正しい漢字かきちりくん
-A Japanese learner’s perspective review
Gacha-Gacha Review:
Level: Intermediate Japanese students
The Good: Great for reinforcing the basic 1,006 kanji. Vocabulary and “fill in the kanji”
games are great for vocabulary building / comprehension review.
The Bad: No readings (onyoumi / kunyoumi) are presented onscreen as you practice.
Assumes user has studied kanji at least one time.
The Ugly: Clunky menu layout has you tapping way too many times to get to each kanji.
Only one choice for music and sound effects that quickly grate on nerves (can
be turned off though).
Nitty-Gritty Review:
Hey all! Shane here, I thought I’d give a review of the Nintendo DS title “Tadashi Kanji Kakitori-kun" (the one mentioned here by Chris on our site last month) for all of us Japanese studying DS users. Is it worth the import cost to pick this title up? Will it suit your Japanese study needs? Well, read on to find out!
First let’s talk a little about what this title is and who it’s aimed at so we can get an idea of its intended target audience and put that into perspective of its strengths and flaws for us, the non-native speaker.
Basically this title is *exactly* what it says it is, a training program to write Japanese kanji correctly. Writing kanji, in this case, means to be able to write the kanji in their proper stroke order, i.e. left to right, top to bottom, etc. It seems to be designed as a supplemental aimed at Japanese school children (grades 1-6) who are learning the basic 1,006 kanji at school. The main reason why I think this is both the software’s best, and weakest, point..so let’s move into that area now shall we?
The meat and bones of this title is in its ability for the user to pick any off the 1,006 elementary school kanji (divided by year level in tab form) and see their stroke order on the display screen while the user writes the kanji on the input screen. This section is called かきとり in the main menu. There is an option to turn on a outline of the kanji on the input screen, making copying a little easier. After the kanji is copied, the “teacher” evaluates the kanji and gives a score. If it is over 50% then you have “passed” the kanji and the percentage of completed kanji goes up in the main menu screen. This system though I found to be rather arbitrary in its grading. Some times I deliberately wrote kanji sloppily and received 90%, other times I painstakingly copied the outline and only got a 60%. The only time you seem to fail is when you, of course, get the stroke order wrong. So the grading system has little to no use.
Unfortunately for non-native speakers, only the kanji is displayed in this section. No readings are displayed or accessible to the user. This is why I feel it is directed to students who have already studied the readings and meanings of the kanji as the training emphasis is on stroke order and nothing else in this part of the software. I have heard the argument that you can just use a kanji dictionary along with this part of the software, but I think that kind of defeats the purpose as usually dictionaries (good ones) will show the stroke order along with the definition. That being said, for Japanese students who already know the readings and want a brush up, it’s perfect.
The other half of this software (ドリル and 力だめし in the main menu) consists of kanji / vocabulary drills and a series of mini-games. This is where this software really shines for intermediate Japanese students or students already familiar with a number of the basic 1,006. The drills present the user with a short, one to two sentence paragraph with missing kanji. But this time around there is furigana written to show what kanji must be written.
Interestingly enough, in the drills you have access to a kanji and vocabulary dictionary that gives you the readings and example sentences. [Edit: 07/04/07: Just wanted to update this a little with how to find that sub-menu where you can access the readings for kanji. If you go to the ドリル section and then play the 漢字ドリル, don't enter anything. The game thinks you are stumped and thinking and a little pen with a question mark pops up and points to the box you have to click to get to the sub-menu. Keep in mind you only get the readings for the kanji that it is asking you about..it's not really like a searchable dictionary or anything. It is also available in the 熟語 section also, but only when you are writing a kanji, not hiragana.]
Again though, a working knowledge of hiragana / katakana and moderate grammar skills are necessary to read anything..so it’s little use to a beginner student. Intermediate students though will find these tests and dictionaries well worth their time, especially the vocabulary tests that present words that are commonly used in speech, but not used in Japanese textbooks. Written kanji here are also graded, but even though I had chosen the correct kanji and wrote it in the correct stroke order, the system seemed to have graded my style a little more harshly and I was made to do the passage over again if it didn’t like my kanji.
Lastly the mini-games are unlockable (as in there is one game for each of the 6 levels) as you progress through the written kanji in practice mode. It mainly consists of giving you up to 5 simple kanji and a hint for the user to combine them into a more complex, single kanji that fits the given hint. Other games have you filling in a kanji crossword puzzle so that kanji line up to make words and fill in the blank spots. These games were really challenging and fun to play, but again, probably suited to intermediate students as the hints are written using grade school level grammar.
The only two major complaints I have about this game are that the menus are very clunky, requiring multiple taps to get past instructions in order to start tracing the kanji. This must be done for each kanji you select Also there is only one selection of music and sounds effects that grate on your nerves very easily, luckily thought you can turn them off in the options menu.
