If you’ve ever wondered what it’d be like if one of the world’s best video game developers worked together with one of the best animation studios to create a video game, take a look below. This is the trailer for Level 5 (Dragon Quest 8 and 9, Professor Layton series) and Studio Ghibli’s (My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Ponyo) collaborative Nintendo DS game, Ninokuni or “The Another World.”
Ever since discovering Smart.fm (formerly known as iKnow.co.jp - see below), I’ve decided to spend more of my time and energy into the pursuit of learning Japanese. I’ve always been interested in combining technology to help facilitate learning and have taken this approach towards acquiring the Japanese language.
Over the past 6 months, I’ve scoured the internet and completely geeked out on every single aspect of the language and I’ve found a plethora or helpful tools and techniques to share.
Here are some things to forward to in the next few posts:
-The best iPhone/iPod Touch applications for studying vocabulary and Kanji on the go or looking up Kanji simply by writing the character with your fingertip.
-Japanese podcasts to listen to/watch on the go either when you’re waiting in line or driving to and from work or school.
-An amazing manga (Japanese comic) for beginners and I’ve even made vocabulary lists for a bunch of chapters to share on Smart.fm.
-A great book of short stories to introduce you to real contemporary Japanese literature.
-Great Japanese video games on Nintendo DS, Wii, and PS3 that offer a great starting point for reading and listening comprehension.
-New tech developments to look out for like translating Kanji text on the fly by taking a photo of the text using a certain portable gaming console.
I’ve constantly been searching for technology that can facilitate learning and recently stumbled upon one of the best free tools for learning Japanese. iKnow.co.jp is a web site where English speakers can learn Japanese vocabulary and Kanji (there’s also a ton of Japanese users on there that are learning English). You start by creating a log in or use an existing Google or Yahoo account and then enroll in some classes. Beginners are quizzed on Hiragana and Katakana characters while intermediate learners can start out with the first 2000 words, which is split up into 10 lessons. For those that already speak Japanese at home but want to learn Kanji, there is an option to do the lessons with a Kanji focus. For the upper intermediate to advanced folks, there’s the 6000 class, which adds 4000 on top of the basic 2000, where you’ll eventually end up reading Japanese newspapers without batting an eye. In addition to the default 6000 words, there are hundreds of user generated lists like Japanese RPG vocabulary, vocab words from Hiragana Times articles, and even vocab lists from the Minna no Nihongo text book I used in Japan.
A calendar tracks your progress, ala Brain Age or Wii Fit, and suggests that you study at least 30 items a day. It isn’t hard at all to find some time during a commercial break or lunch break since each 10 word quiz can take as little as 5 minutes.
Following the trend of Google apps of storing everything in the data cloud, iKnow! keeps your progress stored with your profile so you can continue where you left off from any computer instead of having to install a program like Rosetta Stone on one computer.
iKnow! offers many Web 2.0 features such as blogging your progress in journal entries, a friends list, and broadcasting your progress like the Facebook newsfeed, which can keep you motivated or even competitive like Trophies on the PSN or Achievements on Xbox Live.
I’ve been using the site for about a week so far and can’t get enough of it. It makes learning Japanese so fun that it feels like it should be illegal for being so addictive. It also feels good to be using the time otherwise wasted on Facebook or online games and putting it into something similar but useful.
Here is a video of what iKnow! looks like:
A dog and a bust of Napoleon discuss Street Fighter II in this Portuguese TV show.
via GameTrailers.com
It’s the end of the week so I thought I’d do a MEGA POST starting with a trailer for a live action Mega Man fan movie made by Eddie Lebron.
Check out the Proto Man cameo at 2:29. The guy playing Dr. Wiley is spot on. I’m sure the actress playing Roll could be cute without the wig, but it unfortunately makes her look like a dude. This movie looks like a very ambitious project and I can’t wait to see it when it’s finished. Check http://www.megamanfilm.com/ for more details.
To continue this post, here is a really creative fan ad for Mega Man’s most recent appearance in the video game world, Mega Man 9. Mega Man 9 took the series back to its roots and reintroduced the NES-style graphics and gameplay similar to Mega Man 2. It is available for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii as a downloadable game. The music for this ad is Concrete Man’s theme.
Mega Man (in his Mega Man Legends helmetless form) will also be appearing in the upcoming Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation Heroes, which is a spiritual successor to the the Marvel vs. Capcom series. It will be released on December 11th for Nintendo Wii but be ready to import it because it looks like the game will not be leaving Japanese shores due to the licensing nightmare that would ensue due to Tatsunoko’s distribution rights being owned by various companies in the US.
