Spanish is a very phonetic language, and words are formed around the sounds that the vowels make. Therefore, it is very important to learn those sounds early. Fortunately, the vowels in Spanish always make the same sound, no matter where they are located within a word. So when José Dominguez listened to his children speaking Spanish, he had an idea for a product to help children learn proper pronunciation.
José is a physical therapist who is raising his four kids in a bilingual home. He is originally from Venezuela and his wife is from Pennsylvania. But he noticed that his kids were struggling with learning the pronunciation of Spanish words.
"Even though I speak only Spanish at home (and my wife only English), my children's pronunciation has never been that of a native speaker due to the way they make the sounds of the vowels," José says. Instead, he noticed that the way they pronounced their Spanish vocales was the same sound made by the English vowels, probably because they were exposed to those sounds more often than the Spanish sounds.
So what did he do? He created an animated video to help young children learn the proper sounds of the vowels in Spanish. I absolutely love it when parents see a need and create products or services that help not only their own children, but others, too!!
Designed for children ages 0 - 5, the video makes learning the vowel sounds fun through colorful characters, original songs, and repetition.
I, personally, don't encourage parents to let their babies watch TV, but you could certainly download the video to your computer and simply play the music in the background to help train your child's ear to the Spanish sounds! And perhaps, José will consider making a CD or MP3 version available, too? But for toddlers, this video reminds me of something they might see on Sesame Street or PBS KIDS.
If you have noticed your own children pronouncing Spanish words with an English accent, this might be a great tool for you to use. The DVD is available for $10.99, or you can go download a digital version now from their website.
Here's a peek at the video. As you can see, it is professionally done!