In conclusion, if you’re an intermediate Japanese language learner, then this might be a title you would want to consider picking up (although I will have to say that I paid 35$ dollars for mine, and felt I was little over charged for the amount of content I got….or didn’t get that is). If your new to Japanese (probably been studying 8 months or less) or on the fence, then I’d have to say stay away from this game and invest in a good kanji book (like Basic Kanji).
Okay then! Hope that helps! 頑張ってね！
Hey all! Shane here, I thought I’d give a review of the Nintendo DS title “Tadashi Kanji Kakitori-kun" (the one mentioned here by Chris on our site last month) for all of us Japanese studying DS users. Is it worth the import cost to pick this title up? Will it suit your Japanese study needs? Well, read on to find out!
First let’s talk a little about what this title is and who it’s aimed at so we can get an idea of its intended target audience and put that into perspective of its strengths and flaws for us, the non-native speaker.
Basically this title is *exactly* what it says it is, a training program to write Japanese kanji correctly. Writing kanji, in this case, means to be able to write the kanji in their proper stroke order, i.e. left to right, top to bottom, etc. It seems to be designed as a supplemental aimed at Japanese school children (grades 1-6) who are learning the basic 1,006 kanji at school. The main reason why I think this is both the software’s best, and weakest, point..so let’s move into that area now shall we?
The meat and bones of this title is in its ability for the user to pick any off the 1,006 elementary school kanji (divided by year level in tab form) and see their stroke order on the display screen while the user writes the kanji on the input screen. This section is called かきとり in the main menu. There is an option to turn on a outline of the kanji on the input screen, making copying a little easier. After the kanji is copied, the “teacher” evaluates the kanji and gives a score. If it is over 50% then you have “passed” the kanji and the percentage of completed kanji goes up in the main menu screen. This system though I found to be rather arbitrary in its grading. Some times I deliberately wrote kanji sloppily and received 90%, other times I painstakingly copied the outline and only got a 60%. The only time you seem to fail is when you, of course, get the stroke order wrong. So the grading system has little to no use.
Unfortunately for non-native speakers, only the kanji is displayed in this section. No readings are displayed or accessible to the user. This is why I feel it is directed to students who have already studied the readings and meanings of the kanji as the training emphasis is on stroke order and nothing else in this part of the software. I have heard the argument that you can just use a kanji dictionary along with this part of the software, but I think that kind of defeats the purpose as usually dictionaries (good ones) will show the stroke order along with the definition. That being said, for Japanese students who already know the readings and want a brush up, it’s perfect.
The other half of this software (ドリル and 力だめし in the main menu) consists of kanji / vocabulary drills and a series of mini-games. This is where this software really shines for intermediate Japanese students or students already familiar with a number of the basic 1,006. The drills present the user with a short, one to two sentence paragraph with missing kanji. But this time around there is furigana written to show what kanji must be written.
Interestingly enough, in the drills you have access to a kanji and vocabulary dictionary that gives you the readings and example sentences. [Edit: 07/04/07: Just wanted to update this a little with how to find that sub-menu where you can access the readings for kanji. If you go to the ドリル section and then play the 漢字ドリル, don't enter anything. The game thinks you are stumped and thinking and a little pen with a question mark pops up and points to the box you have to click to get to the sub-menu. Keep in mind you only get the readings for the kanji that it is asking you about..it's not really like a searchable dictionary or anything. It is also available in the 熟語 section also, but only when you are writing a kanji, not hiragana.]
Again though, a working knowledge of hiragana / katakana and moderate grammar skills are necessary to read anything..so it’s little use to a beginner student. Intermediate students though will find these tests and dictionaries well worth their time, especially the vocabulary tests that present words that are commonly used in speech, but not used in Japanese textbooks. Written kanji here are also graded, but even though I had chosen the correct kanji and wrote it in the correct stroke order, the system seemed to have graded my style a little more harshly and I was made to do the passage over again if it didn’t like my kanji.
Lastly the mini-games are unlockable (as in there is one game for each of the 6 levels) as you progress through the written kanji in practice mode. It mainly consists of giving you up to 5 simple kanji and a hint for the user to combine them into a more complex, single kanji that fits the given hint. Other games have you filling in a kanji crossword puzzle so that kanji line up to make words and fill in the blank spots. These games were really challenging and fun to play, but again, probably suited to intermediate students as the hints are written using grade school level grammar.
The only two major complaints I have about this game are that the menus are very clunky, requiring multiple taps to get past instructions in order to start tracing the kanji. This must be done for each kanji you select Also there is only one selection of music and sounds effects that grate on your nerves very easily, luckily thought you can turn them off in the options menu.
