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

[JPimsleurLevine]

A question to JPimsleurLevine
Is Russian on the list of languages to be added in near future?

Yes, we are planning on coming out with Russian in the next few months - please sign up for our newsletter at www.LittlePim.com and you'll be the first to know when it's ready!

Hello Everyone
A question that keeps coming up is what are the next languages? We are working on German, Russian and a third language TBD. If you have requests, please send them in, we keep track of all of them and will try to meet whatever is the most popular!
Thanks for the great comments and questions about the Little Pim series. If you want to sample a different language than the one you have, you can go to the home page of our web site for 45 second clips or search Little Pim on You Tube for 5 minute episodes in each language.
best,
Julia


 

Oh also, I was going to ask - do you have any plans for making another set of videos? Perhaps for kids who may be older or who have learned the words/concepts in the first 3?  Just curious.. :o)

Heidi

I ordered 3 Little Pim DVDs (Mandarin) a few days ago and they've just arrived.
My first impression is that this method is brilliant. No translation, a nice music, a soothing voice, and the key words are incorporated into sentences.
In 15 mn (which is all my baby and i watched so far), so many things were covered!

I recently purchased the DVD of another method (for about the same price), Bao Bei, and all my baby got out of it were 5 numbers and 4 fruits, which for me is a rip-off.

Great work little Pim, I'll be buying your Japanese kit soon!

Yes, it is! Please sign up for our newsletter on our home page and you'll be kept posted of all our new developments. So glad you like Little Pim, it was made with love for my own son! As for your question about DVDs for older kids, we think it's important to meet kids where they are at, and for little ones, the DVD format is perfect. Older kids tend to be on the computer, and we are working on interactive games for older kids... We'll keep you posted!

Awesome! I was so excited to see this thread pop up! We are currently borrowing Little Pim Chinese from our local library. We have watched it two times. The first time that we watched it, we didn't have the English subtitles on. It was good just to hear the sounds of the language. The second time that we watched it, I turned the subtitles on (for my sake). It was cool to be able to see the meanings of the words. Because of Little Reader, we already new the words for cat and dog so it was neat to see them used in a sentence.

I liked the Chinese speaker's voice. It is very soft and soothing. The pictures were very bright and clear. I loved seeing all the Chinese characters. I also liked that the words that are introduced are those that are familiar to what a child would actually use (in the USA that is).

Above all, my two-year-old was glued to the screen. He even put down his cars for a while. I have been listening to Pimsleur Japanese on my trip to work and school, and he finds it funny to hear mommy speak Japanese. He giggles every time I say "nihongoga."

Is there a Little Pim German comming any time in the future? Just wondering!

I am so glad you are enjoying Little Pim - German will be one of our very next languages! Please sign up for our newsletter on our home page and we'll keep you posted. Enjoy Chinese in the meantime and language learning with your son.

Hello Heide,
Thanks for asking - we do have plans to make DVDs 4,5 and 6 but not for another few months. However, we are coming out with Flash Cards in French and Spanish and CDs in the same languages this summer. I just blogged about the new CDs on our site and put up a clip of one of the Spanish songs if you want to check it out... just go to our web site and click on BLOG.
take care!
Julia

Hi moms! I am proud that Little Pim is a new partner of Brill Kids - many thanks to Brill Kids and thank you all for your great emails and stories about your little ones and their foreign language learning adventures. I hope you'll enjoy learning French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese or the language of your choice with your kids as much as I have with mine (four years old and fourteen months old today!). I will try answer any questions you may have in this forum. Take care and à bientôt! - Julia Pimsleur Levine

Dear Lucy -- I am thrilled to hear your daughter likes Little Pim! Your post was very interesting to me, as I have never had that comment before about not looking at the words. We created Little Pim as a total immersion method - meaning your babies and young children only hear the foreign language. However, we were aware that many parents wanted to be able to follow along and our research showed they wanted the words written on the screen. So any words written are purely for the parents since 98% of our young viewers can't read yet. But I think your idea of NOT looking is very smart and a cool way to get double use out of the DVD series (baby and you learning together). It  will probably help in your language acquisition, especially if you are used to the Pimsleur Method.
I hope you continue to enjoy the DVDs and feel free to continue asking questions in this forum. You can also follow my blog at http://www.littlepim.com/blog/ for more tips on keeping foreign language teaching fun for young children
p.s. we are indeed talking with KL about offering special discounts to this community, so stay tuned. even pre-discount, however, we are about a quarter as expensive as the other language teaching systems you can buy (for a comparison chart, see http://www.littlepim.com/compare-little-pim-with-other-language-dvds/)

