Ubisoft's "my coach" series for DS has so far covered Latin-based lingos like Spanish and French to good effect, and this latest instalment follows the same template – a series of mini-games and lessons encompassing more than 12,000 words and 1,500 phrases.

You can draw characters, learn about the culture and, most importantly, compare your own pronunciation with that of your virtual coach. And this is where the problems begin, with tinny sound and little clear guidance on how to negotiate a phonetic structure that can feel alien to western speakers.

As a result, although you gain a reasonable grounding in theory and vocabulary, speaking with any confidence remains hit and miss. It's a noble effort, but ultimately the least successful in the series.