Ask a simple question
This is really not the year to be adding a foreign language to our lives, but I thought I would at least ask the question. You know, find out what language everyone would like to learn and maybe look at picking up a Rosetta Stone program down the road, pricey though they are. I’ve actually been wanting to study Italian myself and have also had a weird desire to brush up my jr. high German.
Who was I kidding, could I actually get a consensus on a language? Not a chance.
C wants to learn French and maybe Spanish, at least on the day I asked. A would like Italian, or German, or “No, I know, Gaelic would be kind of fun.” Gaelic??? How does he even know about Gaelic? He actually thinks it would be great to learn a whole bunch of languages. That probably has something to do with his fascination with maps.
And D? He didn’t have any input for this question. Thank you, D.
So I asked DH, “Is there a language you think the boys should learn?” (His only language background is some German in college.) He said that he thought anything that uses another alphabet would be great–Russian, Hebrew, Mandarin, Greek, Arabic…none of which we have any experience with at all.
So the foreign language question gets tucked away, and this year we will be sticking with our Latin. Mommy has decided. And Mommy has decided to do Latina Christiana I at a nice slow pace, spread over two years. And she will be learning it right along with A. She was going to start her own study with Henle Latin, but this is just not the year.
La Scuola d'Argento 
I would look at Fluenz before you go to Rosetta. We have both for Chinese and prefer the Fluenz by miles. Also pricey, but if you call them directly and ask about the “amazon review” pricing, they will give you 25% off. (Or at least last time I called they were still doing that program.)
That’s right…. stick with Latin…. the only “dead” language that will live forever. Maybe little David was right after all!
My husband learned German and speaks it quite well. I learned Spanish and even spent a few months in a spanish speaking country and now live in an area where Spanish is spoken by a lot of the people around us. So what do we study. I lean toward spanish simply because that is what I know. We are leaning some latin but mainly to help us understand our own language better.
My husband wants us all to learn Chinese because he feels that is who we will need to work with in the future. It just sounds a little daunting…. I am not great with languages so anything other than English and Spanish at this point is going to be really difficult for me. But maybe that is a good thing. I need to learn a few things.
Wow. You guys are so cool. I think it’s wonderful that they even WANT to learn all those languages. That says a lot. Gaelic?? Wow.
Latin is good. Latin will help with lots of other languages. AND with English too! I found I reviewed lots of English grammar, just with our Prima Latina course last year.