Chinese For Munchkins

“Chinese for Munchkins" is a new iPhone app designed for kids ages 2 and up, which teaches Mandarin and Cantonese to little ones in a fun way.  This app was developed by Heidy Yu Spurrell and Lisa Ting, 2 moms of bilingual kids.  It normally costs $1.99, but Asianmommy.com received this app for free.

This app works for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.  Basically, the app shows flashcards with 20 different animals and the corresponding Chinese characters, pinyin, and English.  You can click on the words to hear them in Mandarin, Cantonese, or English.  There are also flashcards for the numbers 1 through 20, plus a memory match game, and a game of counting and collecting pigs. 

What I liked:  This app is cute and enjoyable for kids.  They love to count and to learn the names of different animals.  It’s a great introduction to Chinese for little ones.  The illustrations are adorable, and it’s fun when the animals spin around.  It’s fantastic that you can choose to learn Mandarin or Cantonese.  I also appreciated that you can turn off the accompanying background music if you want to.

What could be improved:  I can’t comment on the accuracy of the Cantonese speaker (who is a native speaker), and but the Mandarin speaker (a non-native speaker) could be better—some of the tones just don’t sound quite right to me.

*Edited to add:  I have just learned that the Mandarin segments are being re-recorded by a native Mandarin speaker, and they are working to put out an updated edition of this app.