Product Review: Baby Safari Language CDs

Playing these MP3 audio language CDs for an infant (birth to age 2) is an effective way to gain perfect pronunciation for many languages -- they contain a total of 18 hours of carefully crafted audio. 25 languages are presented both with and without music.

The background music includes Mozart, Brahms, Gershwin, Debussy, Sibelius, Ravel, Bach plus many modern composers. A free CD with popular songs in these languages is added as a bonus.

The 25 languages on each CD are; Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Thai, Tagalog, Tamil, Turkish, Urdu and Punjabi.

The format used by the CDs is derived from the advice and publications of leading experts in linguistics. It has been shown scientifically (e.g., Prof. Patricia Kuhl, Univ. of Washington, et al) that any language which is not heard after about age 6 months is discriminated against (in favor of what is heard). This is why it is important for a baby to hear these from an early age.

This special format repeats a few words over and over in these 25 languages to create a long "language-string". A typical language-string is "root, branch, stick...moss, damp...chilly" (the English segment). Each CD contains 38 language-strings -- they present a varied and useful vocabulary. Hearing these is a real benefit, since it is hard to tell which languages a child may someday want or need to learn.

For each language, a pair of native speakers (a woman and then a man) repeat the words to provide a range of permissible pronunciation for the infant. The selection of the languages was made with the assistance of a noted linguist at UC Berkeley.

The CDs are produced by the Snow Water Corporation with an unconditional 90 day warranty. Infants in over 40 countries now listen to these CDs.

The CDs are currently available only from their site at http://www.babysafari.us; $19.50 (plus shipping). They are also available with full transcripts (three 32 page manuals). Not available in stores.