This giveaway is now closed. Winners were announced in THIS POST.
I have a wonderful Japanese-learning app to share with you today. We recently downloaded the “LinguPinguin English/Japanese” app by Elevision Film on our iTouch and my kids have been loving it! It is easy enough for my 2-year old and interesting enough for my almost 5-year old to play with too. It is like an interactive English-Japanese dictionary for children. You choose a topic, such as “Animals”, then when you click on a picture of an elephant, it will say “Elephant” if you are in English mode, or “ぞう” if you are in Japanese mode. The animations are really cute! After children have learned the words, there is a quiz they can take. Here are some screenshots:
Click HERE to watch a video of the app in action. There are many different versions of the app available (Japanese, French, Chinese, etc) : Click HERE to visit the Lingu Pinguin website and see all the different languages available and read more about this app.
At just $1.99, I think it is a GREAT deal for a quality app. You will definitely get your money’s worth.
We all love FREE though, right? So Lingu Pinguin has generously offered to give away two promo codes for the Lingu Pinguin app! Yay! To enter the giveaway, simply comment on this blog post sharing why you or your children want to learn Japanese. Then come back Wednesday morning, February 27, to see if you won! Promo codes will be emailed to the winners. (App is for iPhones, iPads, and iTouch).
Our current favorite Japanese YouTube Channel is “動く絵本・童話童謡のゆめあるチャンネル“. (Translation: Animated Picture Books/Children’s Songs Full of Dreams Channel). There are dozens of wonderful and classic Japanese songs and stories made into quality animated videos. Check it out! Those of you with young toddlers or preschool-age children will especially love it! :) You may also want to check out their website, and free iPad/iPhone app.
Here are some videos by Yumegaarunara (some videos are in English):
PS Valentine’s Day is in 2 days! You can read my past posts about Japan-inspired Valentine’s Day activities HERE.
Have you all heard of Dino Lingo (dinolingo.com)? I had seen it online and was curious about how effective the program is at teaching children Japanese, so I was thrilled when Dino Lingo contacted me and sent a free Japanese set to try out and review.
Here’s a brief description of the Dino Lingo program from their website:
Dino Lingo Japanese for Kids is an award-winning language teaching program pedagogically designed for small children.
This program consists of 5 DVDs, flash cards, posters, books and the parents guide.
After watching the DVDs several times and playing with the flash cards, most children can easily name everyday objects and understand basic phrases in Japanese.
Dino Lingo Japanese for Kids is suitable for all children between the ages of 2 to 7 years old.
My package arrived quickly and looked like this:
I received a set of 5 Japanese language learning DVD’s, plus some flashcards. Here’s what each DVD covers:
DVD 1 – Let’s Count: Numbers and colors / 35 min.
DVD 2 – Let’s Eat: Food, fruit and vegetables / 35 min.
DVD 3 – Let’s Play: Toys, house items, vehicles / 35 min.
DVD 4 – Let’s Jump: Verbs, actions and nature / 35 min.
DVD 5 – Let’s Learn: Family, body parts, and clothes / 35 min.
Daily conversations, greetings and animals are included in all five DVDs.
There are flashcards for numbers, colors, animals, body parts, etc. There are even more Japanese-learning products to choose from online such as workbooks and posters. My daughter, who knows most of her hiragana, got right to work reading all the words on the flashcards.
Of course, my children wanted to watch the DVD’s right away. My son was excited about all the dinosaurs and vehicles used in the show. They liked the first DVD enough to where we watched it twice in a row. I noticed my 2-year old son saying the Japanese words out loud the second time… so repetition works!
Here are some things I liked about the DVD’s:
- Lots of repetition which is great for younger learners
- I can tell a native Japanese speaker is saying the words
- Kept the kids’ attention
Some areas I thought could be improved upon were:
- The graphics/animations are not up to par with other children’s shows (don’t expect Disney quality)
- I thought there were some wasted minutes between segments with unrelated animations
Here’s a sample video of what the shows are like:
Overall, I am thankful to Dino Lingo for creating this program for teaching children basic Japanese. There really isn’t a lot of resources out there for teaching kids Japanese right now! This set is a great option for a family who wants to expose their children to other languages at a young age (Dino Lingo offers DVDs in MANY languages other than Japanese too). It might be wonderful for a family planning to host a student visiting from Japan, or a bilingual family who wants to expose their children to as much Japanese as possible. I think these DVD’s would also be great to show at a bilingual/immersion language school.
Simply watching these DVDs will not make your child fluent in Japanese (there’s not much conversation in the videos). It is more for building vocabulary. It may not be the best option for families where the parents are native Japanese speakers (that would be like showing Dora the Explorer to a native Spanish-speaking family).
If you are interested in Dino Lingo, there is a Halloween special going on right now! Enter the code TREAT10 at checkout to receive 10% off your oder :) This deal expires on November 1st.
