Dear friends from the forum,

Thank you very much for your kind feedback about our Speak & Read Chinese 6-DVDs program. We had noted that some of the customers are unhappy with the children's pronunciation in some of the lessons in Level 5 & 6. Rest assured that we are reviewing this matter seriously and will include these corrections in the new version up and coming. At the same time, we had submitted our SING to LEARN Chinese DVDs for external review as well. The pronunciations of the words and songs are very accurate and we are very happy to inform you about it.

However, rest assured that the adult pronunciation which is the key voice-over for the entire program (more than 95%) is extremely accurate. The speaker that we had engaged is a Chinese teacher, from a reputable school in Singapore, is trained and specialized in Beijing pronunciation. This is why we do have a number of Chinese school teachers in Singapore feedback to us that they thought that the voice-over was done by a teacher from Beijing.

Again, I thank you so much for your kind feedback. Without your precious feedback, we are unable to perfect our programs to help more young children in learning English and Chinese from young.

Last but not least, we do like to offer you a free upgrade to our revised version to be launched at the end of the year in the event that you decide to purchase the Speak & Read Chinese 6-DVDs program earlier.

Your sincerely,
Hazel
www.WINKtoLEARN.com

Dear Hazel,

Do you have any plans to release a Traditional Chinese version of Wink to Learn?

thank you so much for all the guidelines.  I am struggling with introducing another language to my son.  I want him to learn Chinese, of which no one speaks in the household.  But, we are also introducing French (my wife speaks, as well as her parents), Spanish (I can speak) and Tagalog ( I can speak, as well as my parents.).  It's exciting to see others attempt to expose their children to languages that the parents are not familiar with.  I am curious, however, if everyone agrees with the comment made that Wink to learn Chinese has poor pronunciation.

Thanks

Hi Tobias,

How are you introducing Tagalog to your son? We live in the US and my daughter's only exposure to Tagalog is from her dad. We want her to grow up knowing her Filipino heritage but it is difficult to get Tagalog educational materials here. We are kind of in the same situation as you are. Her dad speaks Tagalog to her, I speak Mandarin Chinese to her, and she gets English from daycare. We are also introducing French and Spanish to her via Little Pim and music CDs. Regarding Wink to Learn, I agree with the previous comment that the speakers in the DVD have an accent from the southern provinces of China. The pronunciation is not that clear, unlike Baby Learns Chinese. So I am not letting her watch Wink to Learn because I want her to develop proper pronunciation. I heard Little Pim Chinese is not bad but I haven't checked it out yet.

AAngeles

KL - I was wondering what the rational was for using traditional chinese characters with the chinese curriculum?  The majority of the world (China, Singapore, Malaysia and western countries (eg Australia where I am) where chinese is taught) use the simplified characters.  Thanks for your help.

It would be good to do both traditional & simplified chinese characters.  For those of you who do Chinese with your babies. Do you find if they get confused?

I recently used BabyLearnsChinese with my baby.  He loves all the 1st 3 CDs, so I bought the 2nd set of 3CDs. It has the traditional Chinese in it too, but I am wondering if he'll get confused.

Any experiences to share?

I have been using Baby Learns Chinese with my 14 month old and I have always shown her the traditional characters. The reason is that I was taught the traditional characters when I was growing up. I had no formal teaching for simplified Chinese. Nevertheless, I find it easy to read simplified since, most of the time, you can understand the characters just based on the context alone. I think once my baby learns to read traditional Chinese, reading simplified Chinese will also come easy for her. However, the reverse is not true.

Another reason is that there is a lot of history and meaning behind each Chinese character (for example: the character for rest is actually derived from a drawing of a man resting beside a tree) and I think most of the beauty and meaning is lost with the simplified characters. I want my baby not only to be able to read Chinese, but also to appreciate the beauty and elegance of the written language.

Anyway, that's my two cents' worth. Hope it helps...

Thank you very much for your very informative response! I checked out your suggestions and have decided to purchase the LR+LM bundle. Thanks again for re-posting your detailed reply!

I am trying to purchase the LR+LM 6 month bundle online but when I hit the Place Order button, I get an error message saying "Gateway error." I tried several times but get the same error message each time. Can someone help me solve this?

