A toy that's smarter than you are?
Written: Dec 23 '03 (Updated Dec 23 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: simple to play with, adjusts for the level of the child
Cons: FOUR c-cell batteries -- not included! -- and they die quickly!
The Bottom Line: Makes learning words in multiple languages fun!
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| alhena's Full Review: Little Linguist |
The Little Linguist by Neurosmith is a toy for children aged 12 months and up to encourage language learning. The toy itself is a large white dome with a handle and a round opening on top where the child can put the characters. There are 15 characters and two big buttons. The toy takes four C cell batteries. (not included!)
The characters are cute little (3" or so) figures with two buttons on the bottom. The buttons make contact with the toy when it's put into the opening, and somehow the toy figures out which character it is. The characters that are included with the toy are: horse, tree, cat, dog, boat, train, lion, car, plane, cow, monkey, elephant, bird, house and pig.
There are various cartridges you can buy for the toy. I have the English and Spanish ones, although I would like to get the French and Japanese ones as well.
To play with this toy you push the buttons, and stick the characters into the opening. It's really simple. The toy will say which character you have put into it when you put it in, and again if you push the button. The second button will play a sound that that character makes. "meow" or "moo" or whatever. The noises are very cute.
You can also push the button with no characters and the toy will request one. "Train". You're supposed to look for the train and put it in the opening. If you do it'll light up and play some music. If not, it'll tell you which character you've put in instead.
I got this toy for my daughter when she was about a year old. I got the English and Spanish cartridges. I was amazed how quickly she figured out to put the characters into the opening of the toy. She seemed to be fascinated that she could do that and it would say something. (cause and effect!) At that point I don't think she was associating the words that the toy said with the objects, though. Of course she also tried to put blocks, legos, and whatever else she could put into the opening as well. It didn't seem to hurt the toy any. :)
For a while we put it on the shelf and didn't touch it, but I got it out again a week or so ago and she's been playing with it since then. Now that she's a little older I think she understands it better and I'm beginning to see the other levels of play.
If you play in the way where you push the button first and it asks for a character, and you get it right a bunch of times, it moves on to the next level. The second level uses full sentences, "this is a house", and if you continue to get it right, it'll move into the third stage, "this is a brown and white house". when you put the right character in, instead of just playing music, it says "Thank you!"
One of the things that I like about this toy is that even though there are 15 characters, if you get out two characters and put them in first, it will continue to do those two characters without adding others. This is a big help while learning another language -- 15 words is a lot of vocabulary but two or three aren't so bad. I usually give my daughter 3 characters with the toy, and let her work on those, then the next day I remove one of those and give her one different.
Also, if you're playing with, say, three characters and you're at the high level, "this is a brown dog" and "this is an orange cat" and you introduce another character, it will just say "house" until you reach the level for that character. That's a little weird when you're listening to it, but it makes sense -- you need to master the vocabulary of the noun before you add the rest of the sentence.
The person who speaks on the toy has a nice accent. I've bought my daughter other Spanish speaking things and I like the accent of the person that they used. It's a very friendly sounding woman's voice.
About the only complaint that I can find with this toy is that it takes four C-cell batteries and they seem to die quickly. Between when I bought it and now it's gone through a set of the batteries, and most of that time it was sitting on the shelf, off.
Now, this toy isn't a replacement for interaction with your child. I've read a few of the reviews and people keep saying, 'this doesn't do anything that a parent can't do!' Now, of course that's true.. IF the parents speaks these languages! I don't speak Japanese or French and I'm looking forward to learning them with my daughter when we get those cartridges. It's also perfect for when I'm cooking dinner -- i give her the toy and the characters and she is entertained. yay!
One last thing, the cartridges and the toy are expensive. The system's list price is 69.99 and the cartridges list for 19.99. I got mine on ebay for 30$. I don't think I'd think this toy was so great if I'd spent 70$ on it. But for 30 it's great.
So in conclusion, I think this is a great toy for my daughter (and for me) :)
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 30
Type of Toy: Educational
Age Range of Child: 12 to 36 Months
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Epinions.com ID:
alhena
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Reviews written: 24
Trusted by: 2 members
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