Learning Spanish

My daughter is taking Spanish in high school. She has always struggled with the subject. We noodled about for a bit and thought, "How do Mexican kids learn Spanish?" Well, one of the ways they do it is by reading children's books*. We went to our local library and found plenty of beginning books in Spanish.

One book was about a little girl who was trying to train her dog, Paco, to do tricks. As one might expect, trying to teach the dog was an exasperating chore.

Paco is ordered to jump through a hoop.

Paco eats the hoop. Sounds like the Catican Guards, if you ask me**.
Reading these books has been easy and fun for my daughter. It's been quite educational, too. They're helping her learn about dogs as well as Spanish.

* - I've heard elsewhere that one of the reasons some adults have a hard time with foreign languages is that they don't expect to come at it like a child - little words and little concepts first. They expect to talk like an adult right off the bat.

** - We love the Guards dearly, but let's face it, they're not cats.