Customer Reviews

Brainy Baby - Spanish

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When I saw one of the very negative reviews, I thought this person was exaggerating given that I had bought the Brainy Baby for French DVD and thought it was really good (quality and all), but I needed to buy an educational DVD for my 18 mo. old daughter in Spanish since is too my very first mother tongue. I decided to buy this DVD, specially because there are not many out there of this kind. When I saw it, I thought it wasn't that bad. It does have accents where there should be, and question marks (Did this person referred to an old version?) However, they did use a couple of words that I would not use in spanish so it's useless to teach a toddler words she would not use, like the word for ball (pelota), they used "bola". I think pelota is more widely used, not just in Mexico. That is my only criticism; they should have used a term that is common for many countries, so I think they should have done a little more research and the narrator would be fine. Her pronunciation is fenomenal (regardless whether or not she is a native speaker, it doesn't matter!). The content of the video is great, just what a toddler needs to learn a language in a fun way. My daughter enjoyed this DVD from beginning to end. It's just good enough to entertain my daughter without mindless TV cartoons.

This is definitely a very entertaining DVD filled with a variety of tools to teach young children Spanish. I have been playing this DVD since my baby was about 6 months old and she loves it!! It is the ONLY video (DVD) she will actually sit and pay attention to for a long time. Now that she has just turned one, there are many words that she says and recognizes from the video. As a Spanish speaker myself, I highly recommend it, although there are some words that could use different translations (but that depends where you are from.) Nonetheless, the video is entertaining, useful, full of color and cute babies, which your baby will love! It may become quite annoying to you after watching it so much but your child will love it. It's a great video...buy it!

Brainy Baby is a high quality video for children to learn some Spanish words and phrases, however, it varies very little from Bilingual Baby (Spanish) with it's pictures, words, and music. I was disappointed to spend $ with shipping to receive a video so similar to one I already own and love. It has perhaps 15 words different than Bilingual Baby. If you don't have Bilingual Baby, Brainy Baby is wonderful. If you're looking for the best, I would reccommend Bilingual Baby for it's slightly slower speech patterns and the helpful translated script found on the fold out jacket cover. Both are produced and sold by Small Fry, yet there is no indication on the Brainy Baby video information that it is almost the same video as Bilingual Baby. When I put Brainy Baby in to play for my 3 year old son, he said,"Mom, we already have this movie."

First, I should say that I am originally from Spain, and my wife is from Central America. Our native language is Spanish, which we are proud to cultivate. Now, let's get on with the review.

We bought this DVD for my 20 month year old hoping to expose him to some Spanish via the TV. Both my wife and I speak to him in Spanish.

First, I would like to address the content of the DVD.

As a previous reviewer said, the DVD uses a NON-native speaker. The first lesson starts by showing a plastic soccer ball. The proper word in Spanish word for a ball is "pelota". "Bola" is generally used for hard balls, like a bowling or a billiard's ball. Next, the video shows a box of crayolas. The announcer goes on to say "Crayones". What!!?? Sorry, but that is not a real word. I guess "pinturas", "lapices de colores", "colores", "ceras" was too hard to come up with? Next, orange is translated as "anaranjado". The proper translation is "naranja". "Anaranjado" means "like orange". I could go on an on...

Let's now atalk about the format of the DVD.

Sorry, but it is not entertaining enough for a kid. It basically bombards him/her with words & images. There are no sketches or stories of any kind. It is very likely that your kid will soon turn away from the set and go on to more interesting things. I suggest you play one chapter at a time to avoid overloading the kid. My oldest son is now 22 moths old and this DVD is too basic for him. I hope that gives you an indication of the level of the content.

To conclude, I would like to point out that this DVD was probably done with very little money and it shows. For the money, this DVD should have better content, better presentation, and include a color picture book.

Unfortunately for those of you that are looking for a decent Spanish DVD to teach your kids, there isn't much out there. This is the winner by default, and hence my 2 star rating.

