Language and Linguistics Movie Reviews

The Language Tree video is well done and professional. The pacing was easy to follow and I appreciated the non-stereotypical approach used for teaching Mandarin Chinese

I've reviewed the video tape Billy and BenBoo and really like the Multi-Cognition Approach on which it is based. I also like the organization of the story. I believe that both children and adults who deal with children will find it entertaining while learning Chinese.

This is a unique approach to teaching Korean. We like the fact that we did not have to force our 6 year old Korean American son to "study" his Korean. The story of Billy and Boo really captured his attention. He particularly enjoyed the scenes with the monsters. This video appears to have more educational value than other products we have seen from Korea. The lesson is well organized and viewers can pick up words and phrases because they are repeated often.

The Language Tree video teaches and reinforces the Korean language in a fun, engaging manner

This product contains two DVD's that introduce basic sign language vocabulary and a CD-ROM disc containing a visual sign language dictionary and sign language games. The hosts sign all their verbal explanations at normal signing speed, but you have plenty of opportunity to learn each sign at a learner's speed. There are dramatizations of sign language conversations. You gain more knowledge of sign language each time you watch these two DVD's, and you learn not only to sign, but to read others' sign language. The sign language dictionary has video clips of real people signing each entry. Very helpful. I highly recommend this product for adult beginners of sign language.

A fun, interesting reinforcement and clarification of practical French phrases and rules. A great supplement for students taking french lessons in high school or college. Also great for adults. I bought Part 2 first. After watching the video, I ordered Part 1 for my daughter.

A fun, interesting reinforcement and clarification of practical French phrases and rules. A great supplement for students taking french lessons in high school or college. Also great for adults. I bought Part 2 first. After watching the video, I ordered Part 1 for my daughter.

Signing Time has been my toddler's favorite video for the past year & a half (she's 2-1/2 now)... we have all three of the original series and are expectantly awaiting the new releases! It's amazing to see your little one, who's verbal abilities have yet to be formed, but with their hands, they are able to communicate with you! The music in these videos is outstanding, the use of children speaking the words AND signing the words, interspersed with animation, and the serene mommy, Rachel, introducing each sign, make for delightful viewing that parents, toddlers AND older kids will thoroughly enjoy over and over and over again! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

Me and my family love this video! My kids love to sign along with the other young kids in the videos. The songs (also on the CD) are catchy and are fun to listen to in the car. My son is unable to speak and he learned several signs after just a few viewings! My speaking child learned also. If it was possible, on a scale of 1 to 5 it would rate a 6!

I started showing my baby this video at 6 months, it is still his favorite! He's now 12 months and recognizes about 6-10 signs. He doesn't seem to have the dexterity to do the signs yet, but he clearly understands the most important ones so far like eat, more, milk (nursing), water, dog, cat, banana. My husband and I now use the simple signs if we're out in a loud place and can't hear each other. Furthermore, I am a pediatrician and show the 3 volumes of signing time in my office. I encourage everyone to learn the basic signs and especially all children with hearing or learning disabilities.

I think this video is so great. Anthony Natale is funny and I do not dread having to watch it again as I am learning. I am glad in the introduction it is explained Anthony Natale does not teach ASL but signs as he speaks. (Obviously this is confusing for some people). This is not the video to learn ASL but to learn enough vocabulary to be comfortable enough to sign to an ASL signer or any hearing impaired person who signs. It also gives some great insight into the deaf world and encourages everyone to not be afraid to try to meet or talk to a deaf individual. I highly recommend this video as a person embarks on learning to sign, whether it be ASL or English. English sign is growing in popularity because it is easier to learn. This teaches you enough sign to begin signing English Sign Language. If you are interested in learning ASL exclusively, this is not the video for you. They do not teach any ASL grammar. Signing along with English sentence structure is NOT ASL. Great source of vocabulary words for all signers and those interested in learning to sign.

