Audio content is vital to kids’ language learning. There’s just something about singing and listening to stories that will do wonders for your child’s comprehension, accent, and even productive vocabulary. However, in today’s world, finding a way to safely and simply serve up audio content is not so easy… access to streaming devices via a smart speaker can be tricky. A CD player can work well for older kids, but CDs are delicate and require supervision to keep the disks intact when you have little kids and a lot of content isn’t readily available on CD. For many families, a dedicated children’s audioplayer is the right choice. In the US, the Toniebox and Yotoplayer are the frontrunners in this space.
The Toniebox ($80-$140) is a German product, but is widely available in the US. The newest version is the Toniebox 2, which also enables some game play. (I think for most families, the original Toniebox is totally adequate.) In either case, you operate the Toniebox by placing a small figure on the top of the box, which will automatically start to play the associated audio content, which could be songs or an audio book.
There are over 300 German Tonies as well as hundreds of English Tonies (and some French and Spanish ones). Tonie figures are priced at around $15-20 each and include around 45-90 minutes of content. No setup is required for the individual figures and a one-time set up for the player itself. One major drawback is that it’s quite hard to get German Tonies in the US. Unfortunately, Tonie does not sell German figures in the US Tonie store and major German bookstores do not ship to the US, so you have to either order them from German third-party sellers via Amazon.de or buy them, generally at a hefty markup, via Facebook parent groups or eBay. Another drawback is that the Toniebox has to be connected to the internet to work, which means you can’t really use it for travel.
Despite these limitations, the Toniebox has a lot of benefits. It’s extremely easy to use — a child as young as 12 months can operate a Toniebox. It’s hard to break and has no sharp edges to hurt little bodies. The figurines are cute and make it easy for even pre-readers to understand which content is what. My elementary age child still uses the Toniebox daily. Why? He can schlepp his Toniebox into his pillow fort without any worry that it might be damaged. And there are some Tonies that are just perfect for his needs. For example, Toto und der Mann im Mond is a gentle, magical story he reaches for whenever he needs some quiet, meditative time. We also really enjoy the Lalalino and Lichterkinder Tonies. The Tonies we use the most, however, are the blank ‘creative’ Tonies. You can add a range of audio formats to a blank Tonie in the app and refresh the content whenever you want. We have three or four of these on rotation for a month or two at a time.
A great alternative to the Toniebox is the Yoto player.
Yoto player is British and has primarily English content, although there are also cards and podcasts in other languages, notably French, Spanish and Chinese. This means you need to find and upload any content you want to blank cards. While there are no pre-created German audiobooks for the Yotoplayer, it does have some advantages over the Toniebox. For one, the cards can hold many hours of content and the player comes in two sizes. The regular size (~$110) works well as a bedtime companion and nightlight, and the small size (~$80) is a wearable format.
Finally, the Yoto players can be used in the car or anytime you are traveling, as the content is actually stored on the cards and so it does not require wifi to work.
If you want to keep things simple and are primarily a Spotify or Amazon Music user, you can also consider the Mighty player (~$130). The Mighty player is tiny and screen-free, which has pluses and minuses. You can create playlists from either streaming service and add them to the Mighty player. Spotify is a great source for German-language kids content, so this can be amazing, if you are already a subscriber and are comfortable with the size and format.
If you are based in the EU, you have some other fantastic options, including the Tigerbox TOUCH or the ultra deluxe Hoerbert, but I won’t get into that now.
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