Berlitz Kids German: The Five Crayons: Adventures With Nicholas (Nicholas Series)

Rating:
Summary: I Need More Like This!
Review: I am teaching my 5 year-old son to speak German, and having trouble finding materials. The three Berlitz "Adventures with Nicholas" books have been a tremendous help. My son asks me frequently if we can "play" German--he enjoys the stories so much! "The Five Crayons" has especially caught his imagination. My only complaint is that I'm not sure that the voices are those of native speakers; at times the accents don't sound quite right, particularly the final "g". On the other hand, a friend of mine who is a professor of German has complimented my son on his accent. I know he didn't get that from me! It must be the tapes. If only they had more titles!

Rating:
Summary: I Need More Like This!
Review: I am teaching my 5 year-old son to speak German, and having trouble finding materials. The three Berlitz "Adventures with Nicholas" books have been a tremendous help. My son asks me frequently if we can "play" German--he enjoys the stories so much! "The Five Crayons" has especially caught his imagination. My only complaint is that I'm not sure that the voices are those of native speakers; at times the accents don't sound quite right, particularly the final "g". On the other hand, a friend of mine who is a professor of German has complimented my son on his accent. I know he didn't get that from me! It must be the tapes. If only they had more titles!

Rating:
Summary: A 1950s production
Review: I bought "The Five Crayons" to teach German to my 4-year old daughter and her friends. The book is lovely and works very well with that age group. My axt to grind is mostly with the songs that come on the accompanying tape. As everything Berlitz has been putting out there, it's freshly out of the ... 1950s! Some of the "timeless" song choices are still OK (ABC die Katze lief im Schnee), others are unappealing AND have vocab that's too hard for kids to deal with. Moreover, the perfomance is pretty lousy and uninteresting - don't they know at Berlitz that kids like to hear other kids sing? Adult voices without much instrumentation are boring to grownups and, even more so, to children. In sum, the song side is useless, the story itself good and the illustrations great.

Rating:
Summary: A 1950s production
Review: I bought "The Five Crayons" to teach German to my 4-year old daughter and her friends. The book is lovely and works very well with that age group. My axt to grind is mostly with the songs that come on the accompanying tape. As everything Berlitz has been putting out there, it's freshly out of the ... 1950s! Some of the "timeless" song choices are still OK (ABC die Katze lief im Schnee), others are unappealing AND have vocab that's too hard for kids to deal with. Moreover, the perfomance is pretty lousy and uninteresting - don't they know at Berlitz that kids like to hear other kids sing? Adult voices without much instrumentation are boring to grownups and, even more so, to children. In sum, the song side is useless, the story itself good and the illustrations great.

Rating:
Summary: Product is OK; Berlitz gives poor customer service.
Review: I bought all three books in the series: A Visit to Grandma, The Missing Cat, and Five Crayons, all in one order. I didn't use them for a couple of weeks, and kept them in their boxes. Finally getting around to the books, TWO of the three audio cassettes broke within the first week of use. It has been more than a month and a half, and I've been emailing and calling Berlitz (multiple numbers; I feel like i'm getting the run around) to see about replacements, but to no avail. After all the emails and calls, Berlitz says that the best the can do is sell me the items again for half price. All I desire are the tapes. I have the books, of course. It's disheartening that this large, multi-national corporation 1) does not stand by its products, and 2) can't afford to send a customer two tapes.

With that out of the way, I do think the series is pretty good, though I've (obviously) really turned sour on the company. I've read the other reviews of these prodcts, and by and large agree. The illustrations are nice, and the narrations on the audio are professional enough. Some issues I do have:

They advertise that the tapes are 60 minutes long. They are, but they're playing with the language. While the cassettes are actually 60 minutes long, there is about 20 minutes of silence on the second side. So if you buy all three, you're purchasing 60 minutes of quiet time.

Speaking of the second side, it is interesting because that is the side containing songs--songs go along with the story. Apparently all the songs are the same (i.e., same music, lyrics, etc. just translated into different language) regardless of the language you are learning (French, German, Italian, etc.). This makes for some contorted lyrics at times. The writers really had to make it stretch in some parts to get all the syllables in, or to spread them out. So for example, in the back of the book, where the lyrics to the songs are, they give you the German on the left, and the English on the right. The English goes along quite well the song (it must have been written or drafted in English). It has even numbers of syllables per line, rhymes when it should, etc. The German, on the other hand, is almost unwieldy. Don't get me wrong. If you listen to it enough, you will learn, but it's clear that the song was not written in German. If the lines rhyme in German, it's probably a random event.

Also, this is the first time I have ever seen a cassette no labeled with "SIDE A" or "SIDE B."--so you don't know what sire you're puttin into your cassette player. In the great scheme of things, I guess this is no big deal, but it shows the attention to detail that was *not* paid to this project. Related to this is the fact that I am surprised that there is no audio CD available.

Given the paucity of German language materials on the market, purchasing these books, for children, unfortunately, is a must.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for young German learners!
Review: I teach German in a K-5 program. From day-one in Kindergarten we are supposed to speak German-only. As a result, our students have a large vocabulary and wonderful aural-comprehension. Therefore I am always searching for new books to share with them, books which will bring into play as much vocabulary as possible, but are still understandable. I'm so excited that I found this book, as well as "The Missing Cat" and "A Visit to Grandma", all put out by the Berlitz language company. This simple, yet wonderful, story introduced colors, numbers, rooms of the house, items in the house, animals, vehicles, and so much more!! And the songs at the end are cultural-specific to Germany, including "A,B,C, die Katze lief im Schnee" and "Alle Voegel sind schoen da!" I can't wait to play the accompanying cassette for my students--a definite plus because they can hear a different accent from mine, which is so important in second-language acquisition. THANK YOU!!