Learning Spanish

So it's time for the Davises to become bilingual. I have been trying to teach the kids some Spanish vocab like colors and parts of the body. I worked at it for about a month. I was alarmed at how little they seemed to be picking up for a while, I mean they seemed to be picking up absolutely nothing. But it's crazy. All of a sudden it was like they picked up a whole layer of Spanish at once. They're picking up on words and expressions now, and I don't know how to explain it, but I think (comparing their language acquisition to Owen's and my experience) that kids learn language differently. (Profound insight, I am sure.)

They've been listening to "Speak Spanish with Dora and Diego" which is an extremely repetitive and slightly annoying to me, but really effective for how my kids seem to be learning Spanish, through lots and lots of repetition. I've gotten a little lazy, I need to start trying again to work Spanish into daily life. I was so relieved when they started picking up some words and being interested that I sort of over-relaxed and now (ironically) that they're interested and not resisting me any more I find that I've stopped trying. Hmm. I'll have to get on that.

Owen and I have primarily been working at it through Spanish for Dummies (audiobook) and Destinos. Destinos is just one of the most entertaining terrible yet wonderful Spanish TV series put out by Public Television to teach Spanish to Americans. It is a masterpiece. There are 52 episodes of around 24 minutes each, we're at about the 11th one. For anyone learning Spanish (maybe because they're visiting us in La Republica Dominicana?), I have to recommend it! :)