Teach Me More Chinese (Paperback and Audio CD): A Musical Journey Through the Year

Rating:
Summary: Just as good as the first one
Review: This CD is an excellent compliment to the first Teach Me Chinese CD.

My son has listened to these CD's frequently since he was born (in 2000) and he really likes these CD's.

I prefer the "Teach Me" CD's over the "Sing 'n Learn" as the voices are better, the songs are sun in english too, and the dialog between songs reinforces the topics covered in the songs.

There aren't very many professional quality language cd's for children out there. Between Sing 'N Learn Chinese and Teach Me (More) Chinese, I definitely think the Teach Me series is executed more professionally with a more pleasing result.

Rating:
Summary: Ouch, my ears!
Review: This second CD sounds somewhat better than the first one.

English part on this CD is awesome - both the background music and the voices sound professionally done. The problem with Chinese is not that the vocalists are bad - for the most part they sound decent - but no matter how good voice you may have if you keep on trying to squish 5 - 10 syllables into a beat of music that can accommodate harmoniously only one or two - it's not going to work.

The music on this CD was created to accommodate English verses. When these English verses got translated to Chinese, the number of Chinese syllables that has to fit into the same music constantly comes out as being either not enough or too much.

it makes me wonder if musicians who were involved in creating these songs didn't have ears to hear how bad the combination sounds, or they didn't care, or thought that kids for whom it was made, would either not notice or care.

This recording could've been done beautifully if instead of using popular western music to accompany Chinese verses, they picked perhaps some Chinese music.

For example videos for learning Chinese for kids - with Mei Mei or with Jade, have songs that sound million times better than the songs on this CD.