Product Description

Simple songs and rhymes are an excellent way to familiarize young children with another language. Un Deux Trois a collection of 25 traditional nursery rhymes, is a delightful way to introduce French. An illustrated vocabulary features simple words and phrases that are easy to learn and that can be used in games or everyday life. Children are encouraged to repeat the phrases and sing along with the rhymes, and the included CD lets them know how both should sound. The lively illustrations and amusing rhymes make learning a new language fun. A guide for parents translates more difficult phrases.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13140 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-01
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: French
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 24 pages

About the Author
Opal Dunn is widely known as a specialist in books on early first and second language development. She acted as Chief Consultant to Linguaphone's prize-winning new story-based course, Children's English, and works as a consultant to the Council of Europe on children's bilingual education. She has been shortlisted for the Eleanor Farjeon award for services to children's literature.

Patrice Aggs studied Fine Art at the City and Guilds Art School in London. She lives in Ashington, West Sussex

Customer Reviews

Un, deux, trois - as easy as 1,2,3
This is a well laid out and beautifully illustrated book. The reader is taken on a journey through different environments (farm, market, by the river etc.) each of which is brought to life by a selection of traditional French rhymes and songs. If at all possible you should also get the audiocassette which accompanies the book. The songs and rhymes are performed by native French speakers (children and adults) which encourages a good accent and the tunes are a wonderful memory aid. My children love it.

Uninspired, boring, painful
I am having trouble understanding the other reviews on this book and CD, as I found this book unbelievably contrived, with too much talking. There is a french lady who introduces each song, which totally spoils the flow, especially as she has a really fake syrupy way of speaking which is very grating.

I was so annoyed with the CD, I actually threw it away so my children (and others) would never be subjected to listening to it. I never do things like that normally, but I felt very passionately about this! If kids are bored and turned off to French early on, it may be hard work geting them interested again later on, by which time the damage has already been done.

I would recommend either Putumayo French Playground for a lively, contemporary, and really fun introduction to french, or the fantastic 'Songs in French for children' (on Amazon), which is a compilation of traditional nursery rhymes and has a charming Disney-style 1950's era sound.

Very disappointed... and I'm french...
I've been looking for a quite long time for a book and cd of that nature to make a present for a lovely little english girl. There are not many options that combine french rhymes with english explanations/translations, and seeing comments about this one, I thougt it was a good one.
So OK, it's well illustrated. But apart from that.... the narrator is not a native French at all... Is this Opal Dunn ? I reckon she's got quite a good accent, but there are still weird pronunciations (the usual R not to mention it...) that does not sound right to my native ear. And above all, I know only 20% of the songs that were picked up !! I'm 36 now, and I know plenty of old and new songs, but most of the ones in the CD are not representative of French rhymes at all...
If you want good french rhymes CD ("comptines"), best choice is on amazon FR, some are available as import too but at more expensive costs : 80 Comptines a Mimer and Jeux De Doigts [European Import],French Nursery Rhymes: 60 Comptines Pour Creches for instance, or Agnes Chaumie and Helene Bohy make wonderful songs for kids like Tralalere, "A L'eau!".