I've always been impressed with the Nintendo DS educational capabilities. Arguably the most popular DS game is Brain Age, which requires you to complete certain tasks or puzzles and then tells you how old it thinks your brain is. But there are many more educational games available out there to choose from, namely a language study series from French gaming developer Ubisoft. And for anyone who is trying to acquire Asian languages you'll be happy to hear that My Chinese Coach and, just recently, My Japanese Coach have been released as a part of that series. 

I've tried both, and I'm really excited to see language learning finally become a little more fun. Personally, I don't have the stamina to pour through grammar books, so learning tools like these are a great help. The stylus and touchscreen are great for practicing Chinese and Japanese characters, and the game (if you can call it a game--it's more like a course) is extremely deep and suitable for many levels of learning.

An unexpected bonus was that both games also take full advantage of the DS' built-in mic, thus giving you an opportunity to test your speaking ability. Both My Chinese Coach and My Japanese Coach let you listen to pre-recorded words and sentences, and then prompt you to record your own voice see how it compares.

If you'd like to inject a little excitement into your language learning, I highly recommend giving either of these games a try. 



(Apologies for the unusual screenshot. Apparently, whoever took this one has a sense of humor...)

 

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