Monday, July 26, 2010

Learning Spanish is hard. REALLY hard!

But I have found a few things that are invaluable in helping, and many can be used with youngsters. i thought I would leave a review in case some of you would like to learn Spanish. you know. SO YOU WILL COME VISIT ME!!!!

Coffee Break EspaƱol: This is a series of podcasts done by Mark and Kara who are actually from Scotland, but who are enthusiastic and capable teachers. Actually, Kara is a student of Spanish and learns right along side the listener. My kids have picked up a TREMENDOUS amount of Spanish.
Bonus: FREE You can't get better than free. We are on lesson eight. Hurry and catch up.

Easy Spanish: Step-by-Step: This book is also a great workbook functions as a building block mechanism for learning spanish. As you learn how to use articles, you also build your vocabulary by practicing with nouns. The next chapter adds adjectives and by chapter three you have some verbs down which allows you to make functional sentences.
I would say that a child would be able to use this from age 10 and up. But, it is highly effective for adults as well. Dustan and I are both using it and filling in some gaps that we have.
It's a great book and I highly recommend it.

Live Mocha: This is an interactive community of language learners. It's like facebook for people who want to learn a new language. The benefit of this is that if you learn a language in a vaccum you will get all dusty. Haha. No, really, it is helpful to communicate with native speakers and this allows you to do that.
It also has lessons that will help you build on what you are learning from the podcasts and from the workbook resource.
Bonus: IT'S FREE (they do have a paid membership that gives you more resources that i am highly tempted to pay for)
This site has better reviews than Rosetta Stone (which I don't recommend), and it is WAY WAY cheaper.

These will get you started, but I plan to come back with some other reviews and tips. If you have any questions, be sure to ask and I will make sure to feature them in a future post.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Guess what we have?




Auggghhhhh.

Okay, so we don't have THAT one anymore. And hopefully our new cat will scare off any others that might want to join in on the fun.

BTW, that is a RAT trap. Ugghhh, yuckkkkk, and eeeeeuuuuwwwww.

Also, Dustan made me post this. If I had any readers left, I bet I don't anymore.

And as another side note, we are now overrun with animals. We have Scooter the rabbit, Daisy the dog, Skywalker the parakeet, and now- Scout, the kitten who better eat rats or she gets to move to the mountain and find her food there.