Let's Learn Japanese! Hiragana
released on Jan 03, 2019
Want to learn to read Japanese? Let's start with Hiragana! A game teaching the Japanese alphabet through puzzles and arcade-style challenges.
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Sadly, I can't recommend this - and not because I got mad it didn't immediately make me fluent in Japanese or anything like that. This is a tool that helps you learn/practise the most basic Japanese alphabet, which is what I was looking for, but I just don't think it's worth buying, especially compared to free resources out there
This tool basically takes each Kana column and turns them into a chapter. In each chapter, you are given the briefest explaination of the sound a Kana makes - pretty much every other tool I've used has at least tried to help the user remember the Kana, whether by relating it to a word or shape, but you get none of that here. You then play a few minigames relating to that Kana column, and when you beat them all, you can move onto the next set.
Here are the minigames:
- Matching pairs: All cards start off face down and you click two, which reveal them, and you gotta match the Kana with the Romanji. You know the gist. I personally didn't like this, because I felt like I was testing my memory more than my knowledge, and I can't imagine this would be enjoyable at all for someone who hasn't already memorized Hiragana
- Kana slicer: You're given a Romanji. Various Kana then fall from the sky and you have to slice the one that matches the Romanji you're given, and vice versa. This was fun! I liked this one and it's something I actually can't just get elsewhere
- Match 3: You're given a match 3 grid of Kana and Romanji, and can move blocks to match 3, in which they disappeared etc etc. I wasn't the biggest fan of this but something that made me hate it - an audio clip plays when you get a successful match 3 and it's really bass boosted and crunchy, and if you end up chaining them, the sound just plays on top of other and IT'S SO PAINFUL LOOOOL
- Drag and Drop: Match the Kana and Romanji by dragging one on top of the matching other. No complaints here, good stuff, even if it's basically what every other Hiragana practise website is doing
Also, the presentation is just overall really weak. For starters, this tool is blurry when full screened but when you exit full screen, the text becomes really small. If you try to resize it, it's hard to find a size that isn't either of these things. Elements aren't stylish and as I said, the sound quality isn't great. All of these things would be forgivable if the minigames were fun but they...just kinda aren't
This tool basically takes each Kana column and turns them into a chapter. In each chapter, you are given the briefest explaination of the sound a Kana makes - pretty much every other tool I've used has at least tried to help the user remember the Kana, whether by relating it to a word or shape, but you get none of that here. You then play a few minigames relating to that Kana column, and when you beat them all, you can move onto the next set.
Here are the minigames:
- Matching pairs: All cards start off face down and you click two, which reveal them, and you gotta match the Kana with the Romanji. You know the gist. I personally didn't like this, because I felt like I was testing my memory more than my knowledge, and I can't imagine this would be enjoyable at all for someone who hasn't already memorized Hiragana
- Kana slicer: You're given a Romanji. Various Kana then fall from the sky and you have to slice the one that matches the Romanji you're given, and vice versa. This was fun! I liked this one and it's something I actually can't just get elsewhere
- Match 3: You're given a match 3 grid of Kana and Romanji, and can move blocks to match 3, in which they disappeared etc etc. I wasn't the biggest fan of this but something that made me hate it - an audio clip plays when you get a successful match 3 and it's really bass boosted and crunchy, and if you end up chaining them, the sound just plays on top of other and IT'S SO PAINFUL LOOOOL
- Drag and Drop: Match the Kana and Romanji by dragging one on top of the matching other. No complaints here, good stuff, even if it's basically what every other Hiragana practise website is doing
Also, the presentation is just overall really weak. For starters, this tool is blurry when full screened but when you exit full screen, the text becomes really small. If you try to resize it, it's hard to find a size that isn't either of these things. Elements aren't stylish and as I said, the sound quality isn't great. All of these things would be forgivable if the minigames were fun but they...just kinda aren't