Language

One of my favorite podcasts is doing an episode this week on whether it's worth it to learn a foreign language. (Probable answer, based on my experience with this podcast: no.) I also heard a blip on the radio recently saying that it won't be long before we can get perfect instant translation using a phone app. This evening I mentioned that to Duchess, and she said, without hesitation, "No, it's still totally worth it to learn a language." She said that learning a language is something you accomplish, and if a phone's doing it, its just a thing the phone does. And learning a language makes you special. And if you don't know the language, you're not talking to people, your phone is talking to people.

So we will be paying for Duchess to attend a week of Mandarin immersion day camp this summer.

Oh, and in relevant news, Skipper is learning hiragana. She also sings a great phonics song that goes something like "ka ka ka ka, ka ke ku ke ko."