Homeschool - Learning a Foreign Language

We are embarking on a journey to learn German. In the past, I've tried to get Mane to learn some Spanish. She's been everywhere from totally resistant to very mildly interested. So, we dropped any attempts to work on a foreign language for a while. This semester I started talking to her about how she's going to need a foreign language in order to graduate from high school. She started casually mentioning wanting to learn German. She asked if DuoLingo (a language learning app that we've used for Spanish) has German. We checked, and she immediately started working through the first German lesson! For weeks now she's been playing around with German learning apps, attempting to use all the German phrases she's learning, and organizing a binder for keeping German vocab!

We've tested out a number of programs and apps, and it seems that a quick review might be helpful to others, who are also trying to learn a language at home. Here's our list:

• DuoLingo - Offers a huge range of languages, used by millions of people around the world, listed as one of the 15 Best Apps for Homeschooling by Tech Times, and it's FREE! The program includes listening, reading, writing, and speaking components. Progress is tracked and lessons are personalized. There's even an educator version now that allows teachers to track individual student progress. The only drawback that we have experienced is that Duolingo does not introduce common conversational phrases early in the program. So, the user learns to say, "I am a girl," and "The woman eats bread," but not, "Hello," or "Good Morning." Duolingo is, however, great for learning noun gender, verb conjugation, and general vocabulary. We love DuoLingo!
• Busuu - We were really excited about Busuu at first. Like DuoLingo, Busuu offers a range of languages, is used by millions of people, has won a number of awards, and is free. The activities are different from those used by Duolingo. So, while it offers all the same components, they're presented in a different way. However, after a short ad-free period when we first began using the app, we were quickly overrun with ads. It was too distracting and would make the app extremely difficult to navigate for younger kids.
• MosaLingua - Great for learning conversational phrases, and it's also free. The program offers flash cards for "learning" phrases, followed by activities, and then intermittent, timed practice based on research demonstrating how often people need to review to move things to long term memory. The app sends notifications to the user's mobile device that it's time to practice, and it tracks how many phrases have been learned. We have found this app indispensable for learning useful conversational phrases.
• Transparent - Free access to this online language learning program is available through Hennepin County Libraries. We found the program to be too drill/flash card oriented. There were some great activities, but it's no fun to get stuck on the flash card portion because it keeps setting you back every time you miss something. The program also relies on the user's feedback about whether they remembered a particular word or phrase, rather than having a way to test if the word or phrase was remembered.
• LiveMocha -  This is a free online program. It does not have a mobile app, and this was a serious drawback for us. LiveMocha is also somewhat similar to the free program our library offers. We haven't gone back to it in a while now.
• Coffee Break German - We LOVE Coffee Break German, the free podcast offered by Radio Lingua Network. We are only seven episodes in, but these are so rich in vocabulary, grammar, and culture that we have learned volumes! Radio Lingua offers instruction in French, German, Spanish, and Italian. They also have written materials available for purchase on their website.

With so many free resources available, I'm disinclined to purchase much. If we want it, our library also has Pimsleur, Mango Passport, and the Living Language Series. We have the Germanic American Institute not far from us, offering classes, cultural events, and conversation circles. And we found a number of inexpensive resource books from Half Price Books (textbooks and a German-English dictionary).

In the meantime, we're labeling everything in the house in German...

Germanic American Institute

In early January we visited the Germanic American Institute in St. Paul for their Kaffeestube European Breakfast Cafe. It was Mango's birthday, and he'd been telling nostalgic stories about his trip to Germany in high school. German breakfast is something he always fondly recalls - dense breads, cold cuts, pickles, tomatoes, cucumbers, boiled eggs, yogurt & berries. And we were not disappointed by Kaffeestube:

After breakfast, we explored the building. The second floor houses a gallery. The current display is called Remembering Der Mauerfall and features photographs commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall:

The library is full of books, games and movies in German!

A side sitting room was still decorated for Christmas...

The 3rd floor ballroom was very sweet!

The GAI hosts a number of events throughout the year, including German classes, discussion groups, parties, and dinners! In February they're offering a FREE yodeling class!! Check out their Events Page for more information.

A full day

Creative title, eh? Seems like all days are full days lately.

We started the day reading from the Berenstain Bears book, The Big Honey Hunt.



Mane is TOTALLY into reading now that she can read Berenstain Bears herself. Who'd-a-thunk?

We found out that we can check out Sesame Street episodes in Spanish from the library. So, we did that, and Mane watched one this morning. She spent the rest of the day going around naming the colors in Spanish. I'm seeing that she's still at a prime age for language learning, and I'm trying very hard to keep us on track learning a little Spanish each day. (It's been 3 days now.)

We kept working on lesson 25 in MUS. Mane has successfully mastered the 10's and 9's families for addition, and she knows how to turn subtraction problems into addition problems. Now that she's worked out how to turn the math upside down, and she's memorized 9's, 10's and doubles, she's ready to finish out the Alpha math book.

We started word group 3 in the 100 words book.

Then we read about the 1st Sumerian dictator in Story of the World and about Abraham. Tomorrow we'll read about Joseph, and we'll spend the rest of the week teasing out some details from this part of history. I love it that Story of the World includes the Bible stories. Mane can see how the Bible fits into history and how the Bible is a true story, too.

We read our history stuff on the bus on the way to Vespera's badminton game. Mane ran around at the game, and now she's playing happily with paper dolls at my feet.

Phew. What a day.