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Exactly this, almost all the ukes you see are absolute pieces of shit that won't hold their tuning for love nor money. Loads of my friends buy them for their kids and ask me to tune them. I've pretty much started to refuse on the grounds that there's no point... it won't last 10 minutes and the kid basically just uses it as a drum stick anyway...
There are clearly transferable skills (strumming, left hand control, picking etc) but if they want to play guitar they should probably start on one. Unless they happen to be huge fans of Beirut, in which case, on you go...
owl
Although I think the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain are ace, I don't really see the appeal of them as an instrument. I think I've been put off by the whole faux-whimsical schtick that has led to so many adverts using ukelele music. Additionally I don't think they're a good starting point for guitar. Apparently they're difficult to keep in tune, which would be enormously frustrating. Just buy a small guitar, perhaps get it checked over to ensure the action's decent and crack on.