Product Description

My Word Coach, developed in collaboration with linguists, helps players improve their verbal communication and vocabulary in a fun way. Practice need never get boring with six different exercises to choose between. Players can input missing letters from words, spell out the answers to various definitions, choose which word matches a particular definition, form specific words with Scrabble-like tiles, and more. Three levels of difficulty are available, and the game includes a built-in dictionary of over 17,000 words. Two of the games can be played multiplayer over wireless and the data of three different players can be saved. ESRB Rated E for Everyone.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1886 in Video Games
• Brand: UBI Soft
• Published on: 2007-11
• Released on: 2007-11-06
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platform: Nintendo DS
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .65" h x 5.43" w x 5.22" l, .25 pounds

Features

• The game evaluates your level, tracks and rewards your personal progression
• 17,000 words
• Large variety of games
• DS-Wii connectivity
• Includes 5 multiplayer games when linking the DS and Wii

Amazon.com

My Word Coach, developed in collaboration with linguists, helps players improve their verbal communication and vocabulary in a fun way. Practice with six different exercises to choose between. Players can input missing letters from words, spell out the answers to various definitions, choose which word matches a particular definition, form specific words with Scrabble-like tiles, and more. Three levels of difficulty are available, and the game includes a built-in dictionary of over 17,000 words. Two of the games can be played multiplayer over wireless and five multiplayer games can be accessed when linking the Wii and DS. The data of up to three different players can be saved.

Customer Reviews

Finally, a comprehensive language game experience on the DS.
While some other "nongames" provide limited access to linguistics-based challenges, this is the first I've seen to really capture the joy of engaging with language. I am seriously impressed with this title, and I've been recommending it to parents and colleagues alike.

The good stuff:
- All six training games are engaging, and they never get old, since the words are always changing.
- Even the games that focus on spelling are simultaneously engaging you with definitions.
- The training games feel intuitive with the DS stylus, moreso than I imagine the Wii Remote might feel.
- The games are physically fun to play. Move, arrange, rotate, or draw objects. It's more than just writing.
- The game has intelligently tracked my vocabulary level; I constantly feel challenged, but not overwhelmed.
- The unlocks come frequently, but the pacing is deliberately gradual to retain words in active memory.
- A great experience for 10-30 minutes a day.

What to watch out for:
- As far as I can tell, there is no left-handed support for the one training game where you hold the DS vertically. This is actually a pretty unforgivable oversight. If you are left-handed, you may want to think twice about this purchase.
- Remember that you can turn off the music in the settings screen, and that you will probably want to.

Another review mentioned the lack of pronunciation guide as a problem. I agree that it's a missed opportunity, but it's not a dealbreaker. The lack of southpaw support might be, though, if you happen to be left-handed.

Not nearly as fun as I had hoped....
Okay, I thought that MyWord Coach would be a good way to learn some new words... it wasn't, at least for me. (Although I do read a lot.) Here are my complaints-

1. The game seems to have been prepared for the British market; there are quite a few British words in here that aren't really used in American English. For example, I have had "flypast" instead of "flyby", etc. There are more, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

2. The game does not have good, complete definitions for many of the words. For many of the words with multiple or more complex definitions, the definition expresses only a small part of what the word can mean.

3. There are far too many short/slangy/common words in here. For example: woozy, snazzy, watermill, porker, ninja, freeloader, etc. Now, it might seem a little odd that I'm complaining about this; however, I thought that since words take up little space as text files the game would probably contain many more difficult/advanced words. Also, my level on the game is pretty high, but these low-level words keep appearing.

4. The games get really boring.

5. There is no pronunciation key, nor audio of the words.

I guess I'm just a little disappointed; when I read about the advanced methods they used and the fact that they worked with the Cambridge dictionary, I just expected quite a bit more.

Vocabulary and Spelling -- a great learning tool for kids and adults
My Word Coach DS (we liked the Wii version so much that we also bought the DS game - the DS stylus makes it easier to write, but my son likes the Wii's fun factor, and the Wii remote seems to keep him more involved in the learning process) - Do you have a kid who hasn't read enough to build a large vocabulary and strong spelling skills OR a kid who finds words fascinating? This game works for both, and provides lots of word practice with a series of different games -- my kid seemed almost surprised at the end of his first series that he had learned so much. There's lots of reading (definitions, etc.) which I think would make it tricky for kids much younger than ten. The game has progress graphs and high score history for encouragement and provides a word review after play. There are vocabulary games (e.g. Split Decision where you match the word on the screen to its correct definition) and spelling games (what could be more fun than grafitti-style spray painting to fill in the missing letter or correct a wrong letter?), with six training games in all and a couple of 'recreational' DS games. There are lots of options to keep a player's interst as the game gets harder -- for instance, both definitions may be wrong in Split Decision. My soon-to-be eleven year old plays until the professor tells him to stop for the day (after he's mastered a profile-determined word list). There's a slight learning curve, but he figured it out on his own without getting frustrated. He intuitively began picking up on clues such as how to guess a word from the definition. My son says it's "lots of fun -- almost, but not quite, like a regular game." I predict libraries and after-school programs will be holding lots of competitions with this game.