As I had mentioned in an earlier post, my daughter loves the Taoshu learn-to-read Chinese books. I know that there is also a Taoshu animated cartoon show being broadcast in Asia but this is in English (I’m not really interested in that). I recently saw an advert for a new Taoshu DVD series which introduces Chinese traditions and culture (like the traditional chinese holidays, origin of rice and noodles, chinese music and calligraphy, etc): http://www.littletaoshu.com/about-tao-shu/taoshu-tv-series/ Can someone tell me whether these DVDs are in Mandarin and are there Chinese subtitles? Do you and your kids like them? I couldn’t find any contact information for the producers to ask them directly.
I don’t know about the TV series bc we don’t watch that. But we have the set of Taoshu DVDs. My son likes them. There’s option selections for English/Mandarin - if I remember correctly. Same with the subtitles. I select the option for Mandarin and the subtitles as Mandarin as well. But I must caution that the subtitles are small. I’m not sure if my son follows the subtitles at all, but you never know. During the programmes, they do introduce items, like your rice and noodles - different types of noodles for eg, and then they would have the chinese characters large next to them. Same with Chinese music - they have a primary school orchestra, and introduce a few of the instruments.
So, for the subtitles, do you have the option to choose between Traditional vs Simplified characters? And during the program, when they would have the chinese characters large next to the things they are introducing, is it in Traditional or Simplified? I’m guessing it would be in simplified since it’s produced in Singapore, but I just want to check.
Sorry, it’s all in Simplified! But seriously, your daughter will adapt. She will learn both. My son can read both Traditional & Simplified even though I never did emphasize on the Traditional.
You’re so right, karmie. I’m beginning to realize that. Initially, I was afraid she would get confused but, just the other day, she got ahold of one of the “Wo Hui Du” books that I have not yet had time to “convert” to Traditional characters and she started reading it. She was stumped by a few of the less common words but did better than I expected since I never explicitly taught her simplified. I will go ahead and order the DVDs. Thanks!
By the way, I just videotaped a section of one of the DVDs for you to see. I’ll reduce the size of the file and upload to youtube later in the evening (hopefully) so you can see, alright?
That would be lovely! I really appreciate your taking the time and effort! Since we are in the US, I order a lot of stuff from HK and Singapore but a lot of times, I have to do it sight unseen so it would really help to see actual footage from the video so I know what I’m getting.
In the beginning, I showed how I selected English/Chinese subtitles, and then I showed the 1st part of the video with English subtitles and then restarted it showing Chinese subtitles and then selected parts of the video.
This is from Episode 6 which is on Chinese Orchestral instruments.
I am creator Taoshu the animated TV series. We actually have 2 versions of DVDs out there. One of them is only available in English because it was published early on when Taoshu was the first Singaporean animation to air on Nickelodeon. The Taoshu DVDs you are referring to is a new series that was released last year. It is in Simplified Chinese. However, it aired in Hong Kong this year, so there might be a Traditional Chinese version coming out in Hong Kong in the future. We do have a limited stock of the DVDs on our website www.learnchinesebooks.com. If you like the DVDs, you might also want to check out our Taoshu Learn Chinese Books. It is the most popular learn Mandarin books for kids in Singapore! The books are co-created with Teach-A-Tot, the publisher of “Wo Hui Du” that you mentioned.
