Would You Like to Learn a New Language?

Some of you’ve been doing the same thing for a long time. I certainly have. I’ve been practicing family law for 22 years.

It’s easy to get into a rut. We keep up to date with developments in our field, but we don’t learn anything entirely new.

Years ago, back around 1995, I started taking flying lessons. I loved it. The flying was a blast, but learning all the new stuff was what really got me going. I even had to do some math in order to get my pilots license (which was seriously challenging for me) and I found myself enjoying it.

I think I went into the lessons with a kind of burned out perspective on learning after having been in school for 19 years of my life.

I rediscoverved my love of learning. Of course, I nearly killed myself (and my brother-in-law who flew with me some) on a number of occasions.

If you’d like to learn something new, and stay alive, maybe you’d like to learn a new language. It seems to me that lots of lawyers I know have a strong interest in languages.

I don’t really get the language thing. I think I demonstrate here, on a nearly daily basis, that I struggle with English. I don’t think I’ve got the bandwidth for a second language.

But, maybe you do.

Livemocha is a great place to learn a new language or bone up on one you learned in high school or college. Maybe you’ll even learn a language that will allow you to represent some new clients.

Livemocha offers 30 languages. They have more than three million members from 22 countries. They offer 160 hours of instruction for each language. The really cool thing about Livemocha is the way they use their site as a community in addition to it being a school. You can connect, online, with native speakers in the language you’re learning.

It’s a win-win deal. The folks speaking the other languages want to talk to you so they can practice your language and vice-versa. It’s an innovative and effective use of the internet. I love it.

Who knows, they even offer English, maybe I’ll sign up and the English on this site will improve.

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Post written by Lee Rosen on November 20, 2009 in Lawyers