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Title: The Missing Cat (The Adventures of Nicholas) by Globe Pequot Press, Berlitz Publishing ISBN: 2-8315-5713-5 Publisher: Berlitz Multimedia Pub. Date: October, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.29 (7 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Products are OK, but Berlitz gives poor service.
Comment: 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 side you're puttin in 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.
Given the paucity of German language materials on the market, purchasing these books, for children, unfortunately, is a must.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great value -- easy and enjoyable way for kids to learn!
Comment: The Nicholas stories on tape are very easy to learn from because they are read slowly and clearly. They also keep the sentence structures pretty simple and repeat words and phrases a lot, which might be annoying for a book in your native language, but is very helpful to children learning a second language. My children don't like to listen to regular Spanish books on tape (often spoken quickly and the words seem to run together, more complex vocabulary, verb conjugations, etc.). However, they enjoy all the tapes in this series, even after we've heard them 50 times each.
My son is in kindergarten in a Spanish immersion school, so we always keep these tapes playing in the car to give him extra practice listening to Spanish. The tape has a dictionary portion with 50 words from the story, spoken first in English and then twice in Spanish. This might sound dry, but our kids really like this portion of the tape. Even our 20-month-old repeats both the English and the Spanish words during the dictionary section.
The story is read only in Spanish on the tape -- this has worked fine for us. However, the book is written in both Spanish and English, so if you wanted to enhance your child's understanding of what they were hearing, you could read them the story occasionally in English.
I would recommend first buying The Missing Cat and then A Visit to Grandma before buying The Five Crayons. (The music on The Five Crayons, while perhaps more culturally authentic, has some fast songs and is sung in a style that makes it a little more difficult to understand the words). In general, I've found that for my children to understand the songs, it helped a lot if I sat down with the book and read the English translations of the lyrics to them.
Overall, I'd say all that this series of books and tapes are a very good value -- lots of learning to be gained for a very small amount of money. If they made more tapes in this series, we would certainly buy them!
Rating: 5
Summary: My favorite kids foreign language book ever!
Comment: My 2 year old loves this book. The pictures are great as are the voices of the characters on the tape. The dictionary in the back of the book is repeated for you on the tape. My son repeats every word of it. I haven't got the other books by the same author but you can bet I'm going to get them!
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Title: A Visit to Grandma: German-English: Adventures With Nicholas (Adventures With Nicholas Series) by Chris L. Demarest ISBN: 2831562503 Publisher: Berlitz Multimedia Pub. Date: April, 1998 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Berlitz Kids German: The Five Crayons: Adventures With Nicholas (Nicholas Series) by Chris Demarest, Berlitz Publishing ISBN: 2831565375 Publisher: Berlitz Multimedia Pub. Date: July, 1998 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Die Geschichte Von Peterchen Hase : Ein Buntes Märchenbuch/Von Beatrix Potter by Anna Pomaska, Beatrix Potter ISBN: 048628557X Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 25 April, 1995 List Price(USD): $1.50 |
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Title: The Five Crayons - French by Chris Demarest, Berlitz Publishing ISBN: 2831565340 Publisher: Berlitz Multimedia Pub. Date: July, 1998 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Die Drei Kleinen Schweinchen by Inc Distribooks ISBN: 8881482452 Publisher: Distribooks Intl Pub. Date: January, 1999 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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