3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Teaching only ONE word in foreign languages and they get it wrong!, May 29, 2011
This review is from: My Mom and Me (Hardcover)
I saw these books (My Dad and Me, My Mom and Me) this weekend at a book fair. I was interested as my son and I are learning multiple languages, esp French (we are in Quebec) and Mandarin (he is adopted from China)... but noticed that both the "baba" in the Dad book and the "mama" in the Mom book in Mandarin are wrong. How can an author, editor and publisher all get such simple words, only one word per book in several languages, wrong? Yes it is mama in Mandarin, but it is the 1st, high tone on the 1st "a" and a neutral tone on the second, not the 4th, falling tone on both "a"s in mama.
This is something so simple, so elementary, in every single "first Chinese words" book, textbook, dvd, cd for kids or adults. One can find it in seconds on google. I cannot imagine writing that and bothering to put the wrong accents (which make it a completely different word, with different meaning, like saying "the camel was in the desert" or "Don't desert me!"
Màmà doesn't actually mean anything in Chinese, though mà itself means to scold, swear or curse at people. It does NOT mean mother, and one of the first things one learns in Chinese that ma in first tone means mommy, ma in 2nd tone means hemp or flax, ma in 3rd tone means horse, and ma in 4th (like they put in this book) means to swear. Basically if you say "màmà and me" you are saying "cursing and me". Nice.
It would be better to not bother putting out multilingual books if you can't get it right. This isn't a hard text, nor one word typo out of a whole dictionary. It is just "Mom" in a couple languages. Big fail. (and it is bad enough to get the mom book wrong, but the dad book as well??)
Why teach us incorrect words? Pay an author, an illustrator, an editor, a printer, to put out a book that has such blatant errors. I would never buy it or read it to my kid, since if the Mandarin is wrong, the chances are that the spanish, hebrew and hindi are also wrong, and I could be saying something horrid to someone in another language by using what this supposedly sweet kid's book is teaching us.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, January 9, 2011
This review is from: My Mom and Me (Hardcover)
Great book and a great way to introduce the concept of foreign languages to children. It has wonderful illustrations of people from different ethnicities which I really appreciate. It would be better if it showed how to say the each foreign word phonically so parents can say "mom" in different languages correctly. This book would be great for single mothers as well. We also have "My Dad and Me" and it is equally as great!
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