Cultural Differences

Thanks to David K we've got two versions of the same electronic toy from vtech. At first glance they look the same, but one talks in English and the other in French. Finlay thinks they're wonderful.

When I first strung them up on the kitchen chairs I thought the only difference would be the French and English language spoken by the electronic children in the machine, but I was wrong

The first difference I noticed was in the row of push buttons along the bottom, these were the inspiration behind this page. To the British, a square is a square, a triangle is a triangle, and a circle is just a boring circle. But to a French child a triangle is actually a yacht, and a square is actually a present waiting to be unwrapped. Already by 6 months the French are being encouraged to be more artistic than the Brits

At least the English version has numbers on it, so while the French kids are off drawing pictures maybe the English ones are supposed to be learning maths?

At the top of the toy are two drums like a slot machine - on the left are letters, on the right are pictures. At least thats how the French one works - you are supposed to match up the A on the left, with the Avion (airplane) on the right. And when you spin the left drum round to A, but there isn't an aiplane on the right drum, a child says in a nice friendly voice "A is for Avion, where is the Avion" (well it says it in french but I can't spell in french).

But the English version is a bit more complicated - on the left with the letter is a picture, and on the right is something the picture does. For example the A is an ape, which obviously needs a banana to eat. Sounds good so far. What I find strange is that if you spin round to A and you have the honey (for the bear) instead of the banana, you get a sarcastic child saying "do apes like honey?" as though you're a total idiot for choosing apes & honey at the same time. No wonder Europeans don't understand sarcasm - we get it bred in from an early age

Finally, on the right hand side are some things you lift, which on the English version seem to be what you have to do when you wake up. Looking at it carefully the English dog wakes up, has his breakfast, and goes off to play with his ball. Whereas in the same time his French counterpart only just manages to wake up, and doesn't even think about breakfast or play. Seems a much more relaxed way of life :)