Customer Reviews

Can You Greet the Whole Wide World?: 12 Common Phrases in 12 Different Languages

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

 

 

My native language is German and I have basic knowledge in Italian and French. I just see so many mistakes in this book and I'm only focusing on German. Example: According to this book German is spoken in Germany, Austria and Belgium. They forgot Switzerland, my home country. No problem with me, but it is just not correct. Instead they added Belgium (correct), where there are about 100 German speakers (I don't know exactly, but not much more) and which is missing a lot of times on the German-speaking-country-list.
Other Example: In most (or all?) European Languages you use a polite form to speak to a grown-up and a casual form to speak among friends and with children. This book is mixing that up: in the book it is suggested that you greet your teacher with "Wie geht's" (German). There is no direct translation for that in English because the English language doesn't make this distinction. But it is a bit like saying "Howdy" to your teacher. On the other hand the book suggests that you greet your new neighbor at school with "Wie heissen Sie?" which could be translated into: Sir, what's your name.
I'm not saying I'm going to through this book away. But for my two sons who are growing up bilingual it is really not doing the trick. And to Houghton Mifflin (one of the largest US publishers) I have to say: Where were the fact checkers?

I will start off saying I love this book and my kids (3 and 5) love this book. I really, really, really want to give it 5 stars, but I couldn't.
Pros:
Includes the phrase in each language, with the proper arabic transliteration if the original language uses characters (i.e. Ogenki desu ka instead of the Japanese characters) as well as a pronounciation.

Very cute verses on each page relating to the phrase

Wonderful illustrations that have a lot to look at

Cons:
No pronunciation key, and I couldn't see consistency in the way the pronunciations were written. It seemed that if there were an English word pronounced the same, that was used (like "sigh"). It would have been nice to have consistency and a key.

Alternating between formal and informal language. Another review mentioned this - when it says you are greeting the teacher, it gives informal language for both German and Spanish (not sure on the other languages) and when it says you are asking the name of a new kid in class, it uses formal language. For this kind of book, it would have been nice to use one form all the way through, with perhaps an information page at the end that explains this and gives the alternate form.

I mostly like the phrases that were chosen, but it would have been nice to include the response too. I.e. for "How are you?" including "I'm well" and along with "What is your name?" including "My name is..."

Guten Morgen
Boker tov
Buenos dias
Sab'a alkair
Dobroye utro
Shubh probhaat
dzau an
Sawubona
Ohayo gozaimasu
Buon giorno
Bonjour
Bom dia

or "Good Morning." Twelve ways to say good morning from German to Arabic to Zulu to French this book introduces children to other children and how they greet, ask how are you, what's your name, and say common words like no, please, thank you and more!

The back of the book contains a map with colored symbols as to where each language is spoken. This is a great book to introduce your child to other languages and cultures. The illustrations are well done and the prose is such that you can take it as far as you'd like in terms of helping a child understand other cultures.

For young children, this would be an excellent book if you are planning a trip away from the United States.

The public library made this book available to my Head Start classroom. We had so much fun learning common phrases in 12 different languages. Each day we learned something new. I decided to order my own copy. I also ordered the companion "Can You Count on Ten Toes". This year we will learn counting in 10 differnt languages.

Basic phrases from 'good morning' and 'please' to 'thank you' and 'no' are revealed in not just the usual French and Spanish but Zulu, Chinese, Hindi, German and more: 12 languages for 12 phrases. The result allows for a wonderful understanding of other languages and teaches kids similarities between them. A fun introduction to other languages which goes beyond the usual bilingual focus.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch