My Chinese Coach (Nintendo DS, 2008)

Just brilliant! So simple to get to grips with, even my mum can use it!

It begins with an (optional) assessment test to check your level, and once completed, the game moves you forward to a lesson appropriate for your level.

The lessons involve learning words and phrases on a given subject (e.g. colours) using several games (I've yet to unlock them all!) such as hit-a-word (basically whack-a-mole with words underneath them), flashcards, multiple choice questions, and a brilliant tones game where it shows you a word or phrase with the tone missing, and you pick the right one.

By far the best element of this game, is the Speaking Tests. If you're unfamiliar with the My Coach series (as I was) then you'll be blown away by this too! You tap a button to hear how the word sounds, then tap another button TO RECORD YOUR VOICE! you can then play both you and the woman's voice together to make sure you got it right! Genius!! Ahem, moving on...

The game advances as you earn "Mastery Points" for everything you get right, and you need to master a lesson to unlock the next one- a good one for me because I'm a sucker for taking a peek at more difficult exercises when I'm learning languages!

The game also includes a dictionary, phrasebook, and a sketchpad, where I like to make a note of characters I spot while out and about for later grilling!

I would say sometimes the characters are a bit small, but so far for me, I haven't confused any- and when it comes to practicing writing them, they're huge anyway! I haven't seen any characters that look too similar in the same lesson as yet, but those with poor eyesight might have some trouble.

Overall, a brilliant find- it's just a shame it isn't out in the UK!!

my son likes Chinese and he will be able to learn the language by using his DS. He hasn't received it yet because it is a Christmas present.

I like that this game is simple it contains a dictionary, you can record your voice and compare your pronunciation, there are games, dictionary and multiple choice questions, my daughter and me love it.

Bought it for my boyfriend, because I really liked what Japanese Coach. The writing system they have needs work on it. I'm a native speaker, but I know nothing about the pin yin... so I scored low on the test... Has some good tools in it though. Great place to start. Can't wait till they start using simplified Chinese.

I've studied Chinese for several years, and I mostly got this game in order to brush up on my characters. It does that task adequately, but I could see room for improvement; it'd be nice if you could set the fading character game to not show the character at all, and force the player to recall it entirely from memory, that would be nice.
There a few technical problems in the game; My Chinese Coach and I seem to be forever at odds with how many strokes there are in the radical for "woman," for example. The writing recognition software is still pretty fuzzy, and will often accept characters that aren't drawn properly.
One very nice thing is that my brain seems to register MCC as "recreation" rather than "studying," which is a good way to trick me into studying more.
I would suspect that this sort of game would be most helpful if you had studied a language, been out of practice for a while, and wanted to get back into the swing of it again (for this reason, I plan on getting a copy of My Japanese Coach sometime soon).

Pro: This is a great fun way to learn Chinese. There are learning tools like listening, audio, and writing, as well as games. I love the library where you can search an english word and it will gives you not just the mandarin translation, but also the audio. So if you travel to China and need to ask for something, you can just click it and it will read it out loud. How convenient. The audio tool is excelent as it lets you repeat the word and record it to match the teacher's voice.

Cons on this item is that the stroke writing is too difficult to follow because the strokes are done too fast. I had to keep repeating it just to catch which way the strokes go. You see the words being written like magic, too fast. Can't follow at all. Also the screen is too small to fit a few chinese characters. You see a bunch of tiny lines but not something very clear. However when you click on each character to learn to write, you will see a clearer and bigger version. If the characters are very complicated... it will not appear clearly. I have to use online search to get the write strokes. There is also a slight defect on the system because you can write the character wrongly and it register it as correct. Most likely because the ds was counting the strokes. Sometimes I have not finish writing the character and it already says "correct". Sometimes it doesn't let me finish my character because it just jammed... maybe it should have 8 strokes, and I paused and write it, so it recorded mine as more than 8 strokes.

Conclusion, still a good buy. If you care to learn and not worry about writing it correctly, definately get this!

I like portable learning programs. I appreciate any opportunity to learn something. This is awesome. Love the program.

A stumbled on this by accident and am so happy that I did. My daughter absolutely loves it. She's been working hard on her Chinese, with the help of some friends. One of her friends, fluent in Chinese, also has this same game.

Can't wait to see my daughter, my Chinese daughter's, face when she opens this gift on Christmas Day. EBAY was a great experience - love shopping from the sofa.

price is ok.
easy to use.
one drawback is it doesn't support traditional Chinese, only support simplify Chinese.

Great way to have fun and learn for kids AND adults. I would get this while you can. I heard its going out of circulation.

I wanted an easy way to learn chinese. It basic, easy to learn, great games, love that you can hear how the word is pronounced. It has a dictionary, phrasebook, lots & lots of GREAT stuff.

This game is a fun way to practice Mandarin. Incorpoates lessons and games. Plus easy look up of terms, phrases, etc. Teaches listening, speaking and writing. Stroke order is too fast for beginners, and cannot be adjusted. Has a fun sketch section.