A good learning idea or not?

[Tom8888]

A large page children's picture book. 15 pages text with 15 pages of colour images. Text is simple English. Is it a good idea to have another language on same text page..translating the text into... well, any language. Wouldn't most parents be happy to introduce their child to English? In a fun environment. My illustrator disagrees. Thinks it is an idea without merit. Kids love her pictures but I disagree with her. What do you think? Good idea or a bad idea?

Unless it is a language someone in the home can speak, it would be horribly mangled in an attempt to read it - if it were a language with a different written system to English, it would be completely unreadable. Gimmicky and unnecessary imo.

I think there are books to teach kids French which mix up the language within a sentence, eg:

The little chat eats the poisson

With pictures.

I don't know if it helps, and probably only if one parent also speaks the second language

I went to a French school in the UK. We had lots of books similar to this in the 1970s - picture books with the text in English and in French on the same page.

Please don’t ask me what they were!! I remember the concept rather than the detail. There also the Usborne “First 100 words” books, although these are based on individual words of vocabulary rather than sentences.

Do you mean dual language books?
www.letterboxlibrary.com/acatalog/Dual_Language.html Like these?

I'm sure there were books like this around in the 80s.

Scarby, yes. Captain, I'm sure there were. I don't claim it is a new concept. The non English language would be the child's/parent's native tongue. And yes, I would assume one parent can speak English. Seems, so far, it's not such a good way to go. Thank you all for your input.

I think there are 2 things confused here-
helping a child learn (or at least become interested in) a 2nd language- this would be done by the Usborne books and it sounds like what OP is thinking of
helping a parent enjoy sharing books with a child when the parent's first language is not the main community language (the dual language books)
As PPs have said children won't really learn much of a 2nd language through picture books and certainly not unless the parent is confident and accurate in the 2nd language.
But I can see lots of positives in the dual language books.

I suspect unless the child is already learning, and has good reason to learn the other language, that they'll just ignore the second language.

I remember a parent telling how they were so proud that their dc was picking up French from, I think it was Tots's TV. She'd glow as they told her that the one who spoke French had said "XXX". Then as she chatted to them when they were older and said what a pity they hadn't kept it up, that they told her that when the one who spoke French spoke they just waited and then one of the others would say "oh, she said 'look at the pretty fish'," or whatever. They didn't even bother to listen to what she said.

I can see if being a good learning tool for a dual language family, but only if the languages are truly equal at home. As soon as one takes dominance they'll just look at the one which is simpler for them.