My French Coach and My Spanish Coach

French and Spanish language teachers assisted with the development of the gameplay for both games, which concentrates on teaching French or Spanish using lessons and minigames. The games received praise and criticism from various video game publications; they praised the games' effectiveness in teaching the language, but lamented their repetitive nature. The next installments in the series, titled My French Coach Level 2: Intermediate and My Spanish Coach Level 2: Intermediate, also developed and published by Ubisoft, were released in Europe on November 23, 2007, alongside their Level 1 counterparts.

• Title — My French Coach My Spanish Coach • Italic Title — no • Developer — Sensory Sweep Studios • Publisher — Ubisoft • Released — Nintendo DS November 6, 2007November 23, 2007Wii November 30, 2007PlayStation Portable (My Spanish Coach) iOS June 6, 2009 • Genre — Educational, puzzle • Modes — Single-player • Platforms — Nintendo DS, Wii, PlayStation Portable, iOS

• Illustration — The player going through the vocabulary given during the 44th lesson in My Spanish Coach; the player can listen to the pronunciation of the words in this sequence. The gameplay of My French Coach and My Spanish Coach consists of the player completing lessons that introduce new vocabulary and then focus on mastering the words through several puzzles. As the player progresses through the game, the words increase in difficulty. When first starting the game, the player takes an introductory test that gauges their initial comprehension level of the French or Spanish language. The player is then placed into a level reflective of the score they received on the test. A player who scores highly will be able to skip many of the initial levels and more basic concepts. When starting a lesson, the player is shown ten new words, which include nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs, as well as their meanings and proper enunciation. Following this, the player is offered a choice of eight minigames to test their knowledge of the words given in the lesson. These minigames are Multiple Choice, Hit-A-Word, Word Find, Flash Cards, Fill in the Blank, Memory, Bridge Builder, and Spelltastic. In Multiple Choice, the player must select the correct French or Spanish translation of an English word from four choices in a limited time frame. Hit-A-Word is a Whac-A-Mole game in which the player must hit the most moles with the correct translation of an English word within the allotted time. Word Find is a word search in which the player must find the French or Spanish translations of a set of English words or phrases. In Flash Cards, the player is given a French or Spanish word and must choose the card with the proper English translation. In Memory, the player must select from a set of face-down cards a French or Spanish word and its English translation. Bridge Builder tests sentence structure; the player has to construct a proper sentence from a set of given words. In Spelltastic, the player listens to a French or Spanish word and spells it using a keyboard within the allotted time. For Fill-in-the-Blank, the player selects the proper conjugation of a French or Spanish verb within a sentence. Whenever a player correctly answers a question or solves a puzzle in a minigame, they gain "mastery points" on the word they successfully answered. The minigames can be increased in difficulty; on higher difficulty levels, players will acquire more mastery points when successfully completing a minigame. For instance, in Multiple Choice, the player has 50 seconds to select an answer for a question on the "Easy" difficulty, and will receive two mastery points for each correct answer. On the "Medium" difficulty, the player has 40 seconds to select an answer and receives three mastery points for each correct answer. The process continues until the player scores fifteen mastery points for every word, allowing the player to proceed to the next lesson. Following the completion of all fifty lessons, the player can continue to learn new words through "open lessons" that contain ten new vocabulary words apiece; the dictionaries of both games each hold nearly 10,000 words. The player can freely access the reference section, which contains a dictionary and phrasebook, at any time. Both the dictionary and phrasebook hold all of the words and phrases in each game, as well as meanings and audio files for both; the player can look through different categories of words and phrases, use a search function, and bookmark chosen phrases.

My French Coach and My Spanish Coach are two of the first three games Ubisoft released for the My Coach series; the other game is My Word Coach. During the course of their development by Sensory Sweep Studios, the lessons and minigames were created with the help of French and Spanish language teachers. Ubisoft announced the creation of a new division to create the My Coach series on May 21, 2007, and that Pauline Jacquey, the producer of the Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon and Rayman series, would lead the division. When commenting on the direction of the My Coach series, Jacquey said that she was "developing projects that make people feel that playing games is worth their while, allowing them to spend quality time with family and friends, learn a new skill, or improve their daily lives". Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot commented that, "The timing is right for us to leverage our creativity and to open up the video games market to new consumers who will be attracted by content that can help them learn, grow and feel better in an entertaining way". All three games were released on November 6, 2007 in North America. Ubisoft followed with a PlayStation Portable version of My Spanish Coach, releasing it in North America on October 7, 2008; Wii versions of My French Coach and My Spanish Coach were released in Europe on November 30, 2007. The European releases for My French Coach, titled My French Coach Level 1: Beginners, and My Spanish Coach, renamed My Spanish Coach Level 1: Beginners, were accompanied by My French Coach Level 2: Intermediate and My Spanish Coach Level 2: Intermediate, the next games in the series.