Bilingual toys spell fun for kids in any language

Whenever 23-month-old Sofia Drage sees someone she doesn't know, she hides behind her mother. With reassurance, Sofia will peek around her mother's leg. If she thinks a visitor is worthy, Sofia will count, "One, two, three ... " all the way to 12. Then she'll do it again, only this time, it's "uno, dos, tres ... "

Sofia's parents, Diega Bravo and Brendan Drage, of Kirtland, Ohio, are teaching their daughter English and Spanish. Bravo believes conversations, reading and singing with her daughter are the most important ways to expose her to two languages. Sofia also plays with bilingual toys.

They're catching on

Dolls and plush animals that speak two languages, puzzles with layers of pieces in different languages and play kitchens that warn little cooks that the "burner" is caliente are getting more attention from toy manufacturers and consumers, said Jim Silver, co-publisher of Toy Wishes magazine.

The popular Dora the Explorer character was introduced several years ago on Nickelodeon and CBS. The bilingual toy tie-ins to the 7-year-old Hispanic heroine opened the way for more bilingual toys to hit the mainstream market.

Fisher-Price's Dora and the Hispanic Maya & Miguel dolls — based on characters in Scholastic Entertainment's hit PBS show "Kids Go!" — represent smart economics for toy makers. According to the U.S. Census, the number of Hispanic children in the United States is expected to increase 22 percent between 2001 and 2010. The total number of children in this country increased by about 14 percent in the 1990s, but the number of minority children rose about 43 percent.

Dolls have appeal

Cincinnati entrepreneur Selina Yoon is president of Master Communications, a company she founded in 1994. It operates Asia for Kids and Culture for Kids, online and catalog stores that sell bilingual books, electronic media and toys.

"When I started this business, I thought I would be selling only educational videos. I didn't think I would be selling dolls," the Korean-born Yoon said. "But so many asked me for them."

Today, her Web site, Asia for Kids (www.asiaforkids.com), sells Language Littles, soft-bodied, 16-inch dolls that offer a human-recorded voice when pressed. Languages available include Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish.

The electronic Spanish-speaking Elmo is one of the most popular bilingual toys available from eToys Direct (www.etoys.com), an online and catalog store.

And public-relations director Sheliah Gilliland said it isn't just bilingual households that are buying the toys. English-only speaking parents want their young children to know some Spanish words so they can interact with others in their classrooms, particularly if they live in areas with significant Hispanic populations, she said. Many parents also know that young children easily can pick up second languages.

Buttons push skills

Giving bilingual toys to children who live in monolingual families will not make them fluent in a foreign language.

But parents such as Bravo appreciate them because young children enjoy pressing buttons and getting a response. The repetition reinforces vocabulary skills in more than one language.

Parents shopping for bilingual toys should pay attention to sound quality, making sure the words are clear, spoken loudly enough and by a native speaker.