We have a landline in our apartment. I did not realize how often we would get calls on it, one to three times a day. Because I speak more Spanish than my husband, I am the one that has to answer it. Fumbling through Spanish on a telephone is much more difficult than in person. You cannot gesture or make confused facial expressions over the phone. They're usually looking for someone else when they call, but I was quite proud of myself yesterday. The cable/tv/Internet company called to schedule hooking up our cable. He wanted to come today, but I told him Monday would be better. Telling him to speak slower because I'm from the US and can only speak a little Spanish made things easier. I'm excited about having a tv to watch in Spanish.
Shortly after DuoLingo was on Ted Talks, I added myself to their private beta waitlist. Similar to how re-captcha transcribes images into text on the Internet, DuoLingo translates real articles and websites into languages by using native speakers. It's free for people to learn another language. I have probably been on the list for 2 to 3 months and just got my invite yesterday. It's pretty good.
Another new resource I want to mention is a bit of a self promotion, because my husband is their CTO. Getkoru.com is a skill trading website just released this week. If you want a language partner who speaks German, you can list "speaking German" as a skill you want to learn and "Speaking English" as a skill you can teach. Eventually, Koru will allow selling and buying lessons if you do not want to trade time. There are not very many users yet, so some of the filtering and ranking of compatible trades are not in use yet, but they will be soon. The best way to get it to work is to tell your friends.
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