Languages

I've always been envious of people who speak more than one language fluently. After more than 3 years of Español in high school and a semester of Français, I barely have anything to show for it.  Yes, there has been dabbling, a little English (ha ha), a little Spanish, a little French, but nothing that might save my life if I get caught in the zombie apocalypse in Quebec or Madrid and need help to hide.

The major problem, of course, was not visiting these foreign countries during the time I was learning their language and so most of it flitted away from memory.

Sure, I know "el baño" if I need the bathroom in Mexico or "ich habe Hunger" if I'm desperate for food in Germany but I want more.

So as of a couple of weeks ago I've been using a little app called Duolingo.  Providing it's teaching me correctly, it's absolutely wonderful!  It teaches the words, then puts them in sentences for you to translate, both English to German (or language of choice) and vice versa.  Then there are the speech tests where you speak a given phrase into the mic and it tells you if what you said is correct... I'm a little suspect of that part of the app because I've said things that were very wrong and was told I was correct.  Ah well, still a pretty good app so far.

IF I can learn another language fluently, no longer will I be jealous of those bilinguals (never mind the multilinguals).