I Am So Incredibly Glucklich!

A couple of days ago, I ran across what might be my all-time favorite internet discovery!

A year ago, my friend, Tecla, was teaching me the Romanian words to worship songs because we were going to Romania to put on a one day women's conference and I wanted to sing the songs with the women. I loved it. Languages fascinate me.

Well...lately, I've really been wanting to learn to speak another language. I mean, I know a little bit of French and even less Spanish, but I certainly can't have a real conversation in either one.

I was thinking about buying a Rosetta Stone program for my computer, but they are so expensive! Also, I knew it would be most practical (by far) to learn Spanish than any other language considering where I live. However, Spanish doesn't really capture my imagination like something like Gaelic does. (My hometown isn't exactly crawling with Gaels.)

Anyway, I didn't think it would be good-stewardly of me to buy a several hundred dollar program in order to learn a language that I'd pretty much never use, but the desire to become bilingual was so intense.

Of course, I prayed about it, not wanting to pour myself into something that would be a complete waste of time, but still feeling this strong want.

Hee, hee, hee...a couple of days ago I ran across this website where you can learn languages in a Rosetta Stone type manner and...it's FREE! It's at www.livemocha.com and it is awesome! (No, I'm not getting paid to write this.)

I chose German. Why? It makes me laugh (and Gaelic isn't an option).

German is great! I mean, what other language uses "Kugelschreiber" for 'pen' and "Krankenschwester" for 'nurse'? (Okay, quite obviously no other language does, but it's very cool that German does.)

I've learned so much in just three days. Sure, my conversations are limited to inane sentences such as: The woman is on the couch (Die Frau ist auf dem Sofa) and A boy is in the car (Ein Junge ist im Auto), but still...I'm loving it. (And, yes, I was supposed to capitalize all of those nouns.)

If you want to learn Hindi, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Spanish, French, Portuguese or a few others (sorry, April, :( Romanian isn't offered ), then check it out.

It's very effective and some people (like me) would go so far as to say that it's fun. Native speakers correct your assignments and you get to correct assignments of people who are learning English. You can chat on line in English or whatever you're learning and you can work on your course of study whenever you want...

thus my excitement!!!

(By the way, "glucklich" means 'happy'.)