LOVE, THEN HOME

Dear reader,

First of all, this is absolutely not 100 percent of my homeschooling log. Additionally, my babies have awesome tutors, and I supplement their learning.

Spanish is my first language. But I speak mostly English now. Dad speaks only English.

Our children were not interested in learning Spanish, so I didn’t force them.

Now, they’re more open since spending time with my mom and making friends who only speak Spanish that they could not understand.

My plan to practice amazing calligraphy to inspire my babies to do better (more legible and beautiful) handwriting worked, and I have pictures of their new improved handwriting to prove it. The progress happened within a week of my practice.

I decided to use the same exact tactic to inspire my kids to learn a language. Hopefully, they’ll learn Spanish, but I’m flexible and will let them choose their own language to learn.

I started learning Latin one month ago to show my studying and learning to my kids. My second daughter already practiced with me, though she thought it was boring.

I have had an interest in learning a third language for a long, long, long while, and my favorite sounding new language is Portuguese. Portuguese shares the root of Spanish, and that makes it easier for me to understand. I’m constantly trying to read Portuguese texts. (Note to self: follow Portuguese poets on Twitter)

I actually want to learn Hindi, though, because I love India, and this is a bit crazy but I want to retire in India, and I feel I have a deep connection to India and its culture. Hindi is extremely hard to learn: it has an entirely different script, so our Latin/ Greek influence will not help me there.

I did a tiny bit of Hindi and Sanskrit study just for the awareness. If I retire in India, I’ll need to know some Hindi, I’ll consider the study in the future, and I think it would be a lifelong study of that language. Their script is lovely, and my interest, of course, is to read their divine ancient texts before translation: it would be an insane amount of learning as I learned the original Sanskrit has an even older script! Learning two totally new scripts would be such a burden.

Either way. I downloaded the Duolingo app and went searching to start learning Hindi, but it wasn’t on the app, and I didn’t want to learn any of the languages available (because I’m interested in ancient texts)

But Latin was an option! I never had an interest in learning Latin. I know Spanish was developed from Latin and assumed it might be easier because of my fluent Spanish. However, I don’t like the Romans. And I don’t really care to read the Roman texts.

Latin was used to translate hieroglyphs, which I adore, and I understand there are uses. It might be the most used ancient language (that’s a total assumption). Anyway, I chose it because I’m doing this just for fun.

As soon as I chose Latin, I was happy it wasn’t Hindi! I might have abandoned Hindi studies by today because I like easy and fast progress and finding what I’m naturally good at.

I’m naturally good at learning Latin and by today, I know some vocabulary, history of the language, simple sentences, some grammar, I understand the Latin root of some English words, and got a bit comfortable in the learning process. I’m progressing fast, and I loved it. I’m really excited about it. I started learning yesterday!

My second daughter practiced a bit with me when she saw me! It was a huge success! I showed her and her older sister the Duolingo app and suggested they download it as it’s fun and perfect for children! My oldest daughter asked what vocabulary I’d learned, too.

I intend to watch Spanish videos with them and practice Spanish on Duolingo to impress them and pull them towards language learning.

Language learning is super fun, and I’m already looking for Latin poetry!

Eve