Daily Archives: January 6, 2018
Estoy volviendo a aprender español . . .
Jan’s doing great, slowly getting her strength back. It’s just going to take time for her to get back to 100%.
We pretty much just laid around the rig today and never even went outside. I tried to get up the gumption to go outside and do the awnings, but no luck. I’ll try again tomorrow, I guess.
My BPPV (Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo) that first hit me a few weeks ago seems to be slowly fading. Every reoccurrence has been less in intensity, and due to Jan’s illness I never got a chance to start the Canalith Repositioning Exercises to combat it.
The last time I noticed anything was a small swirl when I got out of bed a couple of days ago and that was it. So as it stands right now I’m not going to worry about it unless it comes back.
I’m relearning Spanish
I recently came across a new Android app (iOS and Windows Phone too) that’s fun, addictive, and educational
And Free. I forgot free. (Well, it’s free if you watch an ad now and then)
It’s called Duolingo and it’s a fun, addic . . . I already said that, didn’t I. Anyway it’s a fast way to learn a new language.
Developed a Carnegie-Mellon University and funded by a McArthur Fellowship and a National Science grant, it can teach you one of 23 different languages with 22 more coming online soon.
Although I had 3 years of German in high school and college, I don’t have a lot use for it now. And though I never had any formal classes in Spanish, I became pretty fluent during the almost two years we lived in Colombia, South America when I was 13 – 14. In fact my younger sister, who was about a year old when we moved down there, grew up speaking Spanish as well as English.
But we both forgot it when we moved back to the states and didn’t use it anymore. However when we spent a week in Puerto Vallarta in 1997, I noticed that it came back fairly quickly, and then faded just as fast when we got back. So I thought Spanish would be a good place to start, and of more use to me than German.
The lessons are short exercises in subjects like Food, Animals, Clothing, Phrases, etc. that increase in difficulty as you progress. The app monitors your errors, corrects you, and reintroduces the question at a later time to double-check that you’ve retained the correction.
And there’s no memorizing verb declensions and vocabulary lists. You literally just pick it up as you go along.
Check it out. Maybe you’ll learn something.
The Headline of the Day: Chelsea Clinton denies worshipping Satan.
Thought for the Day:
