In high school, I took two years of Latin. In college, I was not required to take a language.
So . . . I speak English.
Last Spring, a friend and I took a beginning Spanish course at a local community college. My main reason for taking the unexpectedly highly overpriced course was so that I could write in Spanish to the children I sponsor through Compassion International.
I worked hard. I stressed a lot (perfectionism). I learned a lot.
I can now write simple letters to my children in Spanish. Because they are very young, that works out just fine, and some of them have thanked me for learning Spanish, and they say they know I did it for them. Aw. Heartwarming.
So now I can say I speak Spanish. Un poco.
One thing I learned is that online translators are NOT accurate. If you use them to translate for letters or anything else -- don't.
I do not know French.
Does that matter? It did this week. Our social studies classes have been taking local assessments in the computer labs. On Tuesday, a sixth grade class came into the lab at the end of the day. One student, named Gabrielle, speaks ONLY French. Great.
We were trying to explain to her what to do, and she had no idea what we were saying. Then I remembered that I have iTranslate on my iPad. Okay, I know I just said that online translators are not accurate, and this app is like an online translator. But I was desperate.
I typed questions and directions to her in the app and translated to French. I'm sure it wasn't perfect (who knows what I actually said!), but it worked. She understood . . . and she smiled.
And we decided that she did not know enough English (I think at this point, that would be zero English) to take the test.
Even though she had one of the Harry Potter books in French to read, I gave her one of the school iPads (I asked her which one she would rather do) so that she could practice English using an app that's actually designed to learn French. But she sort of used it backwards, and . . . she smiled. :)
Thank you, Apple.
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