Choosing Language

We chose Spanish because my husband is fluent (he went on a Spanish-speaking mission for a couple of years), I know a little bit, it’s the most common second language here, and easiest to find resources for.  We tried DuoLingo for a while and it didn’t work for us.  We’ve been using Cherrydale Press’ “Speaking Spanish With Miss Mason and Francois” for a few weeks now and my son is doing well with it.  Having him act out what he’s saying as he’s saying it is very effective for him!  They also have French and German.

We choose Spanish because in our area it is quite common and a useful language to learn.

We tried “Speaking Spanish With Miss Mason and Francois” but it was almost as if it moved too fast with out explaining. Giving the phrase to practice but not explaining each word so sometimes we did not know what each word was that we were saying in the phrase or why the translation worked how it did. I know others like it, so maybe user error on my part 🙂

Having success with “Getting Started with Latin” for my oldest I got “Getting Started with Spanish” and we all like it. It gives more in depth such as why endings are the way they are, but that actually helps us understand what we are hearing and seeing. It is not a lpt, just intro basics. We do it as a family 3 days a week and then my older two do also practice with duolingo which they like and has the conversation practice that we often hear in our day to day adventures.

I am not sure what highschool will lead for foreign language but I hope that these will be good foundation to move into highschool Spanish with out it all being brand new.

Getting Started with Spanish also offers online free audios for pronunciation as well as mini lessons explaining the lessons. We like those as well

If you enjoy ASL, stick with it!  This was my middle daughter’s choice for foreign language, after a few years of Koine Greek, which she enjoyed but didn’t have the same passion for. She took two years of high school ASL at a homeschool co-op and a year of dual credit at a community college. She went on to serve twice at a school for the Deaf in Uganda, and now uses her ASL in her work as a caretaker for a girl with multiple special needs and deafness. She has chosen not to pursue ASL/interpreting as a career, but there are more opportunities in this area than you’d think!  I think part of the reason it worked well for this particular daughter was that it is more a visual/spatial language than others, for obvious reasons, and it uses the body in a way that appealed to her kinesthetic tendencies. She has always had in interest in language and at one time thought she’d become a linguist, but ASL is the one she fell in love with!