I’d like to end it all with an oldie but a goodie. Okkusenman is a song about our childhood memories, which may include Mega Man or Ultraman and it is done to the theme music to Dr. Wiley’s Castle from Mega Man 2. The song became hugely popular a year or two ago and has spawned many covers and even flash animated music videos.
Japanese owners of the Nintendo DS have been using it for all sorts of uses outside of games, like learning how to cook with Shaberu! Dīesu Oryōri Nabi or using it as a sweet synthesizer with the Korg DS-10. It looks like this trend is finally coming to the U.S. as people begin to discover how versatile the hardware can be for education.
A recent example of this is the new game called My Chinese Coach, published by Ubisoft. This game falls under a whole series of titles that teach language with the Nintendo DS. Previous titles include My French Coach, My Spanish Coach, My Word Coach, and My Japanese Coach is expected to be released in October.
I am ethnically Chinese but I have grown up speaking a dialect of Chinese known as Fukienese or Fujianese, which is so different from Mandarin that it is almost like learning a completely new language. So I went in without much prior knowledge other than the basic fortune-cookie Chinese of Ni hao (Hello) and Xie Xie (Thank you).
I was expecting My Chinese Coach to be a rather shallow program but boy was I wrong. The first lesson introduced me to Pinyin, which is the romanized version of Chinese. It does this by playing a sample of each sound through the speakers and then allows you to record your own voice with the DS’s built-in microphone. You can then play it back and view the waveforms of the recording and compare and retry until you have the correct pronunciation.
The next lesson introduced the 5 different tones and how to read them in Pinyin. A word like ma can be said differently with rising or lowering intonation to mean different things. For example, ma said with a low tone to a higher tone like a question can mean “hemp,” while ma with a high to low tone means “scold.”
These lessons were followed by mini games where you rack up points and “level up” each word. The first minigame is a multiple choice quiz where you have to match the Pinyin or Chinese characters with the English word and vice versa. The next game is a whack-a-mole style game where you are told to only whack the mole that pops up with a specific Chinese character. I found that this greatly forced me to recognize a Chinese character in a short period of time. Another game makes you write the Chinese character with the correct stroke order on top of an example in the background. Each time you write it, the character that you are tracing begins to disappear faster until you are forced to write the character without any guidance. As someone who has had to write Japanese characters over and over in the past, this is an excellent way of learning how to write properly.
As you “level up” each word with each one you get right, you eventually master the word after you get enough right. After you master all the words, it will unlock the new lesson. There is a addictively rewarding satisfaction in unlocking new lessons similar to leveling up your character in World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy. This is also good because it really does require you to master everything and prevents you from skipping through all the lessons. One thing I was worried about was that the game would not be robust enough for people who were experienced with the language. So I asked my Mom, who’s fluent in Chinese, to try it out. She was able to skip through the really basic lessons by taking a proficiency test at the beginning. She really liked how it taught her the proper tones and pronunciation and she told me that she had actually learned a lot of things wrong when she learned it in the Philippines. I was shocked to find that it teaches you over 12,000 words!
Here’s a little vid of the placement test:
My Chinese Coach may not be a complete substitute for a college level language course, but for people who can’t afford classes or don’t have time for them, it’s a great way to get your feet wet and familiarize yourself with a language so you will be primed and ready if you do decide to take some classes. I liken it to having a portable Rosetta Stone with you when you’re waiting in line or taking the bus or train. These games are also great for people who have learned a language in the past and need a refresher. My Chinese Coach is $29.99 and available wherever Nintendo DS games are sold.
As someone who is also studying Japanese, I also can’t wait for My Japanese Coach, which uses the same format to teach Japanese and arrives later this month on October 15. I will be sure to post my impressions.
Here’s an excellent cover of Daft Punk’s “Something About Us.” It’s done by Randy George via Reddit.
He’s using a Nintendo DS with Jam Sessions (known as Hiite Utaeru DS Guitar M-06 originally in Japan), a Moog theremin (I had no idea that Moog even made theremins!), and vocoder and keyboard powered by Ableton Live.
Randy George Cover:
Original “Something About Us” Music Video:
So I was cooking juicy steaks today and enjoying my day off by remembering what Independence Day is all about: to commemorate the day that Will Smith saved the world from aliens back in ‘96. Remember when he punched one in the head? That was outstanding. He even saved us again from zombie/vampire things in December last year, which I think is probably the reason why people celebrate Christmas.
