You’ve probably heard of Dino Lingo, a company that has made a language-learning program for kids. If not, I have blogged about that program HERE.
Well, they have recently launched a brand-new site called DINO BOOKS (dinolingo.com/books). If you’re teaching your child a second language, you’ll want to learn more about this site!
Dino Books is a site where children can read hundreds of stories (they currently have 5000+ books) in 20 different languages. In addition to stories, there are some nursery rhymes, songs, tongue twisters, and games. There’s also “stories” where the kids can build their vocabulary too (colors, numbers, things in the house, etc.).
So for example, we can pick a story, and then choose “Japanese” and “English” as our languages of choice. Then as we click through, we can have the story read to us in both languages. This was so nice because if my kids heard a word they didn’t understand in Japanese, they could simply listen or look at the English version right below to figure out the meaning of the unknown word.
Ideally, I would be sitting right by my kids and reading books to them for hours every day, giving them my undivided attention. But in real life, that doesn’t happen. I’m often trying to multi-task, helping one kid with homework while helping the other fold laundry while keeping another child from climbing onto the countertop while trying to make dinner… LOL. Can you all relate? So sometimes, it is nice to just be able to say “Hey, read some books on Dino Books!”. My kids can easily navigate the site themselves and read several stories in one sitting while I finish making dinner. You can even use a tablet to read the stories.
Does this sound like something you need in your life? A Dino Books membership is normally $99/year (less than $10 per month…less expensive than buying hundreds of bilingual books for sure). But you can visit the site and read the first few pages of most books for free first before you decide.
They also have a Mother’s Day special going on right now for 20% off with code MOM20 !
Here is a sample video:
Dino Lingo has generously offered to give away a FREE YEAR of Dino Books to one lucky Hiragana Mama reader! To enter this giveaway, simply visit Dino Books, then leave a comment on this blog post with the following information:
- Why do you want to win this giveaway?
- What languages would you choose to read the stories in?
- Your email address (if you don’t want to leave your email address, just make sure you come back to see if you were the winner and then email me. Sometimes people win my giveaways and I have no way to contact them!)
Sometimes it takes me awhile to check and approve the comments so please don’t worry if your comment doesn’t show up right away.
A winner will be chosen at random on MONDAY, May 9th, 2016 and will be announced on this blog post. Be sure to check back to see if you were the winner!
The winner of this giveaway is JOANNA WISE! Please send me an email at hiraganamama@gmail.com and I will forward your name on to Dino Lingo so they can award you the prize. Thanks to all who commented. Best wishes to all of you in your language adventures!
P.S. Don’t forget, Children’s Day/ Kodomo no Hi is on May 5th!
Thank you Dino Lingo for this giveaway. Dino Lingo did ask me to try out Dino Books in exchange for a review, but all my opinions expressed above are honest and my own.
Hiragana Mama 
What a great resource! I would love to win this to improve my little ones’ Japanese. My son understands most but we can’t get him to speak it! I would use English and Japanese of course ^^
This looks wonderful!
1. My 4 year old is very interested in languages and cultures from around the world. I would love to expose him early to a language, since our schools here do not provide a second language until middle scool. It seems a tragedy, when younger children can learn vocabulary way more quickly!
2. He’s really interested in Spanish! I would also love to expose him to Japanese and Korean, because I’m interested in those languages and I try to teach him any new words I learn too. He loves playing a Hangeul app on our iPad, and tries to sound out the words. I plan to play some pimsleur CDs in the car on our way to school. 😉
What a great giveaway! I would like to win to expand the reading resources available for my budding polyglot student. Finding and buying books in the target languages can be difficult and expensive. She has studied French and will be adding Japanese to her repertoire next school year, so we would make use of three languages: English, French, and Japanese. Thanks for the chance to win!
1) my children are attending japanese schools but we live in the us so japanese books qre expensive
2)japanese
3) please post winner on facebook- i am brenda marisa falk. I will contact you if i win
1. I would love to win this! My subscription to a similar site just ended and I’m missing it! I am a mother of three young children who love me to read to them. I am often busy with the other two when one will ask me to read and this would be perfect! We are paying off student loans so it’s hard to pay for additional things.
2. I would read them in English and some Spanish
3. Its_me_gan@hotmail.com
I would love this for my kiddos. I teach them Spanish as part of homeschool so we would use that language. We are also traveling to Asia so it would be fun to read some books in Chinese and Thai.
I would love to have my kids read some books in Chinese. I’m trying to get more exposure to Chinese for them both since they have both shown interest in learning. What a cool site!!
This sounds like a great resource for my kiddos! We’ve been studying Japanese and Latin and will add Spanish one of these days. Being able to have reading materials in English and the other languages would help reinforce vocab for them.
I would like this so my daughter and I could read Japanese books. I am learning and she will also learn.
I would love to win this prize! The graded readers in Japanese and English appeal to my child who learns English at school and Japanese at home. fm_g@hotmail.com
This would be so awesome for my son. He’s 4 and loves to learn languages but I can’t teach him as well as he’d like. I think we would choose Japanese and Spanish for him since those are the languages he’s currently learning.
This is a great giveaway! Thanks for the updates about Dino Lingo.
This would be the perfect resource for my children to get more exposure to Japanese! I have one child in Japanese immersion school and another who will start in the fall and Dino Books would be a great way to compliment that learning and continue their learning outside of school. I struggle with getting access to reasonably priced and appropriate Japanese books for their age group. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Hiragana Mama,
This website is quite amazing, so thank you for blogging about it. My kids are billingual in Romanian and French, and they love to read. It would be great if I could add English to their language pool and have new books that they can discover.
I check the website regularly for updates and so I will contact you if I win 😉
All the best,
Mirela
Those books look like a wonderful idea. I’m trying to teach my children at least a little bit of Japanese, and I’ve imported some simple board books, but that gets expensive quickly! I’d love to be able to use this for them.
I am always looking for effective and fun ways to help my kids learn more Japanese. This site looks like it would really work for us! I always feel a bit guilty that they don’t know more since we live in Japan! So obviously we’d use it for Japanese, and I’m glad to hear that you like it for the same language because that gives me confidence in it.
Thank you Dino Lingo and Hiragana Mama for doing this giveaway! Now I will have to go look at Dino Lingo too!
1. I am teaching my children (& myself) Japanese. They read katakana and hiragana and will begin reading kanji soon and this will be an excellent resource to aid in their progression. I love that it also has an English translation and a voice reading the stories because I am not fluent and it helps me support my children.
2. I would be interested in Japanese, English, and eventually Chinese (though probably not this year for Chinese).
3. I will check back to see who wins!
I’m teaching my niece (and myself in the meantime 😀 ) Japanese, so I would love to win this. Especially since we’re learning the alphabet now and it would be a great reading exercise. However, I also teach several kids English (as we’re Polish) and this would really come in handy during our meetings 🙂
Thank you Hiragana Mama for introducing us to great Japanese language learning resources. I would love to win a subscription to Dino Books. My children are learning some Japanese in school and this would be a great help to their language learning. I would use the Japanese and English books with them.
1. So I can better learn Japanese.
2. Japanese (maybe Chinese)
3. harayda@gmail.com