For our first review of the year, I’m pleased to introduce Mango Languages to you. We were able to use Mango Homeschool Edition. Although it says the program is for ages 6 to adult, I see it as a wonderful option for the Middle School and High School Curriculum choice. If you have been looking for a great High School Language Curriculum – pull up a chair, and pour a cup of coffee. 
Our family had three separate accounts. I logged in as the Teacher/Parent and attached Nate and Jon to me. I could log on as them separately, or log in as me – and then click into their accounts. There is so much going on with the website –I will give an overview of what we used, and then let Josh from Mango give you a run down of what is currently on the site, and what will be added towards the end of the review.
So – we started with putting our accounts together. Then we looked through the list of languages. Mango Languages Homeschool Edition currently offers 52 foreign languages for English speakers to choose from, and they are still adding more. You may learn more than one language at a time. We choose Latin, Spanish, Hawaiian and Pirate.
I had a bit of a time getting Jon’s to load, so I quickly sent Josh Hoover a message. You can see on the screen above, his name, our account, and our notifications and eNotes. This was the perfect way to ask him a question and get a very quick response. Once you sign into your language, it is simple to log in and start your lesson.
It took a few lessons for the boys to be self sufficient with the log ins. Logging into Mango Languages, then into their accounts, then into their class, then into the class for the day. Maybe 3-4 days? Then it was smooth sailing. The software remembers what lesson the student left off on. It is easy to navigate with a mouse or with the keyboard. My boys are 13 and 16 so they didn’t need a lot of help. I had them use the speakers most of the time so I could hear the interaction and know that they were doing the lessons well with understanding.
Each