For this Thing, I tried out Duolingo. Since I took Spanish throughout school and college, I started with Spanish to see what I thought. After trying it and figuring out the functionality, etc. I really liked it. The lessons were a manageable length; included speaking, reading, writing, and listening; and it is formulated like a game so that it is more fun. The idea of a daily, small set of exercises is totally manageable and I think it will be an advantageous way for me to review my Spanish language skills (which have been much under-used and fading for years).
I also tried the French version, since I've wanted to learn French since college, but haven't had the energy, time, wherewithal to do it. I've done a number of the basic levels (one per day), and I like the everyday, manageable sized lessons that build on one another. I also like that it reminds me to practice. Sort of like a cute owl-shaped version of my subconscious telling me to do it, so that I don't forget or get too lazy about it and forget the previous lessons.
My one issue is that it is hard to do special characters on my phone and I get "watch the accent/tilde/whatever diacritical mark" messages while I'm working in the app. Oh, well!
I think that this tool might be a great tool to help with relearning my Spanish (more professionally useful) and learn French for the first time (something more personal).
I also think it is neato that there is some sort of learning community surrounding the Duolingo. I commented on Facebook that I was using a mobile app to learn French and an old asked if I was using Duolingo. We are going to connect and try to help each other learn, which is very cool.
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