Ella started watching Baby Learns Chinese at 9 months (but you can certainly start earlier if you want). The BLC videos are multisensory videos much like YBCR. The videos flash the Chinese words followed by pictures and/or videos of the meaning of the words and are great for introducing Chinese words and sounds to babies. There are also two songs within each lesson that use the vocabulary taught in that lesson. Ella learned to read her first Chinese words using these videos. You have the option of choosing between Simplified and Traditional Chinese.
The Wink to Learn DVDs are also videos for teaching Chinese vocabulary and reading but are more right brain than BLC. The pictures are flashed quickly followed by the Chinese words in true Doman style. There are 6 volumes of Chinese and the latter 2 cover couplets and sentences. Thus, the WTL videos cover much more vocabulary and progress to phrase and sentence construction. If your baby likes flashcards and right brain methods, these videos give better value for the money. But if you can afford it, I would get both BLC and WTL so that there is variety and reinforcement. I also have the Sing to Learn music videos which are a nice complement to the DVDs. The WTL DVDs can be viewed in either Simplified or Traditional Chinese as well.
I have checked out Little Pim but I don’t use it to teach Chinese. (I do use Little Pim French and Spanish though). The reason is because for volumes 1-3, simplified characters are shown on-screen but for volumes 4-6, English Pin-Yin is used. For teaching Chinese, I would steer clear of showing Pin Yin to a child until he is reading phonetically and fluently in English. It may be confusing for them since the same letter has different letter sounds in English and Pin Yin, e.g. the letter “q” is pronounced like “k” in English but more like “ch” in Pin Yin. In addition, the Chinese language is particularly suited for teaching via the whole word approach because each character actually represents one word. And if the child learns to read Chinese via the whole word approach, he/she would actually be better off because he wouldn’t need to rely on Pin Yin or Zhu Yin (another pronunciation guide used mostly in Taiwan) or any other crutches to read Chinese later on. Pin Yin would still be useful though for parents who don’t speak Chinese, for typing/inputing text into the computer, and for looking up things in the dictionary, so I will still be teaching Ella Pin Yin but much later on - maybe when she is 5 or 6.
I have Muzzy Chinese but I also don’t use it for Chinese. Ella watches Muzzy in French and Spanish but I have so many other better resources for teaching Chinese that I don’t think she is missing anything by not watching Muzzy. Also, this is a cartoon with a fairly complicated plot and storyline that would probably be more suited to children 3 years and up.
As for LR Chinese, I don’t think you can go wrong with it! I had downloaded the trial version and I think it is very well done. Ella liked the trial version a lot too! The only reason I did not buy the curriculum is because, by the time BK came out with LR Chinese, Ella was already reading very well in Chinese (sentences and short paragraphs). I was using the Wo Hui Du Chinese readers to teach her to read Chinese so I decided to just continue with them.
There is another program that I really like for learning Chinese called Qiao Hu (Smart Tiger). It is a program that you subscribe to and every month, they send you a DVD, a storybook/activity book, and an educational toy or audiobook or music CD with lyrics book. The DVD features the Smart Tiger character and children talking and singing in Chinese. It has several segments in the DVD each month - Science (teaching about a different animal every month), Math, Music and Movement, Storytime, Good Manners segment (like being polite, taking turns, saying I’m sorry, etc.), Good Habits segment (like eating your veggies, hand washing, brushing teeth, using the potty, etc.), and EQ segment. It comes in different levels for different ages and I subscribed to the 3-4 year old edition for Ella. They also have DVDs that focus solely on Math, Science, Chinese Poetry, or Chinese Language. It really helped Ella develop her grammar and conversational skills in Chinese.
And then, of course, once your grandchild is older, you can let her watch cartoons in Chinese. The ones I like are Winnie the Pooh, Elmo, Sesame Street, Big Mammoth series, Finding Nemo and other Disney cartoons, Anpanman, and Hayao Miyazake animation in Chinese. I typically don’t let her watch Dora or Ni Hao Kai Lan in Chinese because I am using the immersion method for teaching her languages. I don’t like using translations or having different languages within the same program as much as possible. And also, I only started letting her watch cartoons after she turned 2.
Good luck! Hope this helps!
