smallTalk: Languages for Baby

What is small talk: language for babies app?

small talk: language for babies makes it easy to introduce your baby to foreign languages in a non-academic way. With a combination of play and made-for-baby content, such as lullabies, songs, and short stories - created by mothers – the app introduces you to your chosen language(s) in an intimate and caring way.

The daily activities will accompany you with your child and guide you both to help develop your baby's active engagement through song, stories, guided movement, and physical play. All of which can increase development and learning in a child’s brain – as well as helping grow your bond even more intimately.

Each language and level is clearly and concisely broken down into languages, and further sub-divided into guided, daily activities which take from a library of playlist and tracks – poems, lullabies, songs and cultural-specific tracks. The fact that all of these recording have been recorded by mothers in their native languages makes for an endearing experience for parent and child.

It encourages you to bond with your baby in an intimate and supported way – the daily activities run to a background of the previously mentioned content and guide you through different exercises to bring you closer. This immersive experience is highly effective and, as I have repeatedly said, endearing. Despite not understanding the vocabulary used in the chosen language, any parent or carer will feel closer to their child because of having used this app.

All-in-all, small talk: language for babies boasts an engaging and compelling app built with quality, effective audio, and engaging activities to support parents and babies alike.

What we love about small talk: language for babies

Firstly, smallTalk: language for babies is a well-presented app, which is easily navigated in getting you started with this language-based process as quickly as possible, you to where you want to go. The ease and convenience of the app grants full access to our complete library of content to listen on any device, at anytime, anywhere. The only requirement will be a stable Internet connection.

smallTalk: language for babies grants access to curated content and language lessons across seven language – English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, and Spanish. The premise is simple, you pick the language. smallTalk delivers lessons and allows you to track your baby's progress from within the app.

Each ‘lesson’ flows with a background playlist in your chosen language, which the developers advise should last for between five and twenty minutes. You can then follow the daily activity instructions to help you bond with your baby and, at the same time stimulate their cognition and development. The daily activities, through movement, touch, and physical play, stimulate your baby's active engagement. smallTalk: language for babies have dubbed this process “Baby & Me Learning”.

The made-for-baby content offers an immersive, endearing, and effective experience further enhanced by mothers singing and reading to their own babies in their native languages. The driving force behind this app, appears to be a community of mothers on a global level who wish to share those real and intimate moments with their own children to offer a beautiful parental experience for others.

As a result, this makes for highly effective and engaging content – both from emotional and language learning standpoints, specific to your baby's developmental needs.

A lovely feature of the smallTalk: language for babies app is the ability to record your own speech – be it stories, lullabies, songs, etc. and have other family members do the same, by sharing this app and collaborating in your baby’s development. You can make these recordings available for other app users within this community to help them bond with their children in much the same ways that you, yourself, have benefitted.

However, some of you may pose the question of “how can I make use of this, especially as I don’t speak any or many other languages?”. The smallTalk: language for babies app is, in itself, not a language-learning platform. It is not based on the premises of instruction, practice, and acquisition like many others. It is all about the experience – allowing you’re the opportunity to bond and interact with your baby, with a genuine, real-world background in another language. It is the background playlists and audio that, subconsciously, can help stimulate your child a they begin their language-learning journey at even this very early stage.

The benefits of children interacting and experiencing foreign languages at such a long age are not proven, but highly hypothesised. As a general overview, learning multiple languages comes with many other lifelong benefits. Multi-linguists tend to be better at multitasking, better communicators, show greater creative and critical thinking traits, and most pertinent to this app, will usually find it easier to learn another language later in life.

Is smallTalk: language for babies easy to use?

Yes, smallTalk: language for babies is neatly designed and is it easy to navigate between the various content sections. Everything is very clearly labelled, allowing any user to navigate intuitively. The app interface is clear on start-up and begins by asking users to sign up and then choose their language(s) of focus. After this, navigation is very straightforward. Users can explore the guided lessons or navigate

through the well-labelled tabs at the bottom of the screen to interact with the various content. There are also external links to further explain the reasoning behind the app and to allow for more in-depth understanding and/or to get practical ideas. In my opinion, the interface is extremely user-friendly.

We, smallTalk: language for babies, can improve on The well-structured outline of the app will ensure that any user will be supported through the process and the guided steps make this highly intuitive. The poems, stories, and songs are – as I have repeatedly mentioned – an outstanding feature of this app. The fact that they are recorded by native speakers and offer a genuine parent-baby bonding experience is a real positive. However, although, content is differentiated according to your child’s birthdate and reflect cognitive and motor development rather well, the “lessons” and daily activities themselves are not fully customisable beyond point.

Parents may find that some activities and guidance are not necessarily applicable and, unfortunately, there is limited scope to customise the activities that once that you may find more beneficial and/or relevant, cannot be adjusted by age and/or developmental stage. This factor may leave the user feeling as somewhat of a passive member on this smallTalk journey – perhaps the offer of a choice in the daily activities would negate this?

Furthermore, some users will be frustrated and the lack of opportunity for they, themselves, to engage with the language. Yes, the premise of the app is to promote your baby’s cognitive and emotional development; however, I feel that there is a missed opportunity by not allowing parents to practise and/or read the stories songs to their child in their own voices, in the foreign language, within the app.

It should be noted, however, that there is extended content – for example, translations, etc. – available on the smallTalk website. The app works on promoting familiarity with the foreign languages on offer; yet, it would be nice if that familiarity could also incorporate the parent’s voice in these steps. I am delighted to hear that the developers are actively looking into these possibilities.

Finally, the app has moments where it can be a little glitchy, in two areas in particular. When you open another app over the top of smallTalk: language for babies or when you switch from airplane mode while the app is still open, content will tend to freeze. This can be easily sorted by closing and reloading the app.

How much does the app cost?

smallTalk: language for babies is currently available for free on the iOS App and Google Play Stores, representing outstanding value for money.

Is smallTalk: language for babies safe to use?

Yes, smallTalk: language for babies is safe to use, with it being ad-free and all content being related to the app itself. The app is straightforward to use and is well designed. Scrolling and navigation are extremely intuitive, and the interface will ensure that you can find intended content with ease. External links are relevant to the app and ideas pertaining to it and are appropriate at the time of review.

Overall rating of the app

smallTalk: language for babies is a neatly designed and engaging app that supports parents as they bond with their baby. Using genuine and authentic cultural stories and music as a stimulus, app users interact with their child in a guided, but intuitive way – all the while, facilitating their child emotional, physical, and cognitive development. The background narration in a foreign language may help your child better engage with that language in the future.