JumpStart Languages

by Vivendi

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005KB3C
• Item model number: 71242
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 10, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,926 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #28 in Software > Children's Software > Foreign Language
  • #99 in Software > Children's Software > Early Learning
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Children absorb languages best at an early age, which is why experts exhort parents in bilingual households to freely use both languages if they want their children to be fluent in both. If only one language is spoken under your roof and you have guilty visions of your child struggling through high school French as you did, perhaps JumpStart Languages can help prime some of those young neural pathways for future academic rigors.

We have only one caveat before we move on: the lower end of the manufacturer's suggested age range for this program is 3 years, and we think maneuvering around this program might be difficult for someone this age unless he or she has mastered mouse use and has a grasp of how onscreen exploration works. Of course, if parents are willing to run the program for their younger child, computer competence isn't a concern.

With a world fair theme and pavilions devoted to French, Spanish, Japanese, and English, this Mac and Windows program teaches conversational words and phrases in a nonimmersion style. Each pavilion houses one character that speaks English and acts as an interpreter, and another one that exclusively speaks the language of that pavilion. The English pavilion is an exception: in this one, Frankie and Roxie both only speak American English, which leads us to believe this program wasn't designed with non-English speaking kids in mind.

Once they've chosen a language to explore, kids will find nine activities inside each pavilion: a phone teaches numbers, kitchen exploration teaches food and household item names, a coloring activity teaches color words, a puppet show teaches clothing items, and folk songs, art, clocks, outdoor exploration, and folk tales round out the language-learning mix. This program contains no letters or characters; your child will learn by listening only. Some of the activities have three levels of difficulty--upping a level adds more items to an activity. A challenge mode is also provided, which eliminates English hints and visual prompts, unless you're in Frankie and Roxie's insular pavilion, where the English flows freely no matter what the setting.

JumpStart Languages avoids being one big boring vocabulary list by giving a lot of attention to culture as well as language. Exploration will eventually yield artwork by Degas and Remington, instructions on how to make a Japanese uchiwa (fan), and printable recipes for everything from quiche to guacamole. That puzzling English pavilion probably exists so kids can compare and contrast a familiar culture to unfamiliar ones. Another plus is a decent reward system: successful completion of enough activities enables the player to watch one of a couple dozen video clips of the various countries being studied, which beats a printable certificate all to heck.

This program is a bright, celebratory way to introduce young English-speaking kids to a handful of languages and cultures other than their own. But it won't give your American toddler a mastery of French unless you're prepared to put in some hours, and possibly hire a French-speaking nanny. (Ages 3 to 6) --Anne Erickson

Product Description

Discovering languages early is child's play!Product InformationBonjour! Konnichiwa! Hola! Join Frankie the Dog at the JumpStart World Festival and discover four language pavilions filled with the sounds of French Japanese Spanish and English. Designed especially for young children JumpStart Languages offers a simple age-appropriate introduction to languages.Skills LearnedFrench Japanese Spanish and EnglishVocabulary for everyday objectsCultural stories customs and charactersConversational phrasesColors numbers and timeMusic and lyricsActivities IncludeMeet a Buddy - Listen & Learn Language Buddies speak in their native languages and introduce different sounds with games and songs.Video Voyages - Learn about famous landmarks customs sports and more by watching videos of real kids from around the world.Fairy Tale Favorites - Hear your favorite stories in different languages.Create a Festival - Put on your own world festival with printable games songs and stories for offline fun.What's Cooking? - Discover foods from around the world as you search for sushi eclairs and quesadillas.Costume Party - Sombreros kimonos and berets - find out what's in style in other parts of the world.Windows System RequirementsWindows 2000 XP Vista Windows 7 (32-bit)Pentium II 266 MHz or faster processor 128 MB RAM30 MB free Hard Disk Space640x480 display 16-bit high color displayWindows-compatible Sound Card and speakers12X CD-ROM drivePrinter recommended

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jump Start Languages, January 1, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: JumpStart Languages (CD-ROM)

My bilingual 5-year old loves this program! As with all the Jump Start programs, it is well designed with friendly characters and fun games, and is based on solid educational theory. It is a quality program. My son is really motivated to earn "globe pieces" so that he can watch video clips about one of the countries. He has learned the numbers from one to ten in all the languages, as well as alot of vocabulary (clothes and food). He also enjoys the songs in the puppet shows, and has memorized most of them.

This program doesn't teach grammar, only vocabulary and culture. Your child doesn't need to be able to read, as all the games use pictures and instructions are given orally. Some of the games require written number recognition (1-10). And your child should already know how to use a mouse and understand the basics of computer games, such as the "back button".

Overall, I highly recommend this game!

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Good concept but badly executed, February 12, 2005

By 

Amazon_Junkie (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: JumpStart Languages (CD-ROM)

I've been using the Jumpstart games for my kids since they were in Pre-K and they love playing with them. I bought the Languages set for my 5 yr old thinking it would be a great intro to foreign languages. She enjoyed the games at first, but quickly grew bored. There are fewer games than in the other Jumpstart sets and they're not as challenging. My biggest complaint is that the sound quality and pronounciation for the foreign words are so hard to decipher I doubt my kids will be able to figure them out. I would suggest giving this set a miss.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars not good for little ones...or anyone new to these languages, August 12, 2004

By 

Miss Parker "RitaLee" (Arima, Trinidad) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: JumpStart Languages (CD-ROM)

Packaging: awesome
Screen layout: decent
Graphics: better than average
Sound: bordering on awful
Learning curve: steep
Extras: too much work to earn a little
Navigation: okay, but could be made simpler

This was an excellent idea for a program to help 3yr old kids and older learn new languages. Unfortunately, it seems to have been designed by someone/people who may be great at developing software but not so astute at developing learning tools for languages. The accents used in the four languages represented here are much too ethnic and native-sounding to be understood by anyone save someone who has already learnt the language. If that weren't bad enough, there is no supporting text/caption to help the parent who may be guiding the child. Scenario: We sat there, two adults with one kid, listening over and over to some of the French words and could not figure them out to save our lives. I thought it would be better in the Spanish pavilion given that I am more familiar with that language but it was not. So I cannot imagine any toddler who has never been exposed to a foreign language would be able to get a "jumpstart" on any of them with this software.
This software would be 3 stars better if only the makers had bothered to present not only the ethnic and native-sounding accents (which cannot help beginners) but an option to view and also to hear the same words enunciated carefully and accurately (in slow motion preferably) so that new learner will know the vowel/syllable components of the words and be able to attempt to repeat them and thereby learn them.
In spite of that there are still some fun things that can be done with this software like the theatre/dress-up performer, and colouring modules where the child can earn globe pieces to be used in the video bonus section. However in this bonus section you usually only see 4 seconds (or less) of video which makes it extremely disappointing.
If your only goal is to be able to teach your ear to hear different accents without actually learning new languages then this is great but it falls very short as a language learning tool.