Mandarin videos for kids

April 5, 2009 11:35 PM

Any recommendations for popular children's movies or television series in Mandarin? I have a 5 and 3 year old learning Mandarin and was looking for something other than dubbed American stuff.

Basically how am I (no Mandarin at all) supposed to know if "You Er Yuan Tong Yao - Yi Zhi Ge" is better than "Xiao Shu Yi Jia Qing"?

posted by stchang to education (5 answers total)

Ni Hao Kai Lan! I actually caught this on cable flipping channels on cable a while back and ended up watching the whole show. It taught words in mandarin, then reinforced them with the story plot and a lot of repetition.

I don't know Mandarin either, but it seemed really good for kids (and 38-year-olds.) Watch it together and teach yourself, too!
posted by ctmf at 1:23 AM on April 6, 2009

i bought a couple of Pocoyo videos for my boy to watch. It doesn't teach mandarin, its just a children's show, but I think its great.

I bough the copy in Taiwan, so I'm not sure if the copy you order from Amazon will have a mandarin language track...
posted by askmehow at 2:33 AM on April 6, 2009

I should mention that my boy thinks its great too - he enjoys it way more than I do :)
posted by askmehow at 2:34 AM on April 6, 2009

I don't have any recommendations, but the Early Start Mandarin series here looks interesting.
posted by sharkfu at 8:48 AM on April 6, 2009

Try not to mix Ni Hao Kai Lan with Dora. My neighbor's 5-year-old was watching Kai Lan one day. She said the mandarin word for "snow" and then said "say (word)!" Kid said it in English, then turned to me and said "I don't say it in Spanish." I laughed. Don't want your kids mixing up the languages!
posted by IndigoRain at 1:06 PM on April 6, 2009