S is for Spanish

If you enjoy Spanish or are taking a Spanish class and need some help outside of the classroom activities I highly recommend this website: Study Spanish. It was supremely useful to me while I was taking college level Spanish. As far as I know you can access many of the beginning Spanish exercises without paying a dime. (Select study help from the bar of options running across the top). The page I linked directly to is for accented letters that we don’t find on U.S. keyboards. You can memorize the alt+letter codes, but I never could remember more than two letters.

Another fun Spanish link is Mi Vida Loca [my crazy life]. It’s a Spanish language learning drama series on BBC. Sadly, I got busy with class and life and never got to finish it, but I got over half-way done with the series. All the episodes appear to still be available for free on BBC’s website. I am seriously considering picking it back up again. Or maybe starting all over.
It encourages you to speak outloud while you “play” the interactive game/episode. You can make choices and learn new words as the character is getting chased by an unknown evil. Makes things interesting for sure.

There are tons of other Spanish helper and Spanish learning sites out there. My next goal is to find online games for children. Matching games that speak Spanish or help children learn new words would be a really good pace for me.

Spanish is really fun and I think learning the basics of Latin while I was in grade school really helped me in my college classes.
The only downside to language is that I am stuck in the horrible in between stage. I know enough vocabulary and grammar rules to speak Spanish but I am very shy about speaking to Spanish speaking folks. The Hispanic groups of folks in my area are very nice and forgiving. I think that most people would appreciate even an attempt at the language, but I am still having trouble making the leap.

Anyone have any tips on leaping the language barrier? Spanish is so fun….but I am sooooo shy. :)
In the mean time, I will keep my flashcards, translate music lyrics to my favorite songs and pepper my slang with Spanish words.