Hablas Espanol?

A few years ago one of my colleagues, a teacher from England, was thrilled when her husband secured a summer internship in Mexico.  To prepare for this adventure, she purchased Rosetta Stone's Spanish language course and both she and her husband and their two children went through a crash course in Spanish.  She came home convinced the program was the best way to learn a second language, which allowed them to navigate in another country without basic language barriers. 

Romantic that I am, French was my foreign language of choice in high school and college, and I stubbornly ignored warnings that I lived too far from France or Canada to actually use it very often.  I learned it well enough that my professor selected me for a full scholarship to study in France for a year (my big regret in life was not taking advantage of that opportunity, but that's another story).  So of course, working with bilingual children and families in the schools of California, I now realize that Spanish would have been incredibly useful.  Through the years and some self-study courses, I've picked up a decent vocabulary in Spanish, but every year its on my New Year's resolutions to become more proficient.  It would be such a help to make phone calls to parents without having to make sure there's a translator nearby if I get in over my head.  There have been several times that I start out by saying, "Hola. Yo Brenda, especialista del habla...." and then the other person excitedly reels off rapid sentences in Spanish and I have to admit I only know "un poco."

So last week when an email showed up in my box from Rosetta Stone, I sighed.  The program runs around $500 which is enough to stop you in your tracks, even when you remind yourself another year has come and gone without seeing that resolution through.  Curiosity getting the best of me, I went ahead and clicked on the link and lo and behold -- they have the most fabulous holiday sale going on!  I got in on the $189 price (I think it's $199 now, still a great deal), downloadable to two computers and up to five family members, for the entire 5 level program.  So Ash and Lys are taking it with me since they can download it to one of their computers, as well. I was so excited to take advantage of this offer that I told a co-worker about it.  She signed up yesterday, so we can also practice our Spanish with each other.  At the risk of sounding like an infomercial, if you've ever considered learning another language, you may want to check out their holiday special.  And now I can say...

Feliz Navidad para mi!