To Muzzy or not to Muzzy?
I know that the Muzzy learning tools are great, I've heard awesome things from a lot of people regarding their Spanish, French & Italian programs...but I wonder if I should invest in the Mandarin Chinese one?? It's not cheap but if it helps Piper get an 'ear' for the language it might be worth it's weight in gold. We'd love to find a pre-school or elementary school that has a Mandarin program, so far the only one I know of is in St Paul, although from what I understand Minnesota has a directive to include Mandarin in it's public school system as an elective in the coming years. Do I wait or do I Muzzy?
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Order and receive the powerful, NEW MUZZY Level I MANDARIN CHINESE on DVD.
Set includes:
5 DVDs
2 Story DVDs in Mandarin
2 Story DVDs in English
1 Vocabulary Builder (in Mandarin and English only)
Audio CD
Colorful Script Book (in Mandarin and English)
Parents' Guides
Storage Case
Subtitles in Pinyin (English transliteration), traditional Chinese characters, modern Chinese characters and English.
21 November 2007
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10 comments:
I've thought about Muzzy, too...I'll be interested to know what you decide to do. I'm hoping you hear something soon, too, BTW!
I would like to see some reviews on this too. We are considering Rosetta Stone in about a year and of course we also have CD's from Chinese class at CCAI. I wonder if they would sell you a set of those. It wouldnt be a complete program but it is divided up by units and has lots of songs.
If you are interested, I have one to sell. I bought it before we knew Kate had speech issues -- adding Mandarin to the mix of English and ASL is just too much. I'd be happy to make you a deal and put the funds in our "Adding Addison Account."
I will say that Muzzy is weird, but kind of interesting. I definitely picked up a bit from it, although I do think I have an ear for languages. It's structured in a very easy-to-learn format, but the graphics are so-so.
We just bought Muzzy a couple of weeks ago. While it is a bit weird for me, Hana loves it. Just today, she actually used a Chinese sentence in the right context (and she didn't learn it in her Chinese class). So, I give it a thumbs up but it is still early in the process for us.
Can you borrow it from the library first? My daughter did not take to Muzzy at all (we borrowed it first) and was fairly annoyed at the repitition. She was 3 1/2, so maybe it was too soon, I'm not sure. I wouldn't pay for it until she shows some interest.
By the way, kudos on your reply to my bah-humbug rant. I say "own your freak" and you'll be a much happier person.
P.S. No, I do not want to go caroling!
Someone I know did it with her little ones here's what she said:
Really parents need to have lessons or it becomes a bit tokenistic (ie. can count, do simple words but never move beyond that level)
the program needs to work for the kid, some don't
Age 4 seemed to be a good age to start
Back it up with a Mandarin tutor, even once a week for a couple hours to "fill in the gaps"
Did you see the commenter above, has a piper and paisley too???
I've considered Muzzy, too but looked up the topic on APC and most said 'no'. The tones aren't correct (or even there).
I agree with Tiffany on the cds from CCAI - it would be a more affordable start.
Go on Ebay and search for kids and mandarin. I just bought (last night!) two DVDs with a little boy and his cartoon dog for $30. Mine is for my 5 year old son to practice before we go to China. I bought the new Fluenz software for myself and my husband and boy do we LOVE it, but it's so new you can't find it on Ebay and it's just for adults, recommended for age 14+, but my son listens to it sometimes with me and picks some stuff up!
I bought Muzzy... and returned it. The books that came with it were in English and calligraphy - no Pinyin, so absolutely useless to me, since I don't read Chinese characters. I complained to the manufacturers when I asked for the return number, and they said they planned to change this down the road... this was about a year ago. There are many resources available out there, so you may want to hold off on this decision for a bit. We have Pimsleur Mandarin I, and Rosetta Stone, the Mei-Mei videos, and several other videos and DVDs. Frankly, we like Chinese School the best!!
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