This area of the site is to complement the iKnow! list I am building containing vocabulary from the menus and manual for the Nintendo DS game DS美文字トレーニング.  The iKnow list is pretty much a raw list of vocabulary and the example sentences are mainly chosen from the corpus of professionally recorded audio that Cerego have made available through their Japanese Core 2000/6000 courses.  This site will aim to take a menu by menu approach to the game with translations of the menu choices and brief descriptions of what the choices do.

If I get anything wrong and you know better, please comment.  If you want to help and have a google account I can give you edit access to the site.

Lets start with a little background.  DS美文字トレーニング (DS Beautiful Character Training) is a game for the Nintendo DS handheld console written by Nintendo.  The aim is to help native Japanese speakers improve their handwriting through daily exercises.  This game was never intended as a learning tool for non-native speakers.  The manual has furigana but for the menus it is Kanji only.  The game comes with a stylus shaped like a traditional writing brush (筆「ふで」)  While you could try using the standard stylus I would recommend using the 筆 for two reasons: Firstly the standard stylus is much too small to get smooth graceful strokes and secondly you are unlikely to write anything in the real world with a pen or pencil the size of the NDS stylus...

The wonders of the Internet have allowed me (a beginner) to get a basic understanding of the menus in a matter of a few hours.  I am especially indebted to iKnow! and Denshi Jisho.

When you fire up the game the top level menu contains the following links:

• お手軽版「おてかるはん」 - Simple version.  Test your skill or do some training without making a permanent record.

• 毎日美文字トレーニング毎日美文字トレーニング「まいにちびもじトレーニング」 - Every Day Beautiful Character Training.  Your daily training and evaluation exercises.  Results are saved to your profile so you can track your progress.
• みんなで美文字「みんなでびもじ」 - Beautiful Characters with Everybody.  A multiplayer challenge.  Challange others with the game to beat your 美文字 skills.  I don't know anyone else with the game and so have not tried any of the challenges in this section.  2-6 players.
• 美文字辞典「びもじじてん」 - Beautiful character dictionary.  Look up hints on stroke order, balance, proportions, etc. as well as information on the evolution of Kanji over time.
  

A note on grading systems.