Baby Hindustani: Exploring Tamil; Chalo Hindi Bolay

Children are “hard-wired” for learning language, and are able to most easily adopt two (or more) languages during the early preschool years. In an effort to help preserve India's heritage in American-born kids, Chalo Hindi Bolay mixes live action with animation to teach the Hindi alphabet, numbers 1-10, and words for colors. Songs and dances include the Hindi version of “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” (sung to the tune of “London Bridge”) and the culture-blending “Itsy Bitsy Makri,” and the program also features a celebration of Diwali (one of the major Hindu festivals) using stock footage from India, as well as a presentation of the traditional tale of "The Hat Man" with marionettes and pan-and-scan artwork. While the subtitles are in English only (which will not help viewers recognize the Hindi spellings for words), my monolingual four-year-old enjoyed this so much he asked to watch it again. Baby Hindustani: Exploring Tamil is similar to Chalo Hindi Bolay but features a different language: Tamil, which is widely spoken in southern India. Visuals of toys and everyday objects are used to illustrate basic Tamil vocabulary (“water,” “shoes,” etc.), as well as colors and numbers, after which objects and colors are combined to reinforce vocabulary (i.e., “black shoes”). Sporting attractive visuals of children at play, backed by pleasant Mozart music, Baby Hindustani is a solid language immersion program (although it too lacks native subtitles to help with Tamil spelling). Both titles are recommended. Aud: K, P. (R. Reagan)