Sophie, Juliette and Pierre (well, when he starts talking !) are all bilingual so I know first-hand how easy it is for children to pick up a foreign language when they are little. You can learn a language at any age but to get the pronunciation totally right, you need to start right from the very early days. That's why, even if I'm 99% bilingual, I'll never have a totally French accent. So if you're from a bilingual family - or even if you aren't but you want to introduce your children to other languages - the Babyboomboom CDs are a fantastic fun way to do this.
Each CD contains nursery rhymes and well-known children's songs in English and a second language. According to the website, they are designed for use from birth to pre-school age to familiarise little ones with a second language. The CDs are available in French, German, Polish, Spanish or German and can be part of a band-bag which contain a CD and four instruments designed specifically for small hands.
We received the German-English CD to test and it's actually playing in the background as I type this - there's proof that it's a nice gentle, calming CD and not some headachey racket that is so manic you can't think straight while it's playing !
Sophie says "it's really good because I can learn words in German and the lady has got a really nice voice". (Apologies to the second, male singer !) Juliette proudly told me that she knows all of the words of some of the songs already (in English - not in German yet !) and that she can be grown-up like Sophie who is already learning a second language at school because she's big !
I was really pleased with the choice of songs because, as Juliette said, they are all really well-known songs that children can already sing along with in their own language, so they are immediately aware of what the German lyrics mean. I noticed that every time the German verses came on, it all went quiet so the girls must have been really concentrating on the German words. I also love the fact that the lyrics in both languages are printed on the CD cover so older children can look at the written language that goes along with the sounds they hear on the CD.
There are 17 songs in total and although I didn't make a note of the total length of the CD's playing time, it was short enough for it not to become irritating for the parents or for the children to start getting bored. We've got an 8-hour drive ahead of us on Wednesday and I'll be quite happy for this CD to come along in the car with us, as it's much calmer and not at all annoying like some of the other children's music CD's we've used in the past.
star rating : 5/5
RRP : £9.99 for the CDs, £19.99 for the band bags
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