The subject of my most recent ADHD obsession is this game − more precisely, the French -> English version that made me fall in love with learning the English language as a little kid. I spent a good while trying to find out what that game was before finally realizing it was adapted from JumpStart Spanish and finding a second-hand copy online.
It’s a 1997 edutainment game from the JumpStart series, developed by FunnyBone Interactive and published by Knowledge Adventure. It has been used as a basis to make games to learn other languages, from other languages.
Now I’m down a rabbit hole trying to find all the versions that exist − some of them are pretty obscure! Eventually I would like to document version differences between all of them, and even try to hack the game to make some language combinations that were never made before.
Here’s all the versions I know to currently exist:
Original release − United States
JumpStart Spanish - Archive.org / YouTube footage (English -> Spanish) / YouTube footage (Spanish -> English)
* At installation time, you can choose whether you want the game to teach Spanish or English. You can also select the language in which instructions will be provided to you, and these include French and German. However, this doesn’t change the language the game will teach you to and from. The intro song is always the same whatever language combination you select, and Hopsalot calls the game "JumpStart Spanish" in all languages.
* I found evidence of the game also being released with a Spanish cover calling it "Trampolín Inglés" with an US RCSA Advisory rating on it. I suspect this is just a repackaging, but I wasn’t able to find much info on that front.
United Kingdom
JumpAhead French - Archive.org (2006 rerelease - seems to be identical to the original) / YouTube footage
* The English voices have been replaced from JumpStart Spanish to have a British accent and use UK English vocabulary (e.g. "I’m very mad" becomes "I’m very cross")
France
Coup de Pouce Anglais 5/8 Ans - Archive.org (uploaded by yours truly!)
* The French voice for Hopsalot is different than the one in the original releases. It consistently calls the user "tu" while the original was calling them "vous" sometimes, and generally uses vocabulary that sounds much more natual to my native French ear.
* All English audio is UK English as heard in JumpAhead French, apart from the two radio songs being the songs heard in the original version when English is selected as a target language.
Coup de Pouce Allemand 5/8 Ans - Youtube footage / Archive.org (uploaded by yours truly!)
* Hopsalot’s first line after the intro song "Bienvenue dans Coup de Pouce Allemand ! Je suis heureux de te voir aujourd’hui !" is recorded by a different voice actor than all the others, and in much higher quality.
Coup de Pouce Espagnol 5/8 Ans − Youtube footage / Archive.org (uploaded by yours truly!)
* The weekdays song, the numbers song as well as the two radio songs are taken from Jumpstart Spanish. Otherwise, all Spanish audio is new and seems to be Castillan Spanish.
* Same note for the intro voice line as Coup de Pouce Allemand
* Unlike all the other verified versions that don’t teach Spanish, the Latin American cultural pictures in the memory game are preserved, and have voiced descriptions in French.
Sweden
Flygande Start Engelska - Archive.org / YouTube footage
* Most English audio is UK English as heard in JumpAhead French. The original US English is used in some parts such as single-language video tapes, numbers and days of the week songs, as well as the intro song, which does not include Swedish lines at all.
Flygande Start Franska - Mention on the archive of Publisher Levande Böcker’s website
Flygande Start Spanska - Mention on the archive of Publisher Levande Böcker’s website
Flygande Start Tyska - Mention on the archive of Publisher Levande Böcker’s website
* "Tyska" means "German" in Swedish. Curiously, it is not mentioned to exist on the back cover of Flygande Start Engelska
Norway
Lek & Lær Engelsk - Archive.org / YouTube footage
* Same notes as Flygande Start Engleska
Lek & Lær Fransk - Mention on the archive of Publisher Levende Bøker’s website
Lek & Lær Spansk - Mention on the archive of Publisher Levende Bøker’s website
Lek & Lær Tysk - Mention on the archive of Publisher Levende Bøker’s website
* "Tysk" means "German" in Norwegian
Finland
Alkupolku Englanti - Mention on the archive of Publisher Elävät Kirjat’s website / YouTube footage
* Same as Flygande Start Engleska, though the video footage does not include the intro song, so I don’t actually know if it includes lines in Finnish or not.
Alkupolku Ruotsi - Mention on the archive of Publisher Elävät Kirjat’s website
* This is the only version to have Swedish as a target language. I can find very little evidence of it existing online, I am really interested in this version!
Other countries/languages?
* According to this JumpStart fandom wiki JumpStart games have been published in other countries, in Germany under the name StartKlar, in Italy under the name So di più, in Brazil under the name Escola Diversão and in Japan under the name ジャンプスタート, however I could not find any evidence of JumpStart Spanish being adapted into those languages. If you know otherwise, please let me know! I also don’t trust this wiki to be exhaustive, so if you are from any other country that wasn’t mentioned that did get JumpStart games, please also let me know.
I NEED YOUR HELP!
Do you have any of these games that are not uploaded on archive.org? Please extract the ISO and upload it! If you also know of other places where I could download them that would be cool too!
Or if you are from any of the countries mentioned and know how to look for this kind of stuff on second-hand websites kinda like Craigslist and find these games for cheap, I might be able to arrange to pay for you to purchase it and have it shipped to me. If you think you can help in any way, don’t hesitate!
Thanks for reading. Ik this is all hyper-specific, but I’m like that sometimes. I also love comparing languages and cultural stuff, so this tickles my brain.
