A lot of people look at cooking games like “Cooking Mama” and wonder how such a thing could even get made. But living in Japan for the last few years a find myself asking the question, “Why aren’t there more of them?”
With my wedding coming soon I decided to try a new fitness program made for the Nintendo Wii. It’s called Wii Fit and it is basically a white balance bard that you stand on and do various exercises with.
Click here to see a video of Wii Fit in action
Anyway, I also decided to write my impressions on a daily basis. So far it is leading to weight loss and I am very pleased with it. You can read al about it by clicking on the link below.
Other than writing for 4cr I have a full time job as an English teacher. This year I switched to teaching elementary school. The kids are great but it is an exhausting job. Anyway, recently I decided to do a lesson about family structure. To teach English words like Father, Mother, Brother, Sister, etc.
As with a lot of lessons I do with first graders, I have to make it as interesting as possible or I can’t hold their attention for more than about 7 seconds. Kids this age love video games. Especially Mario games, so when teaching the word “brother” I decided to use a word they already know from the game “Super Mario brothers. However as it turned out, the one who got the lesson was me. Here’s what happened:
While my Japanese may be getting better the longer I live in this country it is still far from perfect. This fact has often led me to some very embarrassing language mistakes. This latest one was pretty amusing and I thought I would share it.
In Japan there is a very popular game for the Nintendo DS handheld system. In the West it is known as “Animal Crossing”. The Japanese name is “Doubutsu no Mori”. This basically translates to “Animal’s Forest”. I was talking about this game with one of my students and I said it a bit wrong. I didn’t even notice the error at first until the student shuddered for a second and then began laughing. You see instead of “DOUbutsu no Mori” I said “DAIbutsu no Mori”. Find out why that is funny by clicking below.
I was so excited about the potential of the English Training Game for the Nintendo DS. This title has been in the top 10 best selling games list every week since its release. This made me very happy, kids and adults were studying without being forced and appeared to be enjoying it. But as you can see from the above screen it’s not perfect. During the training sessions, after the warm-up, the words “Let’s Training!” flash on the screen to let you know that the main game is about to begin. Keep in mind that these words are not being specifically taught to the player, they are just on a menu screen, but in a software package aimed at teaching proper English it is very disappointing to see. People trust that what is found in these games is correct grammar and many will take it as read that this is correct. This “let’s” thing is very common “Japanese-English†and I always have to remind my students to not say, “Let’s English study†or “Let’s reading a book.†If you translate these phrases directly, it makes sense in the Japanese grammar system but sounds bizarre in English. I can’t believe “Let’s Training!” Made it through quality control. It’s sad to see that people are being misled, but I suppose it’s good for my job security as an English teacher. I won’t be replaced by a video game anytime soon.
There is yet another video game being marketed in Japan to teach English. This time it is for the Nintendo DS system. This game will teach English and check your handwriting by use of the touch pen. But the best thing about this game is the television commercials. Each of the ads features Japanese people being confronted by English and doing what I do when confronted with difficult Japanese, smile and nod and hope the person talking doesn’t catch on that I have no idea what they are talking about. It is sadly the same look I get from my students everyday. You can see it their eyes that they want to understand what you are saying. I don’t know if this game will help them, but it couldn’t hurt. These four commercials can be seen at Nintendo’s official site. I wish they made one of these to teach me Japanese.
As many people know, Nintendo started its life as a playing card company. When Fusajiro Yamauchi founded the company in 1889, it was to manufacture and sell handmade hanafuda cards. These cards proved very popular and established Nintendo as a respected Kyoto enterprise.
The following is a comical piece I wrote a few months back for a gaming site. I was asked if I could share it here. I hope you enjoy it.
Yesterday I posted an article on the gaming site 4 color rebellion. If you are not into video games, you might want to skip this one. But it does include a humorous video of Alex playing an arcade game with a virtual sword.
I have always been a fan of the arcade game Pac-Man. I used to play it every time I went to Shakey’s Pizza. Now some people have gone to the trouble of building the game in real life. It looks a lot harder to play than the original, but I’m still dying to give it a try. The full story was reported on Akihabara News, so check out their pictures and a video if it in action.
Thanks to 4 color rebellion for the tip.