Spanish

 

We’re so close to our southern border that Spanish is a more common language than English.  Billboards are not always bilingual; sometimes they’re only in Spanish.  The population of our county is 90% Hispanic.  It seems silly to live here and not speak Spanish.

 

Studying languages other than English hasn’t gone well for me in the past though.  I studied French for two years in high school and pretty much nothing stuck.  (Although “studied” might be an overstatement.  I attended classes.)  I started a German class once in college, but quickly figured out that I needed to drop German and focus on all my other classes, or drop all my other classes and focus on German.  I moved on with no foreign language.

 

We’ve got Rosetta Stone and Babbel for Spanish on the computer.  I’ve looked at them both off and on for the last year or two, always meaning to do more.  I’m still not very good at coming up with words on my own now, but I’ve gotten better at recognizing written language.  I can decipher most billboards and at least have an idea what they’re about.  The current problem is consistency.  I look at the language programs when I have time, then I get busy and forget.

 

Rosetta Stone and Babbel are both based on spaced repetition.  I’m a great fan of spaced repetition; it served me well in college, so I think I’ll take another stab at a foreign language; although since Spanish is the predominant language here it hardly seems foreign.  I don’t want to stop everything else and just study a language, so I’ve decided to do at least *some* Spanish on the computer every day for a year and see how far that gets me.  We’ll see if language learning programs and consistency can overpower my lack of aptitude.  And as a bonus, there won’t be any shortage of people to practice on here.