Customer Reviews

Baby's First Words in Spanish

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

All of the Baby's First Words CDs by Living Language (formerly under the title of Baby's First Steps) are wonderful. Adult native speakers sing songs that are part of the culture from which each language derives and native children say rhymes that are familiar to native children of each language. If you are interested in more than one language, you can buy each different language CD without having any same songs or rhymes repeated because each is unique to the language. We have the Spanish, French, and Italian Cds and love all of them. Each one has 50 tracks that include songs, rhymes, and sayings that are appropriate for any child learning another language. The Spanish one has familiar Spanish songs such as De Colores and Las Mananitas. The French one has songs such as Frere Jacques and A la claire au fontaine. As stated before, only native speakers are on these CDs so the accents are authentic. However, on this Spanish CD, there is no person from Spain that I can hear (I speak Spanish). These are definitely Latin American accents, none from Spain, but the pronunciations are very precise and clear. Everything is annunciated well and the rhymes are spoken more slowly in order for babies and children to learn them well.

I just purchased this CD and so far am extremely pleased with it. The songs are very pleasant and fun to listen to and are sung by native-speaking female and male singers.

Also, with an entire booklet of Spanish and English translations, there are rhymes and spoken verses in children's voices as well as other sounds to enhance the songs such as babies laughing, etc.

The booklet is broken down into ages which seems helpful but I play the CD all the way through for myself and my son, who is 4 months old, because the songs and rhymes are so enjoyable to listen to!

The booklet also noted "Spain" and/or "Latin America" next to the songs however, as the reviewer below said and I am fluent in Spanish as well, I could not detect a difference in Spanish speakers to reflect this linguistical difference. So, I think that when they noted "Spain" and/or "Latin America" (and "Mexico" for one listing), it was probably to inform us where the song is popular, rather than the origin of the singer. That's my guess, anyway.

I haven't read all of it yet but there's a parents' guide (that seems pretty comprehensive) that is an introduction to the idea of bi/multilingualism, showing you how to help your baby/child speak more than one language, your child's linguistic milestones, how to make the most of the CD, basic Spanish for adults and resources for parents including websites.

I am more than pleased with this purchase and feel it is very much worth the money.

The only other thing I would have added on top of all of this is a variety of dialects, which vary greatly from country to country, for example, Spanish from Spain vs from Puerto Rico vs from Venezuela, etc but this really would have been over and above my expectations so I didn't deduct a star from my rating for it.

I speak Spanish fluently, but not being raised speaking Spanish, I did not know any songs to share with my son when he was born. I found this CD, and it has been fantastic! We speak Spanish about 20% of the time at home, but in spite of hearing more English, this is the first CD my son had any interest in at all. He loves De Colores, and the song about the Elefantes especially well.

I am uncertain what another reviewer meant about the CD and the booklet being out of sync, unless that was true in an older version. In ours, the tracks on the CD and in the booklet are both arranged according to age/developmental level. The booklet is extremely helpful because it includes the full lyrics to all the songs, so if there are some parts of the song you don't understand (or if you don't speak Spanish but are prepared to imitate the songs), the lyrics are right there for you to study.

I have about 15 CDs and/or DVDs of songs/rhymes in Spanish, and this is hands down my favorite!

Wonderful product. My 2 month old loves this cd. She wants to listen to it over and over. It's one of the few things that actually helps when she's colicy at night. The songs and poems are so calming. And the constant repetition is actually helping me with my learning of the language, too.

The songs are fun, but the book isn't very helpful. The CD is for several different ages but it isn't divided up in any way. There is a lot of skipping and restarting. I have resorted to just letting the CD play all the way through even though my daughter is only 9 months. She likes the upbeat music!

This recording is great, the songs and rhymes are fun and my 6 month old enjoys listenting to them (she stares at the cd player the entire time it's playing). Unfortunately, Amazon only sells the Audible version so there is not a booklet available with the lyrics or translation. They don't tell you that you won't be able to download the booklet before purchasing it. It would definitely be an improvement if they allowed you to download the cd booklet with the audio download (like you can for some cd's in itunes) so that you could read the spanish and translate. Otherwise, this is a great way to introduce Spanish to a little one.

we really like this cd! we want our kids to know and understand that other cultures and languages are wonderful and interesting and valuable and we hope to foster a others-centeredness rather than an Americanized elitism! this is one small contribution towards that goal. the songs/rhymes/peoms are easy to listen to and sing along to... don't see myself getting sick of them and we've been using them for about 6 months now.

Given the propensity for children to repeat songs and rhymes they enjoy over and over again, this CD is worth its weight. It is not only a great selection of sounds, rhymes and songs but put together in such a way that makes learning the language fun and interesting. As its focus is developing your ear for different sounds, it meets its own criteria exactly, which makes it as educationally strong as it is fun. The great bonus though, is that it captures the culture from which the language is part of so well, that it really does feel like a living language. The voices are varied from children, men and women and the songs and rhymes are the same as the ones children of that mother tongue learn from. I did not intend to buy this one or any of the other three in the series, but it was so good I bought them all. I play them over and over again for my daughter and I am still happy to keep listening and learning. The guide and handbook, although a bit small in format, works very advantageously with the CD. If I could have my dream come true - I see a workbook and flashcard series to follow up the CDs would be a fabulous addition. And of course, GERMAN, the orginal language I had been looking for - please please please make one in German. I am still looking for something comparable and so far they have all been awful flops!

I've been playing this CD every day to my 1 year old. I don't know about him, but I sure do have the songs and rhymes stuck in my head. Although I can't sing along with the Spanish version as quickly as the CD, I have faith that even I might get there. :)

Enhancement requests:
1) I wish that there could be a website where we could register that we purchased the book.

That way if we lose (or the baby chews up) the lyric booklet we could print out a new one.

Also, the lyrics are tiny. I have a hard time reading them and my 75 year old mother doesn't have a hope of being able to read the lyric sheet. If we could print out the lyrics from a registered users web page, then we could adjust the size of the font.

2) Please, please come out with a "Baby's First Words in English" version! I cannot find a CD of classic English songs/rhymes with or without the lyrics. (I find Susie Tallman's nursery song CDs extremely grating.) I would love it if Erika Levy produced an English version of classics with the lyrics. I don't know the lyrics and end up humming a lot of English nursery songs. :(

3) When is "Baby's First Words in German" going to come out?

The songs on this cd are really cute and fun to sing along with. The book that comes with this cd makes the product really easy to use.