Customer Reviews

Follow Jade! Learn Chinese: Let's Visit Chinese Kindergarten

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

 

 

From the back cover: "Ages 2-6. Approximately 30 minutes." Generally OK, but not much material. (Hello, you/me, what-is-your-name/my-name-is, numbers 1-10, colors, milk/juice/water, sun/moon/rain. Oh yeah, and butterfly/spider, so they can do half-English, half-Mandarin songs, including "itsy bitsy spider" with the sun/moon/rain! Little bit of culture, e.g. yogurt but no milk at the market, and different counting on your fingers.) Six native and non-native kindergarteners speak (and sing), besides teacher Qian. The tones seem fine, though of course Jade doesn't make a big deal out of them because: first lesson, little kids, etc. (A VHS reviewer made much of the "total physical response" with motions for the kids to make corresponding to words; yet this is used only twice -- once for "I" which requires NO physical anything to memorize. Lame at best, but not problematic.)

I gave it three stars because it (like some foreign-language-instruction items) was kind of expensive for what you get. Thirty minutes for thirty dolla seemed intentionally priced-up for library purchase. As does splitting two Follow Jade episodes, at 30 min. each, onto 2 DVD's instead of just 1. (On the other hand, the Annenberg/CPB "Dragon's Tongue" Chinese videos are dramatically more expensive than their "Destinos" Spanish videos, too.) Ask your library first, or if you purchase it yourself, be sure to donate it to your library after your child learns & outgrows it!

Quick comparison & recommendation: Follow Jade for 3-5 years. (Light on material, and games a litle slow-paced. But has humans, not cartoons, moving their human mouths, which helps a lot at first.) Billy & Benboo for 6-7 years. (More material, a little too fast for the rank beginner, but has a booklet, and hanzi characters. With repetitions, sooner or later you get it all. Crummy slide-like "animation".) At age 8 and up, your child (and you) will probably get more from the regular adult Pimsleur audio course, which sort-of has a story line.

I bought this for my nearly 19 month old son. He loves it. He stood still and watched all 30 minutes of it the first time I put it in the DVD player. We have other language tapes in German & Russian (languages that we speak at home and that he is learning) but he's never repeated new words while watching those videos as he has with this one. In comparison to the cartoon Billy & Benbu video for learning Mandarin, this video lets you also watch the teacher's mouth as she correctly pronounces words. While my son likes the low budget cartoons in Billy and Benbu, he is much more captivated by the real, older (school age) children in this video. Two areas for improvement: (1) I find it too short (30 minutes) for the money. I wish it were 45 minutes long with a bit more content. (2) The video includes some children's songs that are used only as a transition between learning segments (not to be confused with the other songs that are a separate learning section toward the end of the tape). These transition songs are useless for the non-Mandarin speaker as there is no translation/explanation of them for the student. That said, I would not let these two issues stop me from purchasing this DVD. My son likes to watch it and is repeating words; his grandparents and I like it too, and we're all learning Mandarin!

I purchased this video for my 2 year old. [...] it could've included a bit more, but I haven't seen anything better out there for young Tots. My daughter loves the "1,2,3,4,5,6,7 where is my friend" song. Very catchy. I figured if she learns all the vocabulary introduced, it would've been worth the price.

I think this movie is great for learning - if you are English speaking and just beginning to learn the Chinese language. Jade is great about speaking slowly and repeating words. My daughter (who is 2) has learned so much in just the 2 weeks she has had it. She can already count to ten, say milk, water, juice, butterfly, and some of the colors. She also can say what her name is when asked in Chinese. I think it's great. I would recommend to other parents.

This was one of the first Chinese DVDs we purchased for our two children and remains a favorite. It is very easy to understand - the Chinese is spoken clearly and repeated well (but not too much like some videos!). My kids like watching the real kids on the video. The transition song is great and the kids learned it in no time.

Jade is very good at speaking clearly and making the tones obvious. Some other DVDs we have seem to say the Chinese word rather quietly and the English word loudly and clearly (the opposite of what we would want!). My kids learned all the Chinese words fairly easily and pronounce them correctly.

I think the price is fair because it is a specialized topic. (Not a mass-produced show off of television). Considering that Mandarin tutoring can cost around $50 per hour, this is a great deal! We wish there were more Follow Jade DVDs!

While others have made the comment that this DVD is a little on the short side, watching it doesn't feel short. Jade does a fabulous job of teaching basic Chinese words. I love how she manages repetition. She teaches the basics, then little kids demonstrate what she just taught and then there is usually a fun review. She does a great job of giving time for the lessons to really sink in, yet keeps my 3 year old son entertained the whole time. I love how watching this DVD has markedly improved his Chinese skills. I'll be buying another Follow Jade DVD soon.

I am an adoptive father of a daughter from Anhui, China. I have the Jade videos to try to help us learn some Chinese. My daughter enjoys the Jade videos. Thanks to this one she can count to 10 in Chinese. I just wish there were more videos in the series than just two.

We have both of the Follow Jade DVD's. They are fantastic. She repeats the words alot and in different settings. Too bad that they are only the words, and she doesn't teach you how to ask for it in a sentence. Hopefully, she will expand and create more dvd's.

I also recommend the Mei Mei dvd's, too. They're great, too. The songs are very catchy.

Plus, we also bought this gorgerous "ASIAN AMERICAN BERENGUER GIRL DOLL" from EBAY, and my daughter absolutely loves to play with the beautiful doll and watch her Chinese dvd's.

This is a good video, I recommend you get the first Jade video first, colors and numbers and drinks. This one seemed a little less good, seems a bit rushed through. I wish someone would pay attention to the details of language learning.