In conclusion, if you’re an intermediate Japanese language learner, then this might be a title you would want to consider picking up (although I will have to say that I paid 35$ dollars for mine, and felt I was little over charged for the amount of content I got….or didn’t get that is). If your new to Japanese (probably been studying 8 months or less) or on the fence, then I’d have to say stay away from this game and invest in a good kanji book (like Basic Kanji).
Okay then! Hope that helps! 頑張ってね！
13 comments:
Good review! I haven't played through this one very much but agree with all the pro's and con's already mentioned.
The game is definitely one of the most beginner friendly Kanji trainers out there but those coming to it with no Kanji knowledge at all might find it a little frustrating due to the lack of readings. But for people familiar with the basics and people looking to improve their writing or learn and practise stroke order, this is a very valuable title.
I found the writing recognition to be a bit hit and miss at times too. Even with correct stroke order and the tracing lines being followed as closely as I could sometimes it would give me 0 points. Yet at other times I could write very sloppily and get 100 points so go figure.
Finally, yes, there is a bit too much repetitive clicking needed to get from Kanji to Kanji in the menu and then to load it up for review. The music can get a little grating also but thankfully that's why Nintendo put volume control on the DS.
Thanks! Glad that it sorta matched up with your experience also.
I am very appreciative of the reviews but I was wondering if you could name some ds games that are good at teaching the Japanese language (Japanese to English/English to Japanese)? Thanks again!72
Hello! Thanks for reading the reviews...glad you liked them.
Unfortunality as of now, there really are no games that *teach* Japanese. All of the games we reviewed here are for native Japanese speakers to review their previously learned Japanese. The closest you can get is something like an English training program that is for Japanese people to study English, that would essentially be an English to Japanese training program. But you would still have to get through the menus and other things in Japanese (Plus the Japanese would be for native speakers).
So hopefully someday in the near future we will see a title that is for the Japanese language learner, keep an eye on here since if ones does pop up, we'll have the news about it! We also have some more reviews in the piplines, so watch out for those....
You mentioned that onyomi/kunyomi were not available and therefore a drawback to the game. Now I have not played through all of this game yet and I have not played it in a while, so I can't recall completely, but I distinctly remember being able to access these readings. It was absolutely not intuitive and I found it by accident.
Does this sound familiar to anyone? Did I miss this in the main review?
Anyway, I am so glad that you guys are doing this. Keep up the good work. I am reading!!
Hey Joshua!
Thanks for reading the review! Hmmm, I mentioned that there is no readings in the writing section, when you are かきとり part of the game..there are no reading for the kanji nor any buttons that might let you access them. But in the drill section you do have access. I probably could have made it clearer, but it's in the paragraph that starts with "The other half...", so I'll update the review a little.
When your in the drill section though, and you doing the 漢字ドリル or the 熟語ドリル, at the top if you click on the box that shows what you inputted, then it brings up a sub-menu where you can access the reading for the kanji. You wouldn't even know it's there but for the fact that if you wait and don't enter anything on the screen, the game assumes your stumped and a little pen pointing at the box with a question mark pops up to show you that you can click there.
Thanks though for reading! We hope you find it interesting!
Hey budz,
great reviews... thanx for writing them :D
I just started a crash course in Japanese and am still at beginner level.
I read above that this game is ok for beginners, and I'm also thinking about getting Kodomo no Tame no Yomi Kikase Ehon de Asobou, which is a children's book on DS. Any other games you can recommend me?
This is the best kanji trainer I have found, it really works for beginners or intermediate peplo who wants to learn kanji. Buy it, you will not regret!!
Would you recommend this one or the new one that just came out? The new one seems to have more kanji (up to 1945 I believe) but does that mean it leaves out some of what the original had??
I have both this one and the new one. New one has more kanji and more features (more drill modes) but you can't choose a specific year in elementary school level in drill mode. You can choose elementary school and it asks from 1000 or so kanji, which is bad because I'm in 1st year level.
I'm interested in Tadashi Kanji Kakitorikun, or the new version.. I hear it's great for writing practice (esp. since it enforces you to write the correct stroke order - but does it give you much chance to do reading practice? Also - given that my kanji-writing ability is very low - i.e. starting from the very basics, would I be better getting the 1st version that has only 1006 characters, or the new version with all 1945 Joyo characters?
I read the previous comment that in the drills section, you can choose either elementary level (which could throw any of the first 1000 kanji at you), or higher level kanji.
But as far as learning to write the kanji, practising over and over, getting corrections / feedback, would I be better getting the newer version?
Also - what kind of mini-games are included? I'm especially interested in what reading practice games are included?
Thanks in advance,
HP
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so which one is actually the new version? i have one, but the bird on the cover is bigger than the one on the picture here. so is it the new one?
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