June 3rd, 2016

Summer has struck Wisconsin! Neither Mom nor I are big fans of hot weather! I love air conditioning! I like summer because all the plants grow, but I don’t like the really hot weather, nor the humidity. We spend a lot of time sitting on our front porch, since it’s all nice and shaded! This is what we were looking at when I wrote this up! Hurrah for bright, blue skies!

So I decided that we were going to have a little experiment. Mom and I have been learning Dutch for a few years. All we do is work on the internet and read articles. But what good is all that unless we try to communicate! Since we’re not going to meet any people who speak Dutch any time soon, I figure this is a good place! Mom is still moderately confused about word order, so bear with us!
Mijn moeder en ik hebben besloten om te proberen onze nederlandse schrijfvaardigheid op mijn blog. We hebben geleerd nederlandse voor enkele jaren. We gebruiken het internet en websites zoals Duolingo en Memrise. We volgen mensen op de Facebook en Twitter wie dingen schrijven over de Nederlands en de nederlandse taal. Terwijl we dit schrijven, Moeder heeft besloot dat ze leest veel beter dan ze schrijft. Dit is moeilijk! Nu gaan we meer studeren!
What we were trying to say—My mom and I have decided to try our Dutch writing skills on my blog. We have learned Dutch for several years. We use the internet and websites such as Duolingo and Memrise. We follow people on Facebook and Twitter who write things about the Netherlands and the Dutch language. While we write this, Mom has decided that she reads a lot better than she writes! This is hard! Now we are going to learn more!
Mom has spent about three times as long trying to proofread it, and we’re pretty sure that it’s still wrong. I told Mom that making mistakes is part of learning. She just sighed! Some people’s Moms these days!
Bonus picture of Oliver!

I hope you’re all having a good day! Learning more than one language didn’t start in school didn’t start until Mom was in middle school (11 to 12 years old), but I know that it starts much earlier now. Do any of you study any other languages? I know that a lot of my blog friends are bilingual!  When did you start learning it in school? Do any of you do it just for fun? Do you have any new resources?

March 1st, 2015

Mom and I wanted to leave a little note here. Grandma (Mom’s mom) is all right. She did another round of chemo. At the end of this round, she got another CAT scan. There is one nodule left and it was half gone. Her cancer doctor needs to talk to another cancer doctor who is in Madison. They gave her a month off all kinds of doctors. In March, she is going to have another appointment to see what they have decided. They may give her some medicine that will hopefully stop the nodule from getting any bigger. That way she won’t have to go through any more chemo! My mom was hoping for no more cancer at all, but she will take whatever she can get.

On a more positive note, Mom and I are learning Dutch on Duolingo. Some of you might know that Mom’s interested in her genealogy. She got pretty far in learning Dutch on Livemocha a long time ago. They don’t have an ipad app, so she stopped when she got her ipad. But Duolingo does, and we’ve been having a lot of fun. Mom says that it will take some courage, but maybe some day we will post something in Dutch!

Hope you all are having a good day!