When Apps Go Right

I am a horrible person. Not horrible in a mean-gal way, but horrible at learning new languages, and horrible about mimicking other people's accents!

While my sister is the champion of mimics, I am the ruling monarch of sucking at languages. When I'd meet someone who spoke something other than English, I used to at least try to learn how to say "hello," "please" and "thank you" in their tongue. Oh, that and a couple of naughty words or phrases!

A long time ago, in a place far away, I met a young Welsh woman, so I asked her to teach me how to say something impolite. For almost 25 years now, I've been telling folks I know how to tell someone in Welsh how to kiss my a**. I just used Google Translate. I don't know what I've been saying for all these years, but it doesn't seem to be anything like what Translate brought up.

For all the time that I have been in love with some of my celebrity crushes, I've planned that, upon them seeing me and falling instantly and deeply in love with me, I would say something charming in Spanish or French. At the rate I am learning, I won't be able to say "Hey handsome, what's up?" in English.

I bring up my horrible language skills because I found an app that just fascinates and amazes me. It's called the Rosetta Course series from, of course, Rosetta Stone.

Now, I have heard people complain that the Rosetta method is too expensive. Let me say this: the app that I checked out is just a taste of the Rosetta course and I managed to learn a Japanese word in about 20 seconds. Ask me, the Rosetta folks aren't charging enough!

With the app I am toying with, I attempted the Japanese before I almost sprang my tongue. I switched to Spanish. Nice.

This is surely an app to check out.

Raha*
--Free

(*Swahili. According to Google Translate: Raha = rest, joy, comfort, bliss, contentment, enjoyment.)