Slangman's Fairy Tales: English to Italian, Level 1 - Cinderella

By: David Burke

Narrated by: David Burke

Length: 6 mins

Publisher's Summary

Each fairy tale starts in English, then slowly "morphs" into Italian! Learn 20 words in a new language! This audio file contains narration, pronunciations of new words, sound effects, and fully orchestrated original music composed, arranged, and performed by "Slangman" David Burke. Here's how it works:

An English word in the fairy tale is translated.

The translated word is used throughout the rest of the story... again and again in context!

More and more new words are added.

All the new words are repeated throughout the story to reinforce understanding.

By the end of the story, 20+ new words have been learned!

Slangman's method is progressive! Start with Level 1 and continue through Level 3 to gain a strong foothold in a new language. Learning has never been so fun... or so easy!

©2010 David Burke (P)2010 Slangman Publishing

Clever

Would you consider the audio edition of Slangman's Fairy Tales: English to Italian, Level 1 - Cinderella to be better than the print version?

I bought this for myself rather than a child. I wanted to pick up a little bit of Italian and purchased these Slangman audiobooks along with a regular Italian audiobook course. I honestly learned vocabulary and a little bit of syntax a great deal faster with these children's books than with the more expensive audiobook course. If they produced more of these titles, I would definitely purchase them.

The main advantage here is that you already know the story, and he mixes the Italian vocabulary and usage in with English. As you advance in levels, the stories gradually become more Italian than English. The tracks are pretty short so you can listen through them repeatedly as needed.

One drawback I find is that the audiobooks do not come with at least text copies of the physical books. You have to look up the words in a dictionary or translator to learn how to read and write them. Each of these books ought to come with some kind of written document which at the very least lists the vocabulary used.