Customer Reviews

Lyric Language - Japanese/English 1 [VHS]

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

 

 

We first found this video at the library. Our then-3-year-old son loved it, and still watches it now that he's 4. The so-so production values and mugging kid actors may come across as cheesy to adults, but the music is catchy, and our son now has a slew of new everyday vocabularly in Japanese. Our Japanese friends with young kids like it better than we do, because the vignettes are slices of Americana such as the zoo, amusement park, birthday party, etc. Since it's bilingual, it works just as well for them teaching rudimentary English.
No Oscars are likely, but this video has its own charm.

This video has the right idea, probably, but doesn't really work in the long run. The japanese language is set to music about commonplace events like going to the zoo, surviving a rainy day, etc. The problem is that the songs are not catchy at all and don't keep the attention of children. The scenes, themselves, are not riveting enough to do it either. Therefore, little ones don't stay in the room to learn anything. My kids are eight years old and very vested in learning Japanese, but they watched the video one and a half times, then put it away forever. When I asked them what they learned, they replied that they didn't know. Unsuccessful for kids in this age group. They went back to watching Seven Samurai and spouting phrases like "Twelve bandits to the east!" Even this old black and white movie rivets them more than this vapid little video put out by the folks at Family Circle.

This is the easiest, sweetest way to learn a foriegn language, and Japanese is especially hard to find. My kids literally beg for me to put in this tape.

The way this tape goes from one lyric in Japanese to English and back is confusing, bores my 2 yr old and the same melody is used over and over. I agree with the other reviews: it's better for Japanese kids learning English because everything is set in America. Not fair but that's how every "Japanese" video I've viewed so far is. Where's the true video that includes teaching the characters/kanji?

This is a very fast paced tape. The musical background and material is aimed at children. The vocabulary of Japanese words while limited is reinforced thru repetition and music. There was no practice in character recognition as all subtitles were in English. Probably good for early teen or younger. I wish there were more tapes in this series.