Karuta is one of the most popular games in Japan. The game helps children learn their kana in a fun way.
A San Francisco-based illustrator from Tokyo, Yuki Yamagata, contacted me to let me know that she is releasing an Animal ABC Karuta game for the iPad. Since it is brand-new, the app is going to be free for download today and tomorrow (October 17-18, 2012)!! What a deal!
Here is a description of Animal ABC Karuta:
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ABC Karuta introduces a Japanese traditional card game to English learners!
~ABC Karuta arrives as an amazing animal alphabet app~
ABC Karuta is a fun way to learn English for kids and adults. Yuki Yamagata, a San Francisco based illustrator, created a series of beautiful “kawaii” animal illustrations for cards A to Z. The rules are simple; players listen to an alliterative phrase, and then pick the matching card. This app beautifully combines traditional Japanese games, Karuta, with whimsical English speaking animals, resulting in an imaginative and exciting new way to learn the English language. Try it now!
ABC Karuta start out by tapping Karuta dog to hear fun alliteration phrase: for example, Calico Cat Carries Chocolate Cookies, Mother Monkey Makes Millions of marshmallows and so on. Then a player finds the illustration cards matches the phrase they hear. Once you get the right cards, it’s going to be shown in their collection page!
- ABC Karuta is available on iPad in the app store for $1.99, starting October 17, 2012.
If you have an iPad, be sure to snatch up this cool game asap! I don’t own an iPad, but I plan to download it anyway just in case I get an iPad in the future (Santa, are you listening?). If you enjoy this game, please leave her some positive feedback.
Also, be sure to check out Yumi Yamagata’s personal website. Her illustrations are just beautiful.
Thanks Yuki! I hope you will come out with some Japanese-learning games in the future too :)
Be sure to visit Hiragana Mama often, or sign up for the email list (bottom of the page), so you don’t miss great deals like this in the future!
Here are some wonderful read-alouds of Japanese children’s books (by YouTube user gemstonerecordsjp). These are great if you are not a native Japanese speaker and you want your children to listen to someone speaking Japanese! Enjoy!
One of my favorite things about my daughter attending Japanese School is that we have access to their library! I’m actually a library volunteer so I get to see all the new books and DVD’s as they come in. This week, one of the books we borrowed was called “くろくんとふしぎなともだち” (The title translates to “The Black Crayon and the Mysterious Friend”). Both my 2-year old son and 4-year old daughter were completely attentive as I read this book to them.
I think it is so appropriate for the black crayon to be the star of these stories! With the amount of drawing we do around here, we go through the color black very quickly. I think crayon companies should include at least 2 blacks in every box (Crayola, are you listening?)!
doshinsha.co.jp
This book is actually just one of a few in the くろくん series by なかやみわ (Nakaya Miwa). We’ve read the original くれよんのくろくん and it was wonderful too. I highly recommend these books for toddlers, preschoolers, and elementary-aged children! Here is a YouTube video of gemstonerecordsjp reading it out loud :
What are you favorite children’s books lately? I would love some recommendations.
I love stumbling across awesome new (to me) Japanese videos!! This morning I came across the “コんガらガっち/kongaragacchi” series (from Pitagora Switch/ピタゴラスイッチ… I think… correct me if I’m wrong). The segment takes 12 different animals, and makes a variety of other combination-animals with them. Hard to explain, you’ll just have to watch! (Click HERE to see all the different animals).
Are your creative juices flowing? You could draw your own animals and make your own combinations with your kids. A great way to learn the names of animals in Japanese!
There seems to be no lack of wonderful websites for learning Japanese geared toward children these days. I love it!! It was just a few years ago when I would scour the internet for resources and could never find anything good. We are blessed in this digital age to have all these resources at our fingertips.
image from brother.co.jp
The website I want to highlight today is brother.co.jp. Their “free downloads” section has wonderful printables, including hiragana and katana worksheets, papercrafts, BOOKS, etc. I want to print off their free books onto cardstock and have them bound for my kids. Their hiragana/katakana worksheets are beautifully done too. Thank you, brother!
I just discovered two fun YouTube channels (users takanonGB and takanonDC) full of Japanese children’s songs (どうよう)… perfect for karaoke! Each song has the lyrics in hiragana/katakana. These videos are perfect for my preschooler who is just starting to be able to read words in hiragana. My children and I have been singing along all morning. Here are some of our favorites:
Jungle Pocket ジャングルポッケット:
Bun Bun Bun Hachi Ga Tobu ブンブンブンはちがとぶ:
Do Re Mi no Uta ドレミのうた:
Lots more Japanese videos scheduled to be posted soon, so check back every day this week for something fun and educational to watch with your kids. I also have a lot of other fun things to post about… answering questions from readers, more from our trip to Japan, summer holidays, etc! I just hope I will have time to write about it all :)
