Technology and language learning is one of my interests.  Baby TV is a program for kids to help them learn a language.  I think it is for children who are two years old and younger.

Why I am interested in Baby TV and learning a language

I recently got an upgrade to my satellite TV. I am an English native speaker and live in Poland.  With this expansion of channels I get about 800 stations in many languages, Baby TV being a new addition.  With my daughter I have been watching Baby TV.

It is the first time I have been a couch potato in years as I am pretty hard working and usually will blow time with chess on the Internet before I watch TV. So watching a little Baby TV is a real guiltless pleasure.  Further I can justify it by rationalizing that it is good for my language learning.   Its not a bad program as the colors are very vivid and the spoken words are very clear.

Why I do not learn with Baby TV

Since I am pretty good with Polish this is too elementary for me to learn anything really new.

Further the rhythm is a bit too slow for me.  Therefore, for me Baby TV is not a great way to learn a language if you are advanced, but for language learning  which you are starting out with a more basic level it is not bad for the start. For me I could watch Baby TV in Spanish to learn Spanish for example.

However, adults will quickly get bored. The adult brain is in beta waves or alpha waves while the baby’s brain might be in a theta pattern, taking in things more passively. Further, everything is new and a baby will not lose interest like I would.

What I recommend is this.  Watch baby TV for fun and a supplement to learning a language, but not to really learn it.

Can Baby TV hurt your language learning efforts

In fact, I do not know if it is even too great for kids as there was an inverse correlation between hours watched and words spoken by a child.

Children need concrete people to learn a language. They need real people talking to them not images on a Plasma TV.  They need interaction and people talking to them in an interactive way, showing them things asking them questions.  Challenging them to learn and stretch their brains and language skills.

Adults need testing and retesting like flashcards for language learning.  Adults needs grammar presented in the form of rules and drills as adults think abstractly, unlike children.  Then they need interaction.

Therefore, do not assume that the baby’s way of learning a language is an adults optimal method to learn a language.   Baby TV might be good for a baby is just OK for the adult learner.  If something is too juvenile it is not good.

I would be curious to hear your feedback about technology and how you use it to learn a language, it could be radio, the Internet, brainwaves SMS, computers or even Baby TV to learn a language.

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