When Sherry started learning Spanish 15 months ago (July 2007), I wanted to help. We have very different styles: she wants to jump right in and get started; I like to do research, figure out the best way to go about it, and then make a plan and set goals. Both styles have their advantages (and disadvantages). What was immediately obvious to me was that, even though there is an incredible amount of stuff out there for learning to speak Spanish, to do it in any sort of systematic way meant going all over the web, spending a lot of time searching articles, reading about products and just generally spinning one’s wheels. If you’ve read some of the earlier posts, then you know all the types of resources we reviewed.
And traveling to Spanish speaking countries wasn’t much better. Oh, there are a ton of travel sites, where you can get flights, rooms, meals and so on, and there are even a lot of really good blogs and forums to learn about where you wanted to go. The problem is that they were scattered and hard to find. I wanted them to ALL BE IN THE SAME PLACE!
That’s a large part of why I started writing this blog. There are two parts, really. One was that I wanted to be able to share our travels with family and friends. The other was to try and make a little sense of the myriad choices out there for learning Spanish. And since our travels are directly related to our quest of learning Spanish, then that’s a component of making sense of all this as well.
So I’ve reached a decision. (Actually, I reached it some time ago, and I’ve decided to share the information). .I’m in the process of building a website that will serve as a clearing house for almost everything you would want to have in order to learn Spanish as quickly and as easily as possible. Without having to search all over creation, and without having to wonder which way is the best. And, for traveling, I want to have everything at your fingertips. Want to know what the temperature in Lima is right now (or the average temperature for next month)? Want to see what the CDC (Center for Disease Control) or the U.S. State department says about traveling there? A map of the subway or bus line? What their flag looks like, or the current exchange rate? All on one site.
I’ve almost finished the architecture (with the help of my good friends Bradley and Scott), I have a domain set up, and have been working on content. I should be ready to publish by the end of the year. It’s been a very steep learning curve for me. This is my first blog, so taking on building a web site has been really intimidating (and humbling). But I’ve learned a ton, and have the makings of a site we can be proud of.
What would YOU like to see on such a site? About either learning Spanish or traveling in the Spanish speaking world. Let me know. By the way, the website is going to go by “Learn Spanish, Travel Spanish”. I’ll give you the URL (web address) when we launch. I may also change the name of this blog site so that it stands alone and is part of the “Learn Spanish, Travel Spanish” concept. Stay tuned.
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