Muzzy

My daughter did not like the Muzzy characters. She thought they looked like monsters and were scary.

we use muzzi to help teach french and spanish at the school where i work. it is completely in the target language and comes with supplementary materials. i think it's great!

It's a great introduction to language.
The only problem is there is no progression or growth.
There's only a few videos that incorporate the basics and that's where it ends. But it can help establish a solid foundation.

As a Spanish Teacher, I recommend language schools or lessons. There are great programs that can be taught on site to your children along with friends. I offer one if there is any interest.

I hope this information is useful.

I tried the Italian one when my daughter was younger, and she was afraid of one of the characters and refused to watch it. I still have it, so now that you reminded me I may bring it out again for my son. I thought it was pretty good, but I can't tell you if it works or not because we didn't get that far.

We have the Spanish one which we have used on and off with our girls for several years. It's sort of like Sesame street, really, just in Spanish. I think it's super overpriced for what it is. You could easily get the language through watching Sesame Street in Spanish, or even changing the language selection at the set up screen of your kids' favorite DVDs. That way, they are learning the language through watching a familiar story and they figure out what is being said.
That said, if money is not an issue (lucky!) or if you are getting it for free or something, go for it! There's nothing wrong with it at all, but it is pretty overpriced.

My kids enjoyed Muzzy. Amazingly they could say a few words after watching it. After a few months though, they had lost all they had learned from it as we didn't speak those languages at home. Repetition and constant exposure is probably the key to learning a retaining a language. My youngest had exposure to Mandarin in Pre-school to the point where he could write a few characters and understand a class completely in Mandarin. A few years later though, he had forgotten it. Still the benefits can be seen when they begin a new language as every exposure makes them more malleable to learning a new one.

Muzzy is a great way to introduce a language indeed. I thought about buying one, but did you know I borrowed ours from the library and didn't have to pay a cent? I just wanted to share that for you as the public library is a wonderful resource for beginning readers and language learners alike! How lucky we are things like this can be FREE!!!! Best of luck.

Hi P.,
My daughters' school uses Muzzy as one of their tools in French class. I think the trick is that you also need to speak the language with your child and ask questions about the video they've just seen. (Or if you don't know the language, find someone who does.) I was a French language and literature major at Dartmouth and studied under John Rassias. His method was incredibly effective and widely copied - the basic idea was to get students to speak without translating in their heads first. As an example, the teacher would say (in French), "I'm going to the store." And then they'd say "he" and point at one of the students, and immediately the student would say, "He's going to the store." The teacher says "we" and points at another student, who would say, "We're going to the store." and so on. At more advanced levels, the sentences would get longer, and might require some subject/adjective agreement, for example.

Basically, I think Muzzy can be an effective aid in learning a language, but what will truly make your child fluent is TALKING about it afterward in the language s/he is learning. Without the talking, it's useless.

Just my two cents as a native English speaker who became fluent in French at a later age!

It was cute but my kids still don't speak Spanish! I wouldn't do it again.

Yes, and we love it! I think it would work better if we watched it more regularly, and I need the subtitles sometimes to understand what's actually going on, but it's still great. Just wish it weren't quite so expensive, but having experience with another language is valuable. My son picked the Chinese set when he turned 6. But my daughter's interested in Spanish, so I'm saving up for the multi-language set. Wish we had gotten it when they were even younger, but it's still been wonderful.

When my daughter was in kindergarten, her Spanish teacher used this as one of the teaching tools. My daughter loved it, but hated Spanish class, as it took her out of Choice Time (Free play). Yes, it works.
Stephanie

I have used the Muzzy tapes for my children when they were young(6 and 7). We had the German. They did learn a great deal from them, they now speak German and are 20 and 21. The exposure gave them the basics. It also helps them to learn word order, which is vital in learning a foreign language. The topics use common words that are found in everyday life as well.