I studied one year of Latin and three years of Spanish in high school (Seminole, TX). My third year of Spanish was "independent study" and I was awarded "Outstanding Foreign Language Student" of the high school.

With my High School Spanish, I was able to pass "CLEP" tests (advanced placement tests) that allowed me to obtain 14 hours of college credit for Spanish, then I took some Spanish literature classes in college. Even before or during high school, I already purchased several Berlitz books and language paperbacks for French, German and Spanish.

I have studied French on and off for the last 20 years, and and the opportunity use it on a recent teaching trip to Belgium and France. I started learning Hebrew in about 1989 because I was planning a trip to Israel, then the Gulf War broke out and I didn't make the trip until 1996. Learning a totally different alphabet was such as challenge, that I wrote a program called "At Home with Hebrew" to teach the Hebrew alphabet, and many different words and phrases.

Since I started selling Pimsleur, I wanted to go all the way through Level I through III in some language that I really didn't know at all, so I chose German. I am very happy with the results.

Since German, I have been sampling various languages, doing either Level I or the "Instant Conversation" for Greek, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, and Japanese. Next will probably be Russian, then I will decide which one to dig in deeper.

If I can give you any advice, please email me or call. I work about 70% of the time as a contract software trainer, so I'm not always available during the hours of 8 to 5. Please email when possible; I try to answer emails each day.