Customer Reviews

The Alphabet / El alfabeto (English and Spanish Foundations Series) (Book #1) (Bilingual) (Board Book) (English and Spanish Edition)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book does a great job of teaching the alphabet in English and Spanish. With each letter, the author found a word for an object that starts with the same letter in both English and Spanish...A - airplane, avión...B - balls, bolas...C - crayons, creyones.

Two words are a little unusual.. ñandú and quetzal, but it is clearly hard to find words that start with "ñ" and words that mean the same thing in English and Spanish AND start with the letter "q".

Overall, I think the author did a great job finding words that started the same in both languages. The pictures are clear and playful. It is a wonderful introduction to the alphabet for your little bilingual baby!

Before I begin my critique, I must say that my three kids have all enjoyed hearing this book at the appropriate age. The illustrations, by Michele Noiset, are bright, clear, fun, and functional. Most of the items depicted in this ABC book are interesting and/or familiar to young children (train, ocean, juice).

BUT there are inherent difficulties in portraying ABC-linked items in English and Spanish. What do I mean? Well, Spanish has very few, if any, words that begin with "W". So, in this book, the "W" page has a 1978 George Washington quarter for its illustration. What USEFUL word do our aspiring bilinguists learn from this page? "Washington". Similarly, "Y" is for "yo-yo" in both languages, and 'R' is for "robot". As far as I'm concerned, this is "lame/lamé".

The next difficulty (closely related to the first) is that español has three more "letters" than English has: "ch" ("chay), "ll" ("el-yay"), and "ñ" ("en-nyay"). Fact is, NO English-only words begin with these "letters". That means that this book gives us "chimpanzee" (spelled identically in both languages), "llama" (fine, but there's no pronunciation guide to distinguish between the two), and "ñandu", which the authors and editors had to acquiesce, has no English equivalent. (It's a an emu-sort-of thing.)

I wouldn't bother with this book unless you get it practically free. There are many better ABC books and there are many better (i.e. more educational) English-Spanish/español/inglés books on the market.

I really like these books. The alphabet one has great illustrations that my little one likes to look at (and so do I). Because it finds words that start with the same letter in English and Spanish, you get a nice variety of examples for the letters. For example, crayons instead of the traditional cat for C or monster instead of monkey for M.

I highly recommend these books as a good way to gain exposure to another language. Enjoy!!!

My daughter was having trouble getting the alphabet down in her Spanish class. I remembered that I had this book, and we pulled it out and began going over it consistently. In no tme did she finally master it and got an A in her class on the test. Because of the way that the book was written, we were both able to learn the alphabet and other words that were in it, and now both of my children want me to continue getting books like these by this author so that they can learn more. They have a lot of Spanish friends, and have enjoyed practicing what they have learned from these books. These books are simple enough for a small child, and informative enough for an adult like me to pick-up the language.

This is a very good book for learning English and Spanish. The book is very well made and a great size for little hands. The pictures are large, bright and colorful. However, the Spanish does not include the article. This is very helpful in learning the gender of the word and should be taught with the vocabulary. There is also a couple of strange choices. For example, Q stands for "quetzal" rather than something more familiar like "queso".

Our 30 month old loves this set. It's in-depth enough (shapes, for example) that it will keep him engaged for months. Great illustrations. Sturdy, well-made construction.

My son, who received this book from me as a travel occupier on a long-haul flight, loved looking at the vibrant and large illustrations on each page and listening to me read aloud the words for each letter in both the English and Spanish that he insisted on having it read to him again and again throughout our 19 day vacation and has since requested it at least once a week. We are concentrating on trying to raise him bilingual, though we are neither native Spanish speakers but have learnt over years. However, this is a great book for beginning words, regardless of which language or languages you prefer.

I like the pictures, they are very bright & colorful. My son enjoys reading it with me. I read it in Spanish & my husband reads it to him in English. He's 10 months old, and loves the colors! Nice & chuncky too! Great if you're trying to teach your child 2 languages.

I am a first grade teacher, working with students who speak Spanish at home, but are learning English, and learning in English at school. My students are just beginning to develop their English vocabulary, so it is difficult to teach them letter sounds. If I show them a picture of cat, and say "C is for Cat," they get confused and think "C is for Gato". As a result, we have been talking a lot about "magic words," words that begin with similar sounds in English and Spanish. I can tell them "C is for Car," and even if they think "C is for Carro," they are still able to learn the correct letter/sound correspondence. This book is useful because it includes these "magic words" for each letter of the alphabet. As another reviewer commented, some of the words are sort of strange, ("W is for Washington"?). But, for the most part, this book is very useful for children who are just beginning to develop a vocabulary in English or Spanish, yet need to develop an understanding of the letter/sound correspondence in either language. I would recommend this book for any students (pre-school through 3rd grade) who need to develop literacy skills in English, but have a stronger Spanish vocabulary (or vice versa).

This is a great book for teaching both English and Spanish alphabet. The did a good job at selecting matching pictures to the letters in both languages. There are a couple that just could have been better. Like the letter "w" the image is of a quarter and the word is "washington". A bit confusing. So I just tell my son that its a president George Washington on the quarter. Also, it omitted the "rr". Otherwise the book is great. I would definitely buy it again.