For years, educational toys have been a success, bilinguals being one of the most demanded. I guess it is because in Spain the level of English is very low and parents have realized that English is a very useful resource when traveling and, I go further, when it comes to simply communicating online or by phone with People from other countries.
Faced with such demand, manufacturers are offering (logical, I would too) toys in both Spanish and English, such as learning tables, books and CDs, dolls that speak in both languages, etc.
Next we will see seven toys in Spanish and English for babies and children and in the end, because I can't keep quiet, I tell you what I think about the subject.
My talkative computer
My talking computer is a toy for children 6 months and older. It has large keys and different colors, such as baby toys, which when pressed by children emit sounds and show drawings on the screen.
It includes songs, words, sounds and activities in both Spanish and English.
Count on me Lily
Count on me Lily is a doll who pretends to be the friend of our children. With it you can learn numbers, from 1 to 10 and the colors in Spanish and English.
Pressing your belly we can listen to songs and pressing on your left foot we will change from one language to another.
Bilingual learning table
The bilingual learning table has many activities focused on four areas represented by four faces. Depending on the activity being carried out, one or the other face is illuminated, which will be the one that will interact with the child at that time.
There are several game options and one of them is to learn in English (or in Spanish).
It is a table that we (at my house) liked a lot, so we bought it a few years ago and we had it until a few months ago, although more decoration than anything else ... I guess my children prefer to play other things.
Talkative steering wheel
The talkative steering wheel is a toy that emulates a vehicle. It has the steering wheel, gearshift, lever to activate the turn signals, pedals (although it is given by hand), all with sounds, and some buttons that could be something like the destination we intend to reach with the car (supermarket, park, ...).
At home we also had it because my children loved the theme of cars (driving like dad) and we liked everyone. This one can say that it has been amortized, but in our case, the subject of the language was secondary, because in fact it came in English and Portuguese.
Dora sings and dances
Dora sings and dances is a doll that, like Count Me Lily, communicates with children in both Spanish and English, just as she does in the drawings (although in the drawings she mixes languages, something that gets me a little quicio).
Dora sings and dances to the rhythm of "We did it - We did it" and also proposes games to children, speaking, as we have said, also in English.
Kiddy English + CD
Kiddy English is a book that comes with CD to get into the subject, directly in English. It has poems, stories, images, phrases and vocabulary in English so that children learn with the help of their parents. It is intended for children from birth to 9 years and is created by Vaughan Systems, which has very good English courses for adults.
Sound farm
The sound farm is a toy with various animal-shaped buttons that helps children recognize the names and voices of animals. In addition they can also know the colors and numbers, all in English and Spanish.
Funny yes, useful, it depends
As I said at the beginning of the post, parents go after toys like these, which work in both Spanish and English. They even buy DVDs of drawings for children and put them in English.
The reality is that these toys can be as fun or as boring as those that only come in Spanish, but not to come in English, children will be smarter and will not learn much more. Let's say they are only useful if one of the parents, both, or the babysitter or caregiver speaks to the child in English. In that case, toys or drawings can serve as another source of English or as a resource to play with children immersed in the language.
To pretend that the child learns something when the parents do not know how to speak English (or know it but do not speak it to the child) is to wait too long, so personally I would only buy them if we liked them as a toy, which is what happened with the table and the flyer: when we bought them we had no idea that they were in English, a language we never used (not even the flyer, that we put it in Portuguese because it looked more like Spanish).
I have no doubt that Learning other languages is something beneficial for childrenHowever, for them to learn it, they need to live naturally with the language, being able to interact with someone who responds in that language. If a child learns to say "red", which is "red" in English, it is absurd to receive in response: "Very good son, you know how to say red in English!". The grace would be for someone to say "Red, like this apple", showing the apple in our hand or "Red. Your t-shirt is red too", pointing to your shirt.
