What language did you all learn on Sesame Street growing up?

Posted by Asthmatic_Gym_Bro@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 47 comments

Asking my US Xennials here specifically. When I was a kid I grew up somewhat near the Canadian border and I guess our aerial antenna picked up Canadian television. Sesame Street taught little bits of French but there was also a song about how a quarter had a caribou on it. When I started kindergarten, I was surprised to learn everyone else was learning bits of Spanish. I’ve always wondered how unique, or not, my experience was, so…was it uno dos tres or un deux trois for all you other Americans?

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WendyPortledge@reddit

I didn’t have access to Canadian Sesame Street growing up. I learned Spanish. Not sure why we didn’t get the Canadian version. I grew up in NB.

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Kenway@reddit

Strange, I grew up in NL and we got French!

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WendyPortledge@reddit

Maybe because we were so close to the border we got all US tv. I remember mostly American commercials.

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segacs2@reddit

I grew up in Montreal, and we had US Sesame Street too with some Spanish in it. I didn't even know there was a separate Canadian Sesame Street but I don't think we got that in Quebec. On CF Cable, PBS was channel 24 and one of the earliet things I learned to do was tune the cable box to PBS where we could watch Sesame Street, Square One, Mr Rogers, Mr Dressup... Looking it up, it seems like American Sesame Street was on PBS while Canadian Sesame Street was on CBC. I think I watched the US version because most of the (very little) Spanish I knew came from that. It also had Maria and Luis.

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WendyPortledge@reddit

Must be how I watched it too because that tv lineup is what I watched!

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GladosPrime@reddit

I only heard English, but for some reason, they taught one word in Spanish: agua

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heyitscory@reddit

You didn't have Maria and Luis?

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leeloocal@reddit

🎶 You Say Hola and I Say Hola🎶

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violetstrainj@reddit

Yes! This was exactly what I was thinking! 🎶Because Hola Means Hellooooooooooo!🎶

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leeloocal@reddit

I’m 46, and I still sing this to myself. 😂

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Miami_Mice2087@reddit

and their child confusingly named Miles. getting me ready for my lifelong complicated relationship with Star Trek

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DZello@reddit

Sesame Street has never be translated in French for the market in Québec. I remember seeing a few episodes on English channels, but never understood any of it.

Back in the days, Passe-Partout was the most popular kids show. It was very similar to Sesame Street.

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segacs2@reddit

Montrealer here. I definitely watched Passe-Partout in kindergarten. Un-deux-trois-quatre-cinq-six-sept... violette bicyclette. :)

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pumalegal@reddit

English, French, and Spanish.

We primarily watched Canadian Sesame Street on the CBC, but if the wind was blowing the right direction on a clear day we could get the American Sesame Street on PBS Spokane / Coeur d'Alene.

Actually we got PBS frequently enough that I still occasionally find myself singing "after these messages... we'll be riiiiight back"

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Minouris@reddit

We had Maria and Luis, but only interacting with the other characters on the street, not the language lessons (that I can recall from 40 years ago lol)

What we did have was a couple with more familiar NZ accents who mysteriously didn't interact with any of the other human characters, and taught Te Reo Maori :)

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HansVonHansen@reddit

I grew up on two versions of Sesame Street. The first was its Arabic franchise “Iftah Ya Simsim” (Open Sesame) which was produced by the CTW along with a Kuwaiti production company and cast from the 70s onwards. A few years later (at 5 or 6) Sesame Street was discovered on a TV channel I never tuned into before, so learning on them both was simultaneous. It was fun to see Bert and Ernie get into situations with each other translated into two languages and realizing they didn’t necessarily match scenario dialogue. Iftah Ya Simsim also didn’t have Big Bird. It had “Nauman” whom I always thought was a big monkey but turned out to be, to my surprise all these years later, was actually a big camel. What do you think?

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PrincessSarahHippo@reddit

Did Snuffalupagus (sp) and Big Bird have a baby? That's a camel??

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HansVonHansen@reddit

It’s hilarious because trying to find his photos on Google images always came from a post from someone asking “when did you discover/how old were you when you discovered Nauman was a camel?” and everybody commenting with minds blown than they had always thought he was a big bear! 🤣

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leeloocal@reddit

A little bit of Spanish, because Luis and Maria would speak Spanish on the show, and they’d have a lot of bilingual kids speaking it. But I think they also aired Plaza Sésamo right after in the LA area, so I’d just watch it.

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CobraChickenNuggets@reddit

All I learned was how to yell "1 2 3 4 5, 6 7 8 9 10, 11 12!"

At the top of my lungs, whenever I see a pinball.

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Aside from that, I also learned French up here in Canada.

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sundayfunday78@reddit

You know we’re all singing this! 🎶

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bikeonychus@reddit

UK here. You know, I don't remember them teaching any alternative language? It was always English.

But I will forever have '1, 2, 3, 4-5, 6-7, 8, 9, 10, 11-12 doo doodleoo doo doo' stuck in my head.

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Significant_Dog412@reddit

I don't think we got foreign language stuff in UK Sesame Street unless you want to count American English with the letter "Zee", zip codes, trash cans, etc. Since we just got the American Sesame Street, I wonder if they cut foreign language material for us.

For any curious Americans, Britain appears to have been one of the few countries which stubbornly resisted the charm of Sesame Street. The story behind it is interesting, with the BBC openly and publicly rejecting it and rubbishing its teaching methods, even refusing a local co-production as other countries have.

The BBC already had a long tradition of educational children's programmes and had an "Auntie Knows Best" attitude, along with plain old British exceptionalism/snobbery, and likely not wanting to promote a competitor.

ITV were more open, but divided into smaller regional companies so couldn't get behind Sesame Street in the same way, and bye bye any chance of a local version. Through the 70s and 80s, it showed here and there in some parts of the country and even when they eventually all got it, they didn't show the same episodes at the same times.

From the early 90s, it was taken by Channel 4, who used it as filler for weekday lunchtimes for about a decade until dropping it altogether. So for a lot of us, Sesame Street was an occasionally seen curiosity if we were home from school that day.

Northern Ireland was an exception as they often are. They had (and may still have) their own version called Sesame Tree. Rainbow was probably our closest equivalent, and owes more than a little to Sesame Street with its use of puppets and music to teach pre-schoolers.

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bikeonychus@reddit

This is amazing stuff - I had no idea!

I remember my mum hating it because she said it 'preached education too hard', which sounded like BS to me as a child, and as an adult I realise my mum was full of shit.

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