Snow White helps children learn Chinese ...

This free app comes with one storybook, Snow White, and lots of extras to go along with it. The story itself is not especially enhanced, although it is a very unique app overall. The goal of the app is to "expose children to their first Mandarin Chinese words and expressions, through stories, games and songs."

The storybook itself is a nice, traditional version of the fairytale about a girl who runs away from her evil (and vain) step-mother to live with a bunch of dwarves. There are some lightly interactive elements like tapping on images to hear sound effects (e.g. birds chirping and dialogue in English & Mandarin). What really stands out is the way the story intersperses Chinese within the narrated story using a content-centered language approach focusing on meaning rather than form.

Ther app also features a wonderful assortment of 'extras' that enhance language learning, like games, songs and even coloring pages that name the colors in Mandarin whenever you change the color of your brush. The games include a memory matching game with Chinese characters (with small images to explain the meaning), as well as a Bingo game to test language retention and a short sticker activity. All of these extras are familiar and fun for kids who may not even realize they are learning while they play.

Overall this is a solidly made app with a lot of great content. The first story is free, which also makes trying this language learning app a pretty easy purchasing decision. My little boy enjoyed it a lot (he thinks princesses are 'pretty cool') but perhaps the developer will create a second app more aimed at boys' interests someday soon? I certainly like the direction they've taken with this first app and look forward to seeing more from earlylanguages.com in the future!

All reviews are of the app, not the platform/device. Based originally on iPad versions. Minor technical details may vary.