Brushing up on my Spanish

So while I did pick up my Spanish lessons again this semester, I have been meaning to sign up for a language app for awhile now just to get that extra practice in each day and help me keep up with my studying when I'm not taking classes (as in, when baby #2 arrives!).

I found an article on the Wall Street Journal that recommended three language learning apps and I went ahead and downloaded the first one last night - Duolingo. It has a pretty simple interface with a cute little owl as your guide and it's completely free. This one was their favorite and I tested it out to get a feel for it and went ahead and started at the beginning - the basics level. I really like it because it makes you set a goal at the beginning of how much time you want to commit (I said 10 minutes per day to start), because I think that's where my language skills keep stalling. I feel like I've stayed at about the same level since college and each time I take a class I brush up my skills a bit and get all gung-ho about it, but then kind of fizzle out once the semester ends - studying and practicing ceases at that point. So let's see if I can stick with this one! I really like the format so far - I completed three lessons last night and each one so far introduced a few new words and grammar concepts and then poses different types of questions to get you practicing the material. They keep you engaged by rewarding you with points after completing each lesson and showing you your progress toward your daily goal. You can also "test out" of various levels if the material is too basic for you but you're not exactly sure where you should start. I should probably do this as well, because I'm probably more at the intermediate level, but I still enjoyed the lessons. I even got Peter to sign-up since he's been saying for awhile now that he wants to learn Italian. We'll see how it goes!

Here's that Wall Street Journal article, "Language Learning on the Go"

All this Spanish talk got me thinking about our trip to Spain a year after we were married - way back in 2004. We moved all of our old pictures to an external hard drive so it's not as easy to view them now - basically I have to open them one at a time, ugh. It was fun to go through them all though. Sadly, there are quite a few that I can't identify where we are. We look like such babies - and yikes, those highlights!

I do actually remember where this one was taken - from the balcony of our
hotel in Madrid - this is one I have framed with a few other pictures
from that trip

Sadly, this is one of my better hair days on the trip - not
sure where this one was taken

Or this one...Peter looks so skinny!