European Day of Languages Competition Results

Here are the results of our language competition in support of the Council of Europe's European Day of Languages on September 26.

All players who scored more than 500 points by September 30 received a FREE 1-month subscription to 10/31/2013 and the top scorers in each language were:

Congratulations to all the winners and runner-ups!

MommyMaestra.com reviews Gamesforlanguage

MommyMaestra.com, a site of “Discoveries of a Latina Homechooler” recently reviewed our program and, naturally, our Spanish course. The reviewer found that “Gamesforlanguage is a fun way to complement more comprehensive courses and can be used as a weekly reward or incentive.”

Read the full review HERE.

Play n' Learn Spanish with a Conversation in an Airplane

Anybody who plans to travel to a Spanish-speaking country can benefit from our Spanish travel story. The story begins in an airplane as our young traveler David flies from Boston to Barcelona. His neighbor in the airplane starts a conversation with him. If you you don't quite understand it at the beginning just follow this YouTube clip and you will at the end. The clip shows only a few of the games that let you understand, read, speak, and write the words and phrases of this travel story - but you can try out our demos to see and hear fro yourself.   

Our Spain trip ends in Madrid...

We've arrived in Madrid for the last week of our Spain trip. In the more than seven weeks to date, we have just seen a small part of this country, but are taking many impressions with us.

After our time in Barcelona, which we enjoyed very much (and which also gave us some insights into the Catalan language and political struggle, see our blog...) we traveled south. With visits to Granada with its marvelous Alhambra, and to Sevilla with its Giralda (left), Alkazar and Torre del Oro, we followed in the steps of our Spanish 1 “hero” David - and we learned much about the long and often violent history of Spain.

We also visited Aranjuez and the summer palace of Spanish kings so we could utter the words: “Die schönen Tage von Aranjuez sind nun zu Ende” - the first sentence of Schiller’s play “Don Carlos” (“The pleasant days of Aranjuez are now over”).

While in Madrid, we are also following in David‘s footsteps - indeed our apartment is in walking distance of all the places mentioned in Level 6 of Spanish 1: Parque del Retiro (see picture on the right with the monument of Alfonso XII), the Prado, and even the Plaza de España and the “Museo Chichote” (a bar frequented in earlier years by film stars and other famous folks). There are more museums in Madrid than we can visit in our time here, but we certainly are trying our best.

And equally important, our stay in Spain has given us ample opportunity to try out our Spanish and to collect new ideas both for our Spanish 1 as well as for our future Spanish 2 course...

We are in Barcelona!

Spanish 1 works for us

We’ve now been here in Barcelona for a couple of weeks. Our Spanish is improving by leaps and bounds, and we are having great fun exploring the city. (see Gaudi's Casa Mila on your right.) We prepared for our stay with our Spanish 1 course and are pleased at how many words, phrases, and expressions from our course we see, hear, and read every day. During our walks around town, we practice with shop keepers, waiters, and anybody else we can talk to. We read the local El Periódico every morning, and watch some Spanish television at night. Our list of new words, which we review often, keeps growing. 

Research for Spanish 2

We have started to take pictures of the advertised daily lunch or evening menus, asked for them in restaurants, and are compiling a list of the most common names of Spanish foods and dishes. These terms, together with other words and phrases that we encounter, will then become part of Spanish 2. (They’ll also be available as downloads on our site for those who are interested.)