漢検DS: Kanji Kentei on the Nintendo DS

There is a God. September 28 will see the release of a Kanji Kentei (漢字検定) training  application for the Nintendo DS. Check out an overview here. A full review when I get my hands on it.

Comments

[Scott]

Interesting. I'm currently in country on my honeymoon(currently in the Toyoko Inn in Ueno ). I'll have to keep an eye out for this on the 28th. How does the difficulty level seem?

On a side note: My Japanese? Near wholly inadequate!

[Josh]

Will this program only work on Japanese DS?

[homodachi]

That looks really awesome. Do you know of the PS2 Kanji Kentei game? (www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0001AE23U/) It's pretty cheap at 2000円, and has practice KanKen tests and a few minigames. However, what my friends all complain about is that the tests in the game are easier than the actual tests, because you have to write the kanji on the test, something which is impossible on the PS2. With the option to hand-write the kanji in the DS version, plus the fact that DS games are region-free, this should be a great little app!

[George]

The Japanese games work on the US version of the DS

[Hugh]

Although, since it is made for Japanese students studying Kanji and not for foreigners studying Japanese, is it useful for studying Kanji as a foreigner?
Feedback would be great =)

[Vera]

This game is fantastic! I am in my final push to 3-kyuu this weekend. It tests kanji in tons of different ways with different types of tests and questions. It tests hiragana to kanji, kanji to hiragana, stroke order, opposites, and all kinds to stuff. Many of the exerises give the kanji in a sentence, so it's good reading and vocab practice as well. It's really helping me get a lot of my different readings straight.

While it is designed for Japanese people (read: everything is in Japanese), it is fortunately also pretty intuitive to manage, and I haven't had to much trouble figuring out what everything is, even with my limited Japanese. The sentences are mostly pretty simple, although I do use my dictionary for some kid-friendly yet obscure words (I keep getting sentences about woodpeckers.)

Two biggest negatives for me are:
1) the kanji lists are done by Japanese grade, and don't line up with the JLPT list (although there is a lot of overlap). Also,
2) the games are waaaaay over my head, so I have to stick to the training and tests part.

Totally recommended for anyone who is seriously studying Japanese. Anyone who has their hiragana and katakana down will get something out of this game.