It's so great to read about other parents who are teaching their kids foreign languages! I have been teaching my son French since he was about 6 months old - he is now four and speaks quite well. He was my inspiration for creating the Little Pim DVD series (www.LittlePim.com). I tried Muzzy but found it was better suited to older kids (5+) than young ones. Now I have a 13-month old who is learning French with Little Pim and we are having a lot of fun exploring French words together. Yesterday I took an apple, banana and strawberry and put them on the table and we were picking the right one when i said "Fraise", "Banane" or "Pomme" - he got it! Well, with a little help from his big brother.
My father, Dr. Paul Pimsleur, created his method for adults using the principles of total immersion, positive reinforcement and "graduated interval recall" (bringing back vocab words repeatedly, at just the right intervals, before you forget them). I used some of these same principles in creating the Little Pim series, which is total immersion and has a lot of repetition and positive reinforcement. Plus it's super fun for young children.
Whatever you decide to do for foreign language exposure, I always recommend you try to be consistent. If you are going to play French or Spanish music, try to put it on a few times a week. Or show your kids language DVDs at a certain time each day or several times a week. Good luck and let me know if i can answer any questions about language teaching to young children.

you can watch samples of Little Pim at www.LittlePim.com - remember you will be watching with your child (at least some of the time) so quality is an issue. you want something that you will also enjoy, and feel is well produced and has a real teaching method behind it. The entertainment immersion method Little Pim uses engages babies from the earliest age and allows them to absorb the proper pronunciation and rythms of a foreign languages. but don't take my word for it! read testimonials at http://www.littlepim.com/products/testimonials/. good luck...

Thanks for the welcomes...
This seems like a great, smart community of informed moms, and i am proud to be in here among you!
As for the CD playing -- my son has fallen asleep to French music for years, but I do not know enough about the science to comment on its effects on learning. I did, however, send the post about it to my scientific advisor (the very brilliant Dr. April Benasich, Director of the Infancy Studies Lab at Rutgers) and will let you know what she says when she gets back to me.
I always say 'more is more' when it comes to foreign language exposure, so the nighttime lessons can only be good.
Arabic is one of our next slated languages, by the way!
take care and enjoy your little ones. Vos petits, that is.
 

I am the founder of Little Pim -- so I thought I'd chime in! It's great to see so many parents seeking foreign language learning options for their young kids. I am the daughter of Dr. Paul Pimsleur and grew up fluent in French - one of the best gifts my parents ever gave me. I created Little Pim when my first son (now four) was born and I wanted to expose him to French from the earliest age. I had bought Muzzy but I didn't think it was appropriate for very young kids (the green monster, the guns, the complicated story line, the old-school animation). It seems designed more for 5+. I used my background as a filmmaker and as a teacher - and having grown up with my father's proven teaching method - to create the first foreign language series designed specifically for babies, toddlers and preschoolers.  Little Pim is taught by an adorable animated panda bear, named "Little Pim" and combines animation with real kids doing everyday activities. The DVDs are divided up into 5 minute episodes for babies and toddlers' short attention spans, and have vocab recaps for parents at the end of each episode. I am thrilled that we have won ten consumer awards, but I am even more pleased that so many parents write me to say their child "loves the panda" and can't wait to watch him! Our method is entertainment immersion. I know as a mom that if my kids aren't having fun, they aren't going to learn. So Little Pim is as fun as it is educational. Check out samples of any of our seven languages on our site at www.LittlePim.com and feel free to write me with language teaching questions. You can also read my blog about keeping foreign language teaching fun at www.littlepim.com/blog/. And if you want to order Little Pim, here is a 10% off coupon code!
COUPON CODE: PIMFRIEND                     
Testimonials and Reviews are at www.littlepim.com/products/testimonials/