Back to school part 2: Learning a language

I'm sure one thing many students dreaded about high school and/or college was their foreign language class.  I didn't, but I hated math.  So it probably all evens out.

Any way...what's an adult to do who wants or needs to learn another language?  Especially when you don't have a lot of money.

I started using DuoLingo this year and really like it.  It's free, easy, elegantly set up.  The mix of drills is helpful.  And the sound quality is good.  I wish they built in time for the student to repeat the phrases, but since they aren't evaluating your pronunciation they may have seen no need.

I've been working on Danish because of family connections and because I'd like to work on a Germanic language since my previous experience, barring English, is with Romance languages.  I want to be able to read newspapers, watch films, read articles, and the basics like that. I'm not going to run into a lot of Danes in the South and most of them speak English any way.  So it's not a need for me. 

But for those who need to learn some Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, or other major language, it might just be the platform for you.

Also inexpensive and of high quality, as I've heard, are classes at the Tennessee Foreign Language Institute. 

If you have the time, give it a try.  You can devote just a little each day and make progress.  Oh, and it's good for you, as this Guardian article summarizes the matter:

However we learn, this recent brain-based research provides good news. We know that people who speak more than one language fluently have better memories and are more cognitively creative and mentally flexible than monolinguals. Canadian studies suggest that Alzheimer’s disease and the onset of dementia are diagnosed later for bilinguals than for monolinguals, meaning that knowing a second language can help us to stay cognitively healthy well into our later years.

Even more encouraging is that bilingual benefits still hold for those of us who do not learn our second languages as children. Edinburgh University researchers point out that “millions of people across the world acquire their second language later in life: in school, university, or work, or through migration or marriage.” Their results, with 853 participants, clearly show that knowing another language is advantageous, regardless of when you learn it.