Foreign languages. Not. My. Forte. Definitely. I had two years of high school Spanish, and my husband studied American Sign Language for two years at the college level. Neither of us have retained much. I suppose it’s a real case of “use it or lose it”. I will confess right up front, when it comes to foreign languages, it’s pretty much all Greek to me.
In fact, when Kendra sent the initial list of “Marvelous Monday” topics to me, it included this entry - “Foreign Languages (including Latin and Ecclesiastical Greek)”. I read that and cracked up. Then I read it to Dani, and we both laughed. Like I said, foreign language is just not my thing.
When my children were itty-bitty, we did teach them some sign language to help them develop their communication skills. I enjoy using these signs with my grandbabies even now. Little ones learn signing incredibly fast, and they retain what they’ve learned well after their verbal communication skills take over.
When the girls were younger, we had a fun little Spanish curriculum that we used for about a year. I don’t remember the name of it. It was fun, but we really didn’t learn much. We came away from that knowing how to say, “Yum, pancakes!” in Spanish.
A couple of years ago I purchased El Espanol Facil. This program is highly recommended by many homeschooling moms that I respect. However, it required far too much of my time during a season of my life when there was time only for the basics, so we set it aside. Truly, this was just a case of bad timing on my part. I will hold onto this program as part of my Heritage Library. Perhaps one of my own children will use it in their own family. I think this would be a terrific program to use with two or more young children at the same time.
Dani has dabbled a bit in Latin since high school; but, again, the language study has been abandoned. Henle Latin
Do you see a pattern developing here? Truthfully, we’ve not had a lot of motivation to learn a foreign language. My daughters were not college bound, so there was no academic necessity for a foreign language. However, we are ripe for a change to that scenario!
Aaron is hoping to follow his dad into law enforcement. Having at least a conversational knowledge of Spanish would be a huge benefit to him. We live in California, and we deal regularly with folks who speak only Spanish. I’ve done my research. I’ve considered the needs and learning styles of my family. I am saving my pennies for Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) 
Be sure to head over to Kendra’s blog. I’m absolutely certain that you’ll find much more encouragement and many more foreign language resources at her Marvelous Monday – Foreign Languages post!
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I'm Cheryl. I've been Copper's wife for 33 years. We have two grown daughters, two teen sons, a wonderful son-in-love and six grandbabies. Copperswife is a place to find encouragement as you joyfully look well to the ways of your own household.
