I’ve heard over and over that living in a Spanish-speaking country is one of the best ways to learn the language. Well, that’s all fine and good, except perhaps like some of you, I lack the funds right now to travel however much I would LOVE to go. So, how to immerse yourself in the language? Let’s go on a little trip.

First stop will be music/educational CDs and podcasts. I use these in two ways – active and inactive. Sometimes I sit with my children as we listen and talk about what’s going on and other times I just have it on in the background as we’re doing quiet things such as putting together puzzles or working on a craft. We also listen to them in the car which is great because your kids are pretty much a captive audience.

Some of our favorite CDs & Podcasts:

For the kids:

• Professor Pocket
• Play & Learn Spanish
• We Are Little Amigos
• Teach Me Spanish series
• José-Luis Orozco
• Cody’s Cuentos

For the adults:

• SpanishPod
• ShowTime Spanish
• Coffee Break Spanish
• SSL4YOU Spanish Segunda Lengua

Our second stop will be DVDs, TV shows and online videos. Some of you probably have quite a few DVDs already and most likely many of them have a Spanish-language track. Then there is the SAP (second audio program) option on your television. Usually you can access this option on your remote. For ours it’s the MTS button. I have found that several children shows on PBS have a Spanish-language track. Another alternative are online videos. I have some listed here: http://delicious.com/Karen427/Spanish+online_video.

Using the language interactively will be our final stop. Join a Spanish conversation group in town. A good place to start is meetup.com. There truly isn’t anything that will improve your language skills more than conversing with someone. You could also try to find a Spanish-language playgroup for your child. If there isn’t one, you could start one yourself.

If joining a group isn’t for you, then perhaps setting up an intercambio either in person or online suits you better. For half the time you and your partner could practice English and then Spanish for the other half. There are numerous web sites for this such as SharedTalk.com, Palabea.net, iTalki.com and more. Skype, which is available free, is the most common tool for these exchanges.
So, even though you may not have the funds to travel abroad, you can still immerse yourself in the language right at home. ¡Suerte!

Karen has lots more tips and resources for learners and teachers of Spanish, on her blog, Teaching and Learning Spanish!

photo by celesteh

I am American and I live in France with my French husband and our three children. We are raising our children bilingually- they speak both French and English as native speakers. How do we do it? And why? Those are good questions.

I speak exclusively English with my children. Not only can I not imagine not speaking English with them, we also follow the one parent, one language theory of raising children in multilingual homes. I speak English to them, my husband speaks French. Our kids speak English to me and to each other, French to their father. Together, my husband and I speak both languages.

We read a lot of books in both languages. Every evening my kids choose their bedtime stories and we read the stories from our language. They also listen to kids CDs in both languages. On the other hand, they watch TV and DVDs almost exclusively in English. We get the BBC by satellite, so they watch English kids’ shows. I hate dubbed movies, so any movies they watch are in the original version, which is mostly English.

They attend lots of extra activities in English as well. Special reading readiness classes run by a local American Montessori teacher, or children’s groups through the local English-language association. I believe that it is important to put a lot of emphasis on the minority language (the non native language of the country in which we live) and this approach is working.

Why do I think it’s important to raise children bilingually? There are the obvious answers of increased job opportunities and awareness of other cultures. I think both these reasons are very valid and important. But beyond these reasons is the simple fact that I can’t imagine speaking to my kids in another language than the one that I was raised in, that I think in, that I dream and feel in. And my husband feels the same. Given that those are two different languages, well, our kids are growing up bilingual!

Merci, et bonne journée!

Kelly is a blogger, mom and graduate student. She lives in France with her three kids, four cats and handsome French frog of a husband. You can find her at Almost Frugal and Almost Frugal Food.

Once I figured it out, I couldn’t imagine how I’d missed it for so long. There were so many clues, so many reasons why writing was the perfect profession for me. Here are a few of the things that clued me into (and keep me pursuing) my passion for writing.

1. Writing gives me an excuse to keep learning. I work as a technical writer, a job where I have to ask a lot of questions and learn a lot of new information so that I can write manuals or documentation, or train others how to complete a task or use a product. I also love to write how-to and informational articles about topics that are new to me. This means I’m always learning something new and learning makes me happy.

2. Writing opens my eyes to the world around me. Because I write, I’m always looking at the world from the perspective of a writer. This means I see the beauty in things that other people might pass by without a second glance. It means I look for the story behind the obvious façades of people and places. I try to see things from other perspectives. Writing helps me see past the obvious.

3. When I write, I feel alive. It’s cliché, yes. But writing excites me. When I turn off the TV and turn on my laptop, I get giddy with anticipation. What will flow out of my imagination today? Whose story can I tell? What experience will I share? Sometimes that blank page is intimidating, but most of the time, it’s exactly what I need to energize and inspire me.

4. My words reach people. One of my favorite things to do is write letters. I don’t do it nearly enough these days, but writing a letter to a friend, someone I haven’t seen in ages, or the editor of the local newspaper is a powerful act. The message can be one of love, sadness, longing or anger, but when I write a letter (or an article, story or essay) I know my words will be taken to heart. I’m careful with my words; I write and rewrite until they say exactly what I mean. And when I let them go, I know that I have expressed myself to the best of my ability.

5. I’m a better writer than I am a speaker. I’ve never been one for speaking in public. Place me in front of even just one person and I often find myself tongue-tied and useless. But give me a piece of paper and a pencil, and I can create the perfect speech for a wedding. I can write out arguments for or against any issue I feel strongly about. I can tell you exactly how I feel about you and why. With writing, I can reorganize my thoughts and restructure my sentences until I’ve gotten them just right. Conversation is so immediate. Once it’s spoken it’s gone, and there’s no adjusting or rewriting.

These are just a few of the reasons why I find myself writing, both for a living and for fun. Why do you write?

Ami writes about her attempts to stay healthy, live a local and green life and write that Great American Novel (or something like it) at Writing: My Life. You can also find her at Write Out Loud, a blog for writers who want to free the stories inside them.