My Big Book of Spanish Words by Rebecca Emberley is an introductory Spanish/English book for children published by Little, Brown and Company. As always, when reviewing any products designed for kids, I sat down with my resident experts, which in this case included my two-year-old daughter and my five-year-old daughter.
This book, with its colorful images and simple word labels particularly appealed to my two-year-old. She sat down in my lap and asked me to read it over and over again, with the untiring focus that only a young child can exhibit. She readily repeated the words in both Spanish and English.
The page topics included:
- My Colors / Mis Colores
- My Food / Mi Comida
- My Toys / Mis Juguetes
- My Clothes / Mi Ropa
- My Room / Mi Cuarto
- My Animals / Mis Animales
- Things That Go / Cosas Que Se Mueven
- Shapes / Formas
- My Numbers / Mis Números
- My Bath Time / Mi Hora de Baño
- My Bedtime / Mi Hora de Dormir
The illustrations are bright and eye-catching. It served as a simple introduction to Spanish for both my two-year-old and myself, and a decent source for review for my five-year-old who, at her younger sister’s age, was almost as fluent in Spanish as she was in English, thanks to her bilingual nanny. I am sad to say that she has lost much of her Spanish language skills, so I was grateful for this book as a touchstone to revisit some basic vocabulary.
4 Comments
September 3, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Is it sad that this book seems about my speed to learn a new language? hehe. Can you recommend an adult easy learn language book?
I was happy to see you visit and comment on my blog recently, thanks so much!
September 3, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Other than my high school French text books and translation dictionaries, I haven’t looked at language books geared for grown-ups in quite some time.
My husband recently invested in Rosetta Stone software to learn Mandarin Chinese. He said that it would probably be a useful format for learning a language with a traditional alphabet, but having just begun the program, he is struggling right now with the complexity of Mandarin, regardless of the quality of the delivery system.
September 4, 2008 at 4:45 am
That’s the beautiful thing with kids, learning new languages is fun rather than the slog it is for the rest of us.
September 5, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Thank you for the information! I think Stu is right, starting young children on a new language is the answer.