Have you been getting confused and frustrated trying to learn Putonghua? Do you find the self-help book Chinese for Dummies decidedly unhelpful?
No problem. Games publisher Ubisoft Entertainment has released My Chinese Coach, its latest edutainment title.
Created by United States-based developer Sensory Sweep Studios for the Nintendo DS hand-held console, My Chinese Coach uses carefully structured vocabulary and calligraphy exercises to help students learn the language.
The game uses a young, computer-generated Chinese girl as tutor.
Putonghua is the mainland's official spoken language. The pronunciation is based on the urban Beijing dialect.
Your attempts can be compared to a native speaker using the Nintendo DS' microphone. Putonghua is a tonal language: it has four tones (Cantonese has nine).
Players can also use the console's touch-screen display and stylus to trace over and learn the correct way of writing Chinese characters.