Well I offer a 4th of Julyish tip that may improve your life as it has exponentially changed mine forever and even made me want to post about it.
My tip is how to get those coals on fire in your grill without lighter fluid. If you are a manly man, you know that the only way to start a fire is by polishing the bottom of a Coke can with a chocolate bar to reflect the sun into highly focused beam of light to ignite your coals (this method is actually doable as shown in episode 45 of the Mythbusters). But I’m really lazy and want to light things as fast as possible. Usually I just pile the coals into a pyramid and then give them a healthy Homer Simpson dousing of lighter fluid and toss a match at it and hope my eyebrows don’t get burned off. This usually takes a couple tries to get it going, doesn’t light all the coals evenly, and makes my food taste sorta funny. So the secret tip of the day is to use a Charcoal Chimney instead.
I picked one up at Target for about 7 bucks today and filled the bottom of it with about 4 sheets of wrinkled newspaper. Then I filled the rest of it to the top with charcoal, lit the newspaper from the bottom, walked away and played some Katamari Damacy (which was on sale last week on Amazon for $9.99). When I came back 15 minutes later, the coals were bright red and I was just amazed how quick and simple it was. I owe this tip to my bro-in-law after seeing him miraculously make a fire in mere minutes using a charcoal chimney to start a fire to cook delicious Korean galbi.
I apologize if I might be the last person on Earth to know about using charcoal chimneys so bear with me if you already know this and pretend you just read something new and interesting and act surprised.
As a personal note, I know I haven’t updated this site in over 2 months. So I think I owe all of you an explanation. I’m sorry but it’s sorta a long story but my life recently got flipped upside down. So if you have a minute, just sit right there and I’ll tell you how I became the Prince of Bel Air. In West Philadelphia born and raised, on the playground is where I spent most of my days. Chillin’ out, maxin’, relaxin’, all cool. And all shootin’ some b-ball outside of the school. When a couple of guys, who were up to no good. Started makin’ trouble in my neighborhood. I got in one little fight and my mom got scared. And said, “You’re movin’ with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air.”
The Meat Bun blog has just opened its online store to the public. These video game influenced t-shirts will run you around $29.99 each. I just can’t get enough of these designs like the one with the 4 Nintendo Gods Presidents, a Polo parody shirt that turns out to be Wander and Agro from Shadow of the Colossus, the 4th generation of gaming systems (Super Nintendo, Neo Geo, Mega Drive, and TurboGrafx-16), and a Street Fighter II fight poster shirt.
These designs and more are available at the Meat Bun website now!
If you like these shirts, I also recommend taking a look at The King of Games store. They have some fucking amazing Nintendo shirt designs but are a bit pricey since they’re all imported from Japan.
Damn, why didn’t I think of this? Hmm… perhaps we’ll see some Gorgonzola Cheese t-shirts in the future?
What ever happened to good old fashioned riddles? As a gamer, I see an occasional puzzle or riddle here and there in between killing zombies or saving princesses in my green tunic. What about a game that was so full of riddles, you couldn’t walk anywhere or progress at all unless you solved each one? And how about throwing in some of the best animation ever seen on the Nintendo DS? And a Detective Conan-esque subplot? Mix that all up and stir it around and you’ve got yourself Professor Layton and the Curious Village.
Professor Layton is a new game for Nintendo DS, created by Level-5, that requires you to solve puzzles and riddles along the way to unveil bits and pieces to help you solve a greater mystery going on. It was one of the best selling games in Japan last year especially due to the older casual gamers and just recently got translated for folks in the US.
You follow Professor Layton and his assistant around St. Mystere talking to the townfolk, which all have riddles or puzzles that need to be solved. It is all done in an adventure game style (a la 90s Lucas Arts games) and utilizes the touch screen perfectly to navigate and search for secrets like coins. These coins are hidden in random locations like barrels or paintings and can be used to give you hints in case you stumble upon a riddle that is just impossible to solve.
EXAMPLE: One riddle gives you 8 weights. They all look identical except 1 weight is lighter than the rest while the rest weigh the same. There is an old fashioned balance scale nearby that you may only use twice. How can you determine which one is the lighter one? I’ll let you guys answer in the comments section.
No matter how much you play the Brain Age games, the most they’ll do is train you to excel at the same activities through repetition. If you really want to wrack your brains with logical and analytical skills, I definitely recommend giving Professor Layton and the Mysterious Village a try. You can ever try an online demo of the game here (click on Game Demo on the top right).
