tried all three, and all of them more than once. So where do you turn to next? Your computer of course!
After a long journey over the Pacific, it finally arrived this Monday. It came with three different CD-ROMs (beginner, intermediate and advanced), a booklet on Japanese culture, plus a speaker/headphone set and retails for an impressive $250.00. I started with the beginner CD just for the sake of review, but it was way too easy for me. Intermediate was a bit more difficult, and by the 6th lesson it was finally starting to challenge me with grammar and kanji I didn't know or had long forgotten. The advanced CD was moderately difficult, but the pace didn't pick up to a much higher level like I had hoped. Still, it wasn't easy either, and there were a fair number of words and kanji that I didn't know. Here's the user interface. To be honest I'm not sure what kind of connection a movie set has with learning Japanese. Maybe it's fun for kids, but I don't really need a gimmick. Just give me a simple user interface with a few small graphics.
The exercises were grouped into 10 different sections like 'choose the right word from the picture', 'crossword puzzles', 'connect the English words with the Japanese words' etc. Some were more useful than others, but the fact that nowhere in the program can you write anything down gave me the overall impression that something important was missing. I understand the reasoning though. Auralog is probably thinking that a) most people are more interested in speaking anyway, and (b) most of their customers don't have a Japanese keyboard, or software that allows you to write in Japanese, so they didn't include it.
The grammar section was well laid out and fairly concise, but it might've been better if it were more dynamic. As it is, it's just a book on your screen that explains various grammar rules. It does have clickable words that take you to lessons that incorporate those rules however.
The most interesting part was the dialogue section, where you have a 'conversation' with the program. Altogether, there are 18 different topics that you can choose from. The conversation starts, you listen, and respond to whatever the program says to you, following one of the three choices below. It's quite strict with you actually. If you hesitate or make a mistake, the program makes you repeat yourself until it's satisfied with your pronunciation. Another nice feature is that if you don't know the kanji or word, you can just click on it to hear either its pronunciation or how to read it. The only complaint I have with this section is that you are limited to the three responses built into the program, so basically you're just reading a prepared script. Though I suppose that until AI comes along it'll have to do.
Despite the limitations I mentioned above, Tell Me More - Japanese is a good overall program. It runs quickly, it's easy to follow and understand, it's fun to use, and is beneficial for people who want to improve their grammar, kanji, fluency and pronunciation.
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Harajuku to Tokyo, Park Photowalk |
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