image credit: listen, via flickr

The privileged few who have had a sneak preview of our products (available in our on-line store later this week and in bookshops all over Spain as of October 20th) may have noticed that all of the bilingual books we publish include the following text in a prominent location: Helpful hint for parents: If you are not a native speaker of the language you are trying to teach your child, you can find audio files with pronunciation aids, as well as many other helpful tips at www.bilingualreaders.com.

When Bilingual Readers was still just a glimmer of an idea, we began interviewing families from many different backgrounds to find out what they liked and disliked about many of the children’s books on the market. We also asked for suggestions on how to make our bilingual books as helpful as possible for parents and children alike. We got some amazing feedback, and we’ve worked hard to integrate many of your suggestions into our bilingual books. One of the most common requests we received was to provide audio pronunciation guides to help non-native speakers reinforce language skills with their children.

While our main focus is on getting parents to read to and with their children in both languages, we know that each family has different needs and will use these audio files in very different ways. Maybe you’re a Spanish family in Spain who wants to expose your children to English from an early age, but you want to make sure you’re pronouncing the words correctly. If you are a native speaker of the language you are trying to teach your child, you may want to use the audio files to expose them to different voices and accents. You may be a teacher who is looking for supplemental material to reinforce your students’ language skills. Whatever your situation, we hope you’ll be able to find what you need to get the most out of our books.

Of course you may be wondering why exactly we decided to include free on-line audio files for all of our titles instead of just including a cd with each product. We did briefly consider this option, but it was quickly discarded for several reasons. Firstly, it would increase production costs, which would inevitably lead to a price increase, and we have truly done our best to keep our prices down so that as many families as possible can enjoy our products. Another reason we decided to provide this material for free on our website is because we believe it will be a helpful resource to many families who, for whatever reason, may not be able to afford the luxury of purchasing our books. Finally, we believe that sometimes you have to give a little to get a little. We have learned so much from so many, and the free audio files and other complementary materials we include on our website are just one way of saying thank you to all of our readers who are doing their best to give the gift of bilingualism to their children.

If you haven’t listened in yet, just go the Media Library section of our website and click on Audio Archive to find a selection of pronunciation aids for our first two products Easy Alphabet!/¡Abecedario fácil! and Two Little Libros: Sea Animals/Animales del mar and Jungle Animals/Animales de la selva. You can also download the audio files for each book in our on-line catalogue. Have fun listening!