Spanish

One of the many things Christopher and I want to incorporate into our homeschool is foreign language. In today's world culture having a second language is becoming incredibly relevant, and Spanish is an obvious choice for Californians. Because of all this we told the kids some time ago that we were investigating a foreign language program which could teach them (and us) Spanish. The girls were very excited, but Bethany in particular thought this idea really wonderful. I think it had to do with the fact that she would have an "official" curriculum, like her older sister. After much research we settled on Rosetta Stone, Spanish (Latin America). The course is costly, but we found the homeschool edition for Spanish 1, 2, and 3 bundled together while at our homeschool convention earlier this month, and couldn't refuse the price. We bought it, and told the girls that night. They were thrilled! Immediately they wanted to know when we planned to install the program, and allow them to begin learning their new language. We had to explain that we needed to wait until the product actually shipped, but that we would not wait until the beginning of the new school year to begin their lessons. They could both start once we received our package, and loaded the application. Well, some 10 days later our box finally arrived. As is always the case when a little person is waiting expectantly for an event we happened to have out of town guests along with a host of appointments which kept us from immediately installing our Spanish. Each day Bethany inquired if THIS was the day she could start learning her new language, and each day I explained that it just wasn't going to happen until later. In the meantime, she talked often about how much she looked forward to learning Spanish. I think much of her enthusiasm stems from legitimizing a favorite game she plays where she translates phrases of our choice into and out of her own made up language. Like kids that wore a  bended paperclip in school to act like they had a real retainer, Rosetta Stone would give Bethany the real retainer after settling for so long with the paper clip. Her eagerness finally bubbled over a few night ago as she read aloud Psalm 1 in order to work on her reading skills. She struggled through words like "wicked", "chaff", and finally "righteous."

How do you say this, r-i-g-h-t-e-o-u-s?

Let's sound it out.

Rrr - iiii - g.

No, start with this: what does l-i-g-h-t say? You remember we talked about g-h-t in other words. 

Hmmm... it says, (long pause) light?

That's right. So if l-i-g-h-t says light, what does r-i-g-h-t say? 

Ummm... it says, (long pause) right?

Exactly! Good job. Right is the first part of our word. Now what does o-u-s say?

But there is an "e" in it.

Yes, but we are only concerned with the o-u-s right now. (Bethany was beginning to get flustered, and after several verses already pronounced and worked through I could tell she just wanted me to "know". She was tired of learning. She sighed.)

I can tell this would be a lot easier in Spanish.