Frankly, I am surprised anyone would describe this video as disappointing. I had a home day care and cared for two children whose native language was Spanish and they LOVED watching this video. All the other children did as well, but especially those who already knew the language. The video shows colorful toys and counts them and talks about the colors of the items. The vocabulary words are repeated, as I would expect on any language video. Surely you cannot teach by only saying the words once? There are scenes of happy children playing; most of the examples involve children. Sometimes we see adults holding or cuddling the children. I personally find that children pick up on my own attitude towards the material, in other words, I show excitement and treat the material as interesting and they do too. I do not use the video as a babysitter, but as an educational tool. I sit with the children and say the words out loud and they follow my lead. I make every attempt to show the video at a time when the children are fresh and ready to learn, not late in the day when they are tired. I have also showed the video to friends who are Spanish speaking to explain what I was doing in my day care to teach Spanish to the children. They were very impressed with the video. I found the lessons very structured, the vocabulary very appropriate for young preschool children, and the pace was just right for the children in my day care. My daughter is three and we are moving on to learning more vocabulary words than the basics she learned in this video, but this laid the foundation for her. We still use the video from time to time as review, even now that I no longer have a day care, so that she doesnt lose what she has already learned. A pamphlet that came with the video suggests you shorten the viewing time if the childs attention span is short, which sometimes happens. Occasionally we might do a few minutes of Spanish video and then play and then do a few more minutes later. Usually I show the video when she has just woken up or is clearly ready to focus. Learning a foreign language can be demanding, I dont try to over do it, but I also dont neglect the importance of presenting lessons in a way that my child can enjoy and also in being persistent. I love the use of toys, foods, common household objects, and cute things like snowmen and giggling babies. I like the way the video gives vocabularies and then builds on it, so that we hear sentences made up of words we already learned. And then we hear questions that are also easy to understand. There isnt a word of English in it, just Spanish and images to give a context and meaning to the word. None of the Spanish-speaking people that I know found any fault with any pronunciations, or any other aspect of the video. I found it to be excellent, and my daughter is the proof of it. I am so grateful that I was able to introduce her to another language at such a young age when it is much easier for them to learn!

I am a billingual Spanish (Cuban)/English speaker. It is very important to me that I teach my son Spanish. I bought this video to reinforce my teachings. I am very pleased with all that it covers. It reviews the numbers 1-10, colors, common nouns, some parts of the body, Mommy, Daddy, common verbs, hello, goodbye, yes, no, and how to say please and I love you. It does some reviews with questions and answers for things like, "How many books are there? There is one book.", or "What color is the snowman? The snowman is white." (obviously in Spanish). The words for all of these are displayed in Spanish on the screen in large print and in English in small print. There is a lot of repetion to reinforce the lessons. They missed some obvious things, like how to say thanks you and some parts of the body (like arms), but I guess you can't get everything in. They also use a couple of words that are different from my dialect, but there are so many dialects, I can't see how they can avoid it. They also sing Mary had a Little Lamb in Spanish (no words are shown onscreen while doing this, which would have been nice). But, overall, a very good dvd and worth purchasing.

So I have Bilingual Baby already and this DVD is almost exactly the same. So it didn't add any value to my 2 year old son. Also, the best way to teach kids spanish is to immerse them in the music, visuals and language and this video doesn't do that. In fact none of the United States based videos do. I highly recommend you try videos that come from Hispanic countries instead. Much more visually impactful. Try "Los Rayos".

Generally speaking, This DVD is OK. I used it with my oldest child... but not too much because it did not really manage to keep her engaged; and to be honest, I don't think that repetition of vocabulary words is the best way to learn a language. After all, that is not the way we learn to speak. Also, the music is not great... and the speaker, even if she has a good accent, still is not native...

The truth is that at the moment, there were not many other options out there, specially full-immersion DVDs or CDs.

Luckily for my second child, there are much better options available now, specially foreign productions. I am specially excited about a collection of DVDs by A LA VIBORA DE LA MAR that I discovered on a trip to México. I have been using them with my 2-year old for almost a year, and she absolutely loves them (these are full immersion DVDs, in fact, they were designed for Spanish-speaking babies... but they have worked wonders for my children who have developed an acute ear for the language)... I strongly suggest you check them out. They are now available through Amazon (at half the price I paid for them in Mexico!!) I have 4 titles and we love them all.

This is a good dvd, but was disappointed to find it to be exactly the same as Bilingual Baby video that I already have..was not expecting that. So if you have the other, don't bother with this.

My first language is Spanish and I got this DVD for my daughter so she can learn more Spanish. The first time she watch it, she didn't care (she was under 1 year). Now that she is older she LOVE IT!! She doesn't move her eyes from the TV.

The Spanish is good, it uses some words that we don't use frequently for some objects (like "bola" for ball) but I can live with that. There is only one word that I think the translation is wrong: "Creyones" I never heard that. We use Crayones o Crayolas but not "Creyones"

Other than that, the video is good, has good content and good pronunciation.