Hi Purple Fungi
Can you please tell me if the Japanese version of LP shows the Japanese characters (Hiragana & Kanji I think they are called). I'd like to buy them (have the Chinese ones already) but I want my daughter to learn how to read Japanese as well.
Many thanks
PS: Love your blog!
Thanks!
The Japanese version doesn't have the Japanese characters. I fully expected it to have them like the Chinese version, but it doesn't, saddly. It does have Japanese words transliterated into English, like "inu -dog." It's still a great set of DVDs, and my two-year-old loves them!
Thank you Purplefungi! I just saw your response.
Anyways, I'm not sure how long are you supposed to show each video. My baby is only 5 months old, so it is going to be a while before I know if she has learned any chinese
(hopefully once she speaks it I would know it is chinese and not babbing
) Basicly, I would like to know kind of a watching schedule for the series. You know, like YBCR, they say the first video for a month, etc...
I haven't seen any kind of schedule. I think that Julia Pimsleur might talk about it in her interview type thing that is on the DVD, but I can't say for sure. This might be just five minutes or a section at a time. I can't quite remember.
Dirk (two) watches the entire 30 minutes about once daily Monday-Thursday. When I get sick of it or find myself thinking the words instead of the English words, I know that we probably need to move on to the next one. We have just started the second DVD. Dirk likes to hear me try to speak Japanese/Chinese. He probably know that I sound funny!
I haven't set Derek (4.75 months) up to the televsion. He just hears the movie being played which is good that he hears the different sounds.
Hello Moms! Thanks for your nice words about Little Pim. We have been busy making Flash Cards, CDs and new languages, so sorry if I haven't answered these emails in a bit. If you want to follow some of our behind the scenes, please join our page on Facebook! (search Little Pim DVDs):
Here are a few answers to the questions and comments here:
1) what age a child can start watching is a very personal decision, different for each family, and I agree that just playing the sound until you think your child is ready is a great way to start and has many of the same benefits as watching the DVD. but don't be surprised if your child is super excited when he/she finally sees the panda after hearing his voice all these months!
2) about the Japanese characters. indeed, we changed our teaching approach from showing characters on screen (as we did for the Chinese) to showing phonetic pronunciation on screen (as we did for the Japanese and Hebrew). This is because we found most of our viewers did not speak the language themselves and could not make sense of the characters. For people who would still like to see the characters, we publish a free downloadable guide with the entire scripts (go to
http://www.littlepim.com/for-parents/parentguides/).
3) we are working on DVDs 4, 5 and 6 and will keep you posted on their release date (sometime in the fall).
au revoir les amis - thanks for your emails - Julia Pimsleur Levine