I am planning to get the LR + LM 6 month bundle for $264. After 6 months, will I also be able to upgrade both LR and LM to 12 months or lifetime for the price difference ($176 for 12 months or $456 for lifetime)? Thanks!

hello!

pinoy ka pala lappy! i am new to brillkids and so glad to find kababayans here. my husband is filipino; i am chinese but born and raised in the philippines. we are now living in gainesville, florida and miss the philippines! our baby girl is 14 months old and we are trying to teach her english, filipino, and mandarin chinese.

I have a 14 month old baby girl, Ella. How did you start teaching your amazing little girl encyclopedic knowledge? It seems overwhelming to me - I mean, there is so much to teach and so little time. Can you tell me how to start in really specific terms? Thanks!

Thanks for the tips!

What is your opinion of the Baby Learns Chinese videos? Are they effective in teaching to read Chinese? I have volumes 1-3 and, so far, my 14 month old loves watching them but I am not sure if she is learning to read. She is already reading very well in English using the YBCR program. Also, we live in the U.S. and I am the only one speaking and reading in Mandarin to her. I work fulltime so her exposure to Chinese is limited. At this point, she understands simple instructions in Chinese, knows her body parts in Chinese, and the names of some animals. I would like her to be exposed more to conversational Chinese but there are no Chinese playgroups or even any Chinese kids around here. I tried to search online for Chinese learning videos but most of them use simplified Chinese. I would like her to learn traditional. Is Dora the Explorer available in traditional Chinese? I would like something similar to Sesame Street but in Chinese so that she would become familiar with conversational Chinese in addition to the vocabulary words in Baby Learns Chinese. So far, I have only seen Sesame Street in Cantonese but not in Mandarin. Do you have any recommendations?

Thanks for reading!

Hello everyone!

My husband and I have a bright adorable 14 month old baby girl, Ella. I just recently came across BrillKids while surfing through some early childhood learning sites. I wish I had known about this site/forum 14 months ago! I am very interested in learning more about the Little Reader/Little Math programs and how I can adapt them to our specific situation and very unique little girl.

We started teaching Ella to read when she was 3 months old using the YBCR program and she responded positively and enthusiastically. At 6 months, we started using baby sign language with her while continuing YBCR. We found out she could read when she was 9-10 months old when she started doing the actions of words like clap, wave, arms up, etc. As her baby signing skills continued to develop, we discovered that she could read even more words than we gave her credit for. Now at 14 months old, she can read most of the words in her YBCR flap books by signing them (she hasn't really started talking yet.) We also introduced her to the Baby Learns Chinese videos (kind of like YBCR but in Chinese) when she was 10 months old. I should mention that we are a trilingual family. My husband speaks English and Filipino to her, I speak Mandarin Chinese to her, and she also gets English from her daycare. At this point, she understands Chinese and English almost equally well and Filipino a little less so. She understands that things are called different names in different languages and shows this to us by making the same sign whether we say it in English, Chinese, or Filipino. I haven't tested her reading in Chinese yet because I didn't want to push her.

I have several questions for the experts and members who have a similar situation to ours:
1. Recently we noticed that she is not as engrossed/interested anymore when we show her the YBCR videos and I think this is because she already knows most of the words and not because she is becoming tired of learning. What do you recommend as the next step? Do we stop YBCR altogether? Should we start teaching phonics? Is the Little Reader program more advanced than YBCR and should we progress to that? How is LR different from YBCR?

2. She is starting to show more interest in her Baby Learns Chinese videos as her interest in YBCR wanes. However, I don't think they are as effective as YBCR in teaching to read. Can I use LR to teach her Chinese? Does the LR program use traditional Chinese characters rather than simplified Chinese? I would like to teach her the traditional characters.

3. What is the best age to start using Little Math? Is this too much for us to take on at this point? I do not doubt little Ella's amazing capacity to learn. But will we have the time to do this? My husband and I both work fulltime as surgeons in a very busy hospital. I would like to have an idea of the time commitments required before making the decision to purchase LR/LM.

Sorry for the very long post and thank you for this great forum!