*Very* mediocre production
We bought this videotape for my daughter, who is now 20 months old. My wife and I are interested in having her learn German.

The best that I could say about the tape is that it is "OK." The tape introduces words very slowly, one word at a time, then uses the preceeding three words in a sample sententce. For example, you'll get:

"Boy..." [while showing a picture of a boy]
"Boy..." [while showing a picture of a different boy]
"Boy..." [while showing a picture of a different boy]

"Eat..." [while showing a picture of a person or animal eating something]
"Eat..." [while showing a different picture of a person or animal eating something]
"Eat..." [while showing a different picture of a person or animal eating something]

"Apple..." [while showing a picture of an apple]
"Apple..." [while showing a different picture of an apple]
"Apple..." [while showing a different picture of an apple]

"The boy eats an apple. The boy eats an apple" [picture of a boy eating an apple]

So you have to ask youself: can you or your child watch this for 38 minutes a day, for however many days?

The video goes through some general words (Mom, dad, boy, girl, etc...), numbers, and colors. And that's it.

Some claims they make:

1) The tape is 45 minutes long. There is actually a bit more than *35 minutes* of content time. The rest is credits and blank tape.

2) The tape is "total immersion." I do not know where they are getting the definitions from, but *everytime* someone pulls a book from a shelf, or opens a book to read or display to the audience (i.e., YOU) in this video, *it is ALWAYS an English book.* I imagine that something calling itself "total immersion" would require showing people reading German texts in the German language, "total immersion" video". Anything calling itself "total immersion" would also have to show people *interacting* in the target language, which there is absolutely none of in this video. It's all very one-way, almost "teacher-fronted" as I describe above.

This company seems to have gone very wide, and not at all very deep. This is the only video tape in German they provide, to my knowledge. That'sa a pity because after you watch this video a couple of times, the question that begs to be answered is "Well, what do I do now?"

This video alone provides too limited an exposure to the target language. It could be one *very small* part of a German language environment that parents might be trying to create, but nothing more.

A good first video to introduce your baby to German.
My daughter really enjoys watching this video. She watches more than half the video (about a half an hour) before moving on to another activity. Considering she is only 13 months old, that is quite an accomplishment. She watches the video between 1 and three times a day. Whenever she hears the music for the video, she comes running to the TV.

The video itself uses brightly colored objects, young children and animals to help your child learn German. Each word is repeated multiple times, then at the end of each section sentences are made from the new words just learned. The sections are: section 1 - familiar words and sentences; section 2- numbers; sections 3 - colors; section 4 - manners & phrases; section 5 - more familiar words and sentences; and section 6 - musical review.

The video is listed as ages 1 to 5 years old, but I think it is best suited for children under 4 years old. Older children will most likely be bored with the simplistic material, unless this is their first exposure to the language. In that case, we watched the video with children from 7 to 13 years old who hadn't been exposed to German, and they really enjoyed it too.