Most of the programs Nikki watches are in Russian. He does get to choose what he wants to watch, but I try and encourage a Russian choice as it is by far his weaker language (he is consistently using 2-word phrases and occasional 3-word sentences) and I want to squeeze in as much as I can.
We watch several things, including a Russian audio version of Ni Hao Kai Lan (bonus Chinese phrases!), a lot of old Soviet cartoons and a couple of interesting educational programs. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a lot of quality programs made for kids recently - they prefer to dub English and American programs. Most of the time, they don't bother to mute the English language track and if I struggle to follow either audio track properly, I can only imagine the confusion it would cause Nikki.
Finally, we found a fantastic Russian-made program - Fixiki. There are short 5-minute cartoons, songs with animation and fact-clips. The main heroes are tiny 'people' who live in our houses and fix problems with technology. Each episode tells about the history of an object or how it works. They are full of interesting facts but short, simple and entertaining enough to make good toddler-viewing!
What's more, it is available free on Youtube and you can see their whole collection on their Russian site here. Below is one of Nikki's absolute favourite songs...
Hi Ali
ReplyDeleteMy name is Petra. I'm at home with my 7 month old and I also have a four year old girl who goes to kindergarden. She recently came upon Fixiki on youtube and loves it. Only problem is none of us know Russian and she is already bilingual(Afrikaans 1st language and English 2nd).
I'm not sure if it is a good idea to teach her Russian as well (then I will also have to learn). Could you maybe translate the theme song of Fixiki for us? Then let us see how Danielle catches on with the Russian. And take it from there.
Hi Petra. I'll be doing a whole series of Russian posts soon as well as sharing some basic vocabulary materials if you think your daughter might be interested - I'll post the words to the Fixiki song, too :)
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