Talkman Import Hands-On

Sony has been working off and on to extend the functionality of the PSP ever since the little wonder-device hit the market in Japan almost a year ago. With additions like the Web browser that was included with the 2.0 firmware upgrade, the PSP is useful these days for doing a lot more than just game-playing. Now, with an imported copy of Talkman, your Sony handheld might even help to get you through some basic social situations if you ever happen to find yourself traveling in China, Japan, or Korea.

Wait, what? Talkman isn't a game so much as an interactive phrasebook, sort of like the ones you buy before you travel that contain the foreign-language equivalents of key phrases like "How much does this cost?" and "Where is the bathroom?" The game contains four languages: English, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. These languages are applicable to everything from the topic of the lessons to the game menus and even to the spoken dialogue of the game's fairly comical bird-narrator, Max. You're asked your native language the first time you boot up the game, so from then on you'll have no problem navigating through the various elements of the game in English, if you decide to import this interesting package.

But why would you decide to import Talkman? To be frank, this isn't a game, per se. It really is geared toward people who want to learn some key phrases to help them out in various everyday situations, from making restaurant reservations to communicating with a taxi driver. You'll also get more basic lessons on numbers, money, and that sort of thing. In the talk mode, the game merely presents you with a list of phrases relevant to the situation ("Is this seat taken?" on an airplane, for instance), and you can go down the line, having Max recite each phrase in the selected language. You can even ask him to color his responses by choosing a positive or negative tone. The spoken phrases will be spelled out in the selected language's native writing system if you request it, though it's a shame no romanization was available to act as a pronunciation guide for the Asian languages, from what we could see.

Though Talkman appears to be more educational than entertaining, there are a couple of simple game modes available. One is a listening game, which has Max reciting four short sentences in, say, Japanese, while the English text meaning of each one is displayed onscreen. At the end of the round, Max will repeat one of the phrases, and you'll have to match it to the correct meaning. With basic Japanese comprehension skills, we found this mode to be fairly easy and fun, though if you didn't know a lick of the language you were attempting to study, you'd simply have to match each sentence's component sounds to the associated meaning, without really absorbing any of the grammar or vocabulary.

The pronunciation game is a lot harder, since it requires you to verbally repeat phrases in the given language. How do you talk to your PSP? Simple: Talkman ships with a small microphone that plugs into the top I/O port on the system. In this mode, Max will read a phrase aloud (with the English equivalent displayed onscreen), and then you have to repeat it with nearly pitch-perfect accuracy. When we tried this game in Japanese, we were disappointed to see that while the phrase was spelled out onscreen in Japanese (albeit containing kanji sadly unaccompanied by furigana readings), there was no romanized pronunciation guide available--so again, unless you have an ear for the language in question, you'll probably have a hard time re-creating the exact syllables required to pass the test. And from what we can tell, the pronunciation filter here is more than a little unforgiving.

The import version of Talkman looks like a quirky little experiment whose effectiveness over time has yet to be determined. We like the range of available languages and English-friendly interface. The presentation of the game is also endearing enough, what with simple art representing each situation and Max's smugness at your poor pronunciation. But then, it doesn't look like you'll pick up any generalized knowledge of these languages by studying the game, since it only gives you fully formed sentences with no explanation of how they're formed. At least it's nice to see the vast potential of the PSP being tapped for more than just games. There's no word yet on a US release for Talkman--one assumes significant changes to the content would be made beforehand--but as mentioned, you can certainly get by with the import by setting it to English.

We'll bring you any info on a domestic release for Talkman if and when it happens.