Customer Reviews

Learn Spanish with Carlos & Chiquitita

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

We are just starting to teach our four and five year olds Spanish, so we bought a few teaching aids, including Learn Spanish with Carlos & Chiquitita. Some items didn't take, but the kids really enjoy this video! The animation is fairly primitive, but for some reasons the kids really like it. The video packs a lot into a half hour (the family, vowels/animals, parts of the body, food, basic phrases, etc.) and the dialog intersperses some more challenging word along the way, so the kids learn more the more they watch. The DVD works particularly well at combining entertaining songs with animation, which our kids ask to watch again and again. It also comes with a helpful guide book to help parents, and includes subtitles in English and Spanish, to help parents who don't know Spanish. I only wish this company had more than one Spanish teaching aid!

I found this DVD to be a well-done and creative introduction to a very useful language. New vocabulary and phrases are introduced within the context of different "sketches" where the cartoon characters are in different situations (at dinner, at the farm, in the playroom, before going to sleep). Therefore, what is being taught is generally quite practical. My daughter can now say "please pass me the bread" in Spanish and answers with "gracias". This DVD may be a little fast-paced for younger children, but was appropriate for my 8-year old daughter. Since I don't speak Spanish, I found it very helpful that an English-speaking narrator (a funny lizard) sets up each scene. The dialogues, however, are completely in Spanish which was fine because we understood the context. We need more educational tools like this one.

I bought this to review it for my students - I had some mothers ask me if I thought it would be a good teaching aid. So here's my take on it, as a Spanish teacher:

As a reinforcer to a Spanish class for 3 to 5 or 6 year olds, I think it's a good DVD. It is quite short for the money, but you can bet that the children will get more out of it each time they watch. Alone, I don't know how helpful it willl be - maybe to motivate your child to want to learn more. As an addition to Flip Flop Spanish (a workbook my students use with a CD) it fits very well, and adds a lot - presenting the information in a new format.

All in all, you can find better sources for less money, but my three children (ages 4, 2, and 1) did sit through it and repeat a lot of the words, but I speak to them in Spanish frequently, so it didn't give them anything new.

Sra. Gose
Author of Flip Flop Spanish: Ages 3-5: Level 1 & Flip Flop Spanish: Ages 3-5: Level 2

Que dice el pato? From watching this just one time I learned how to ask my son what the animals say, and he knows what I am saying. The video is primitive yes, but as another reviewer said, the kids like it. The sound quality gets very loud during the songs and you have to keep turning it down, so it is a little pricey. However if it had perfect sound quality the price would be worth it. I think this is one video that we can watch over and over and over again and learn something/reinforced every time. The scenes are all relevant, bathing, playing with sister, animal identification, family, etc. I would recommend buying this, just dont overlook the sound and the animation. I didnt like it at first, but the more I watch it with my son, the more I see he is learning from it (and I am too), and that is what is important.

Not as good as ROCK N' LEARN:SPANISH but your kids or you can still learn some good stuff. Also the DVD was a little shorter than I expected.

I am a single mother of a two year old daughter living in Chula Vista, California. I am wanting my daughter to learn and speak another language, spanish, other than english. After purchasing "Learn Spanish with Carlos & Chiquitita" and practicing the spanish with my daughter, I am amazed at how quickly she and I are learning spanish together. The DVD has made learning fun and easy.

I sat and viewed this DVD with my son. He paid attention the entire video. But I thought it was boring and very cheap and poorly put together. The information of what its teaching is good, but the production quality is very low.

This is a great introduction to spanish video. My kids are 3 y/o and 20 months and they both love it. The songs have a catchy tune that keeps them occupied. I took Spanish for 5 years and it is a good review for me as well. The only con I have is that the sound quality is inconsistent. Sometimes it projects really loud and other times you can barely hear it so I probably have a defective DVD that I just do not feel like bothering to send back and pay for shipping. Overall this is a great product and I would recommend it.

This DVD is terrible! The graphics are awful, the pace is too fast, and their is nothing appealing about the characters. I am a Spanish speaker and a Speech/Language Pathologist, I decided to buy this for my 4 year old to aid in her acquisition of the language. She did not even make it through the first 5 minutes and I can't blame her. Who really cares if a duck says Cuac Cuac? Instead of introducing words like "mama" and "papa" in isolation first it begins with sentences. The whole video is in Sapnish except for an intro to each section, since my child does not know Sapnish and is being told sentences with no explanation she was not able to follow along.
This DVD is definitly not worth the price!!!

I teach Spanish and many of my parents want to start their kids before they enter elementary school. I have recommended this one to them and all seem pleased. Great for youngsters starting out.