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

Rating:
Summary: Big Dissapointment!!!
Review: As Chinese-Americans, we want our daugther to learn the Chinese language from the very tender age. After listening to the "Teach Me French" tape from the same serie, (What a wonderful job they have done on that one!) we couldn't wait to get our hands on the Chinese version. However, it only turned out to be a major disappointment! We loved the ideas of teaching the phonics in Pin Yin and the format of printing both Pin Yin and the real characters in the book. However, rhyming is very unfortunaly lost in the translation. It is so plain and dull! In quite a lot of places, the words are not even "singable" at all. Besides, the singing is unberably out of pitch and the rhythm is majorly wrong in some songs. I hope they will get it redone. It is such a huge difference between the French version and this one! Go figure!

Rating:
Summary: Ouch, My Ears!
Review: 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.

(...)

Rating:
Summary: the good and the bad
Review: I will attempt to give an objective review.
The good:
* Good concept: the book follows a little Chinese girl, Marie, throughout her day. On the way, you learn the Chinese words for family members, colors, clothing, body parts, days of the week, etc.
* Good Chinese pronunciation: Considering how many local dialects and accents there are in China, I am always concerned about pronunciation. I was pleased to find that the Chinese narrator speaks Mandarin with very good standard (Mainland Chinese) pronunciation. Note: standard Mandarin pronunciation in China and in Taiwan, though similar, have slight differences.
* Good English vocalists.

The bad:
* Poor Chinese vocalist: The narrator, who also does the singing, needs singing lessons! To be fair, she is not a terrible singer, she sings about as well as your average mom or grandma. But then again, your average mom or grandma would not be featured on a music CD, right? In several songs, she is off beat and off pitch.
* Hand-written book: Another thing I did not like is that the book is completely handwritten, so it is not very professional looking.
* Mistakes in the lyrics: I have found that the written Chinese lyrics do not always correspond to what is actually sung and some of the pinyin is incorrect.

Other neutral information:
* The songs are mostly standard western songs with make-shift translations. What bothers me is that many of the songs, such as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," have had standard Chinese lyrics for decades, yet the version in this CD sounds as if someone just decided to make up new lyrics. The translation tends to be more or less a direct translation of the English, which is probably what was intended. However, this also means that some of the songs sound very strange in Chinese.
* The Chinese lyrics are written only in pinyin without any Chinese characters, so I had to write them out myself.

Do I recommend this product? Well, that depends on who you are. I believe that this product is useful in introducing VERY YOUNG children to the sound of the Mandarin language. Since young children are a very forgiving audience, they probably won't object to the high-pitched, occasionally out-of-tune vocal performance. My bilingual 3-year-old son loves the CD. So if you have children under 5 and if you believe you can tolerate the singing, I would recommend this product. The product states that it is for kids ages 2 to 12, but I seriously doubt that any child above five years of age will enjoy the music.

Rating:
Summary: Major Disappointment
Review: My kids screamed, "Turn it off! Please!" They could not stand listening to the very high pitched and out of tune voice. Needless to say, Teach me Chinese did not work for my children. I have had better luck with Sing 'n Learn Chinese.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Product!
Review: Several weeks ago we ordered the Chinese set for my daughter Josephine. She is 18 months old. We listen to it during breakfast as my husband and I act out the motions of the songs in both English and Chinese. My daughter is catching on so quickly that she is actually teaching Chinese to family, friends, strangers, and even her dolls! I've tried almost every other foreign language product for my daughter, but none compares to Teach Me Tapes. Within the past week, mothers have approached me to teach their children. I simply give them your Web address. Every child who uses the system must be a walking advertisement. Congratulations on an outstanding product!

Rating:
Summary: Nothing Compares!!
Review: Several weeks ago we ordered the Chinese set for my daughter Josephine. She is 18 months old. We listen to the CD during breakfast as my husband and I act out the motions of the songs in both English and Chinese. My daughter is catching on so quickly that she is actually teaching Chinese to family, friends, strangers, and even her dolls. I've tried almost every other foreign language product for my daughter, but none compares to Teach Me Tapes. Within the past week, mothers have approached me to teach their children. I simply give them your web address. Every child who uses the system must be a walking advertisement! Congratulations on an outstanding product!

Rating:
Summary: Almost couldn't be worse
Review: The idea of recording Chinese language children's songs is great, but unfortunately the music on this CD is terrible. The singing sounds like a bad female impersonator, and the music sounds like super-cheapo eletric organ samples. It's almost unbearable to listen to. My spouse who speaks chinese says the pronounciation was unrecognizable, maybe because of the very high pitched voice.

I hope someone else will give this idea a second try and use native chinese speaking children to sing and professional musicians for the music.

Rating:
Summary: A disappointment
Review: This book and tape set was somewhat of a disappointment. The female vocalist in the audio recording valiantly attempts to sing Chinese lyrics to familiar American children's tunes. In this case it just doesn't work. The lyrics sound like they were "squeezed" into the music. Many of the tunes are completely out of rhythm. My children were also turned off by the singer's voice which is somewhat high pitched and grating. It would have been nice if the songs were set to Chinese melodies instead of western tunes. When learning a foreign language why not also learn the music of that culture as well?

Rating:
Summary: A disappointment
Review: This book and tape set was somewhat of a disappointment. The female vocalist in the audio recording valiantly attempts to sing Chinese lyrics to familiar American children's tunes. In this case it just doesn't work. The lyrics sound like they were "squeezed" into the music. Many of the tunes are completely out of rhythm. My children were also turned off by the singer's voice which is somewhat high pitched and grating. It would have been nice if the songs were set to Chinese melodies instead of western tunes. When learning a foreign language why not also learn the music of that culture as well?

Rating:
Summary: Its fun to learn !!
Review: THis is a wonderful way to learn beginning chinese- this set uses familiar children songs to help teach. Its usage of these fun familiar songs helps make it easier to memorize the language and retain it ! Just sing and follow along!!