Need Chinese resource recommendations

[cokers4life]

You can take a tour of mandarama (see here: http://www.mandarama.com/guest-tour/discover%2Bwhat%2Bmakes%2Bmandarama%2Bso%2Bspecial ), and get a feel for the games and lessons.   The languagenut allows you to seem more of what it has to offer, and I kind of think it might be better.  Its hard to tell because Mandarama doesn't give a very indepth look.  Languagenut offers more than one language which might be appealing to most.  You have to pay for each language and level separately while on Mandarama gives you access to its entire site for one year subscription.
 
Languagenut lets you choose between Hanzi and Pinyin, so if you prefer no Pinyin than you have that option.  (that of course is a nice option).  It has a free play area as well which allows you to see how they present their material.  http://www.languagenut.com/us/trynow/

I think I would go with Languagenut over Mandarama from what I see.

[cokers4life]

If you want to learn Chinese alongside of your LOs, here is by a far the most extensive online Chinese learning course for FREE.  I love free!   You have to register, but again its free and worth it.  I am still in awe of how extensive this site is and for it to be free.
http://www.hanyu.com.cn/en/enhome.aspx


This part is great for you and the little ones to do together.  Its from the same site. 
http://www.hanyu.com.cn/en/followme/

[cokers4life]

Okay don't hate me, but I have another one.  It just gets better.  I promise.  I just thought there was nothing free online for kids to learn Chinese, but I am wrong!!   I have never been so excited to be wrong.  This site is amazing for kids.  Its a child friendly (AD FREE) site that provides four different courses to learn Chinese and lots of supplemental resources of games, videos, books.  It just goes on.  You don't have to register either.  There are four different online courses if you scroll to the bottom and look on the left hand side of the screen.  I might be on this site all day.  Check out the "Happy Chinese" course.  Its 24 lessons long with each lesson containing a cartoon video, situational video, new words review, sentence patterns, games and pronunciation practice. 

http://kid.chinese.cn/en/node_991.htm

[Mela Bala]

I don't hate you at all     
Thank you so much for all these links.... I am a bit overwhelmed but with your valid recommendations I am going to take it one site at a time.

[sonya_post]

I have a question for those of you who don't speak Chinese and want to teach it to your kids. A how do you do it? I can't pronounce most of the words even after hearing them 20 times. I have this http://www.betterchinese.com/Preschool/Textbook_3/My-First-Chinese-Words-Simplified_2.html that I picked up at a thrift store for $2. I had this great idea I'd learn Chinese with my son.....hmmm, not so much. I even went to the Chinese resturant and asked if I could get my kids to play with theirs because I want my son to learn Chinese and I'd even pay them. Or I'd babysit for free...I have this daycare things going on in my home. No luck....We are nearly in the niddle of nowhere so any advice??.

[Kerileanne99]

Sonya-
Any universities or colleges near you? We have been quite successful with emailing a prof in the language department of choice, and asking them for recommendations for students fluent in the language..we currently have an ASL- 'helper' and a Spanish-'helper' that come in one day per week to play with her for a couple of hours, full immersion...

[Mela Bala]

Sonya,
I posted a link earlier today to a tutor who offers Skype lessons for teaching Chinese.  I will be using her services when our schedule settles down.
Cayden has started speaking various phrases, words and counting 0-100.  He has been exposed to LR, sesame street, Wink & Sing to learn and Little Pim.  I have a lot of DVDs he has not let me play for him since right now he is going through a Preschool Prep and Little Pim stage.  I just got him a Chinese touch reading pen which he loves.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003755ZIM/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00
There are tons of apps I have not gotten a chance to show him since he has his own agendas with the iPad.  There is one in particular I am using for myself to learn proper pronunciation it is called tone dance party.  There are many free story book apps available.
What's funny is the night I ordered the music math cds I played it while he slept and when he woke up in the morning he was speaking in Chinese.  I purchased some flash cards from someone on the forum here and just got them translated into English and pinyin so I will start those soon I want to make sure my pronunciation is correct. The only words I know are the ones he can translate into English for me.  I have a couple of websites I plan on buying resources from since I don't see myself learning it anytime soon.  If you are interested I can post it.  I would do it now but I'm not on the laptop that has the links.  Here is a link to a video of Cayden reading numbers using LM.  I acccidently skipped the numbers 71-80 because it is so rare he lets me record him I was a little nervous.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/XFZSoqMMV5w&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/XFZSoqMMV5w&rel=1</a>

[sonya_post]

Fantastic. This is a wonderful video. Please post the resources. I guess I am going to attempt this even if I can't learn it myself. He's never even seen or heard what I have because I gave up too quickly. This might make me go back the Chinese restaurant and beg. I am not above begging. And maybe I will take the computer and show them Little Reader and perhaps the Chinese content and then I can borrow their child and our children can learn together. This might require serious begging.

The video has made me get off my lazy keister and find a way.

Bravo!!!

[Mela Bala]

All I did was press play... Bravo to BrillKids 
This site has alot of products and also offers free lesson plans http://www.languagelizard.com/v/vspfiles/products.htm
This is their link to alot of resources http://www.languagelizard.com/v/vspfiles/newsresources.htm
http://www.ipandabook.com/
http://www.childbook.com/

I couldn't give up because of all the success stories I read about on this forum.  I am hoping as he gets older he will start giving other dvds a chance.  He loves singing along with music so I just bought some cds from amazon  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006077IZW/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i03 Edit * comes with a beautiful insert with song words in Chinese Characters and Pinyin

He has not seen the Sing to Learn lessons yet but he loves their app so I just bought 3 cds from them.  They are having a sale until mid Oct. 25% off
http://www.winktolearn.com/

I really appreciate all the resources Cokers4Life has been posting because all of mine cost money.    But its worth it.
Sonya I just noticed it looks like our sons were born on the same day

[yoyo64]

try languagenut.com
It is an online resource
you can have a free trial before buying . I have used the French version of it and my children have enjoyed it

[cokers4life]

http://www.hwjyw.com/textbooks/downloads/hanyu/

http://www.hwjyw.com/textbooks/downloads/youerhanyu/

I saw these links on another forum.  These are links to free children's Chinese textbooks.  You do need to actually read and speak Chinese or know how to read pinyin.  Both Chinese characters and pinyin are include.  There is no English.  Very nice quality textbooks though.  I am going to try using these on myself and then maybe introduce them later when my children are ready for textbooks.  I still can't figure out how I feel about Pinyin.

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