Talk to the screen

I shouldn't have chosen 7.30 in the morning. It seemed like a good idea. I thought that an hour at the start of the day wouldn't interfere with any other plans. Anyway with aching bones and a weak bladder I'm nearly always up at 7.30. Besides the session was online so I only had to look dressed from the neck up - no problem with wearing loose fitting shorts and yesterday's odorous t-shirt. Skype doesn't yet transmit body odours. The reason it wasn't such a good idea was that I woke up around 5am and didn't really get back to sleep for worry that I'd miss the appointed hour!

It was the first time that I'd ever done a Spanish class online. Somebody told me about an app that they had been told was easy to use to arrange online lessons. The one I used is called italki though I'm sure there are tens if not hundreds of others. I looked through the tutors first. The tutors are from all over the world so you have to think about accents - for Spanish I chose someone from Spain rather than someone with a Venezuelan or Mexican accent. All of the tutors seemed to have different prices though the majority seemed to be in the 7€ to 8€ range. I think one person was 23€ an hour. They must either be very good or as misguided as that bloke who once tried to sell me a very expensive Land Rover. I bought a discounted 10 lesson pack, 10 hours of classes, for $70, or about 65€ with one specific tutor. In general though I think that you buy credit with the organisation which you can then spend with any of their tutors. I'm still a bit novice with the system but it appears that the app puts you in contact with the tutor, arranges the session times and takes your money. The lesson with the tutor happens on Skype or Facetime or whatever the Google equivalent is called this week.

I can see lots of advantages to doing languages online and very few disadvantages. The application gives you a brief bio of all the tutors, which languages they speak, where they are based, how much they cost etc. All the teachers have a little introductory video so you can hear them speak. You can buy individual lessons or packages and most of the tutors offer a free or reduced price test session. So, for very little money you can give it a go. If you don't like the tutor, if you don't like their style, if you have technical problems or if you just think better of it you can simply say goodbye at the end of the session with none of the trauma of abandoning a more traditional class. I suppose too you could also book lots of sessions in a very short period to get an intensive course or you could take lessons from several different tutors for variety and, as long as you can get a decent connection you can take the class from wherever you happen to be.

The bloke I spoke to was very good; nice and easy to talk to. I've booked up for a second session but this time I'm not starting quite so early.