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My son asked me to learn German with him because he wants to go there on vacation after he recovers from spinal fusion surgery. I told him I would try to do one lesson a day, but didn't think I could do any more than that because of things we are dealing with getting ready for his surgery, etc. He doesn't think I have any excuse for not doing at least three a day. He usually does four or five and he is the one dealing with chronic pain.

I did three yesterday and it was easier than I thought. I thought I would have trouble listening to a phrase in German and then remembering how to spell all the words correctly in German, but I did it.

He is also learning Japanese because Japan is the other country he wants to visit. Japanese is not as easy for me.

That's a fun app...I tried the end of unit tests to brush up on my Spanish today after reading your post (so, thank you!). How do you find it for learning a new language prima facie?

I took French in high school many years ago using the old fashioned textbook method of learning. It was slow and tedious, which for me made it harder.

I read somewhere that it is harder to learn languages as you get older, but I am finding that I learn much faster this way than I did with a textbook when I was in high school.

This is a fun, easy way to learn a language that you have never tried before.

Good to hear, thanks Lori.

It's harder to understand spoken language as we age because our non-native phoneme discrimination plummets in adolescence. (Patricia Kuhl is the linguistic heavyweight whose work in this area comes to mind.) But because Duolingo is relatively text-heavy, maybe it's better suited to a mature brain than conventional methods.

I'm going to try it out with Italian. Exciting!

Thanks for the reference - it looks like a decent site. I hope your DS has a speedy recovery.