Follow Jade! Let's Go to Market in China

Given the facts that a) Mandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world today (English is only fourth!), and b) the best time to expose children to other languages is while they are still very young, Follow Jade! Let's Go to Market in China is an excellent choice for children's collections. Host Jade Qian is a friendly, patient teacher who, together with her young friends, employs a wide variety of very creative ways to teach basic Chinese vocabulary, including games, songs, graphics, and live-action instruction. In this episode, viewers learn the names of fruits and vegetables, farm animals, and body parts, with Jade repeating almost everything in English and Mandarin, both slowly and at a normal speaking rate. After about three or four repetitions, I actually knew that xi gua meant watermelon. Especially fun is the blending of English and Chinese; for example, singing “Mary had a sho yang” or “If you're happy and you know it, pai pai shou!” Although vocabulary words are subtitled, pinyin (the Romanized form of written Chinese) doesn't convey tonality or phonetics. This means that parents will just have to listen along with their kids, so they can understand when asked for some xi gua. A companion volume to Follow Jade!: Let's Visit Chinese Kindergarten (VL-11/03), this is highly recommended. Aud: K, E, P. (E. Gieschen)