Can I use a standard microphone with just a portable stereo?

[cornflakegirl]

I want to have a microphone that the kids can use for singing into, that amplifies their voices. I don't want a kids' one that claps and stuff, so I bought a couple of normal cheap ones. I thought I'd be able to just plug them into the external mic hole on my portable stereo, but it doesn't seem to be working. One of them (the one from the pound shop) works to the extend that it records sound, but voices don't sound amplified while using it. The other (slightly more expensive) one has a big end to the cable, and we don't have a big to little adaptor, so I can't even test it.

I spent ages googling last night, trying to work out whether what I'm trying to do should work, and I have no idea! Can anyone help?

bump

Your portable stereo won't be designed to play the amplified signal from the microphone through the speaker because that would cause feedback (ie lots of loud whistling).

In theory you could use a separate pre-amplifier to boost the microphone signal and feed it into the 'line in' of your stereo. The sound would come out of the speakers, but it would be more expensive and probably wouldn't work very well.