I have always wanted to learn the basics of sign language and after reading all the positive reviews for this particular video decided to give it a shot. I watched it with my 8 year old son and since then we have been practicing signing and having a great time in the process. I have to point out it is very helpful for anyone new to signing to have a video to learn from and not a book... many of the signs involve motion, which is difficult to depict in books without some confusion. We have been surprised at the ease with which we have picked up so many of the basic signs, and this video was well worth the cost. It is well put together, easy to understand, and excellent for a beginner with a little time on his/her hands, so to speak.

I got this dvd because I have always been interested in signlanguage and baby sign. This dvd really gives you a nice base for learning to sign or just to get by if you should happen to meet someone who is deaf. I used to work retail and it really came in handy being able to communicate with a deaf customer who stopped in. I also use it to teach my children. (It really came in handy, when I lost my voice due to a cold) You may want to skip some parts however depending on the age of the child. (like asking for a date, or one sign that done wrong means a totally different thing)I loved it because it shows real life situations instead of a classroom like setting like most videos. It is a great teaching tool, or just as a review, if you are out of practice. I really enjoyed this dvd expecially being able to go to any scene with the dvd version.

I love the Anne of Green Gables movies, but for the PRICE I just paid for this movie, the DVD was not entirely worth it!!!! I have a problem with the sloppy packaging, no inserts, nothing but a 2 sided DVD. And the DVD does not contain CHAPTERS, so you can't just skip to different scenes like you can with most any other DVD. That seems like necessary feature for such a lengthy move, don't you think? Like I said, love the movie, just disappointed in the dvd version.

If you ever need to take a half-day vacation from modern life, pop in this DVD and let the dreamy scent of a bygone era waft you away. There is, of course, pathos in this tale. It comes, after all, from an era when orphans carried a stigma, when they could be adopted as cheap labor, when the disapproval of a single busybody could cast a pall over the entire span of a person's narrow social sphere, and when the isolation of rural existence could crust over even the gentlest souls. But it also comes from an era when conversation and the quiet observation of nature were not drowned out by pop music, television, and rapid transit -- when the little joys of getting a new dress, or brewing one's own elderberry wine, or getting to attend an after-church social planted a much larger footprint on one's day, week, or month.

Usually when I first encounter a piece of literature in its filmed iteration, I am compelled to seek out the "real" thing to flesh out the characters and themes. Not so with Anne of Green Gables. After having watched this miniseries every few months since it first came out on laserdisc years ago, Megan Follows, Colleen Dewhurst, Richard Farnsworth and others of this phenomenal cast are, in the characters they portray, so much my friends and soulmates that I cannot imagine taking the risk of having them supplanted by their book counterparts. It would be an unthinkable disloyalty to the warmest souls ever to grace a TV screen. I'm a busy professional without much time for a fantasy life. But on those occasional days when I need a long, slow draught from a childhood graced by love and light, this is the well to which I go.

Leaving the character critiques to other reviews (since they seem to do such a GOOD job and say exactly what I would say anyway), I will instead review the DVD copy itself.

After watching my taped-from-tv VHS copy a million times over, I finally got smart and bought the DVD. I am so glad I did! This DVD has the movie in it's original full-length form, with all deleted scenes (which I had never known I was missing!). Other noteworthy bonus features include cast biographies, Megan Follow's audition reels, full-feature director commentary (excellent, I might add!!), and the option to watch the film in English / French / Spanish. The color quality and sound balance are perfect. In short, aside from the fact that this is not in widescreen (understandable, since this was a made-for-tv film), I could not have asked for more in a DVD transfer of this movie. I hope you can get your hands on a copy and enjoy it as much as I did. However, you might want to shop around to get the best price.

The subtitled translation is very accurate, but I have to boost up the volume in order to hear the dialogue. Some episodes are louder then others. The picture quality and sound is not as good as my Sailormoon Laser Dics, but these are in Japanese with no subtitles. I bought the dvds just to be able to understand what they are saying. You will be very impressed with the difference between the English Dub and the Japanese version. A must for Sailormoon fans, but I am giving it a low rating due to the sound and picture quality.

After I watched the first season of Sailor Moon Un-cut in Japanese language the first I thought was that the sound was a little bad in the beginning, but it changed when I got used to it. This is the greatest anime ever (dear readers, this is no BS). The voices suit, the whole season is un-cut, so you can watch all the scenes which were flipped in the DiC dub (the missing episodes too. Those who believe that the translation is totally wrong, aren't right, because if you watch the German version you'll eventually find out that the translation was made correctly. Every Sailor Moon fan should buy this even if it's extremely expensive. Have fun with it!!!

I don't have the Sailor Moon DVD on all 5 of the seasons but I do have them on video(I bought it on Ebay). I also got the Sailor Moon SuperS specials including "Ami-chan no hatsukoi"("Ami-chan's first love") on DVD (I got that from the fansubbed VKLL, which appears later on in the season or maybe on the DVD you guys purchased). I am giving the whole Sailor Moon series 5 stars instead of the DVD, since I don't have the DVD and I heard that the audio isn't that great. Anyway, I love the Sailor Moon series in Japanese, even though the English version got me started on it. I didn't like the original Sailor Moon at first, when I got the Sailor Moon R movie subtitles on VHS, I picked up the wrong box! But I got used to reading the subtitles and I love the song, "Moon Revenge". Now, I think the English version also sucks, especially the first and second season. On the first season, they totally skipped over about 6 episodes, especially the important episode about Minako's past. I love the Japanese seiyuu (voices), Kotono Mitsuishi's voice (Usagi) and Rica Fukami (Minako) the most. I really wish (in a way) that America could come out with Sailor Stars so I could compare it to the original version. The original is always the best anyway. The original also brings out the best in the characters, unlike the American version. Despite the DVD, every Sailor Moon episode is the best. Just why did it have to take so long to come out with it? Here I am 22 and when it came to America in 1995, I was 13, but the original release, I was about 10. Yes, I am a grown woman, but I still love Sailor Moon to this very day!

Where to begin? Yes, it's nice that we now have the original Japanese version on DVD now, but with all the problems with this set, perhaps we should have waited a little bit longer. For instance, there are audio problems abound where everything sounds fuzzy and muted, not to mention about 15 seconds of dub ausio (!) in episode 68. That might be forgiven, were it not for other problems on top of that. The second opening was blurred in some places to make way to credit the songs, and some attack names -- which were already in English -- were mistranslated (!). ("Moon Princess Halation" became "Moon Princess Elimination", which was not the dub name, but rather a combo of the two.) My biggest gripe is that an entire episode was cut. Does it really matter if it was filler, or a bad episode, or anything else like that? An episode was cut. So one can't exactly call the release "uncut", now can they?

If you have fansubs, stick with them. They're probably of a more professional quality anyway.

We should be so lucky if ADV released all 5 seasons of Sailormoon withe such rigor and high quality as this set. And for the record, ADV did not "cut" episode 67-- they couldn't get the rights to it... and not even they're sure why the Japanese owner won't sell it to them! You may have to adjust your TV's audio a little... most people who complain about the audio have outdated TVs, else don't know how to use them.
This season is really one of my favorites because of the great character development given to all the Scouts. Ok, Ok, so I do want to get a gun out whenever that "little pink thing" comes out on the screen, but the rest is worth it. Please enjoy Sailor Moon as much of the rest of us do, and also please don't go to conventions cross-playing as Sailor Mercury, ok?

If you ever watched the first season, you'll realize that the quality is even better. Like I said it's the greatest anime. If you would ask a friend if he knows Sailor Moon he'd eventually say "yes". And like I also said the voices suit and you can watch every single scene that DiC flipped. And the music is absolutely fabulous, in both the first and the second season of Sailor Moon.
In other words: I'll stay a loyal moonie til my death. And I feel sorry for every so-called "Sailor Moon fan" who says that this season is even "worse" than the first.
Just buy it! It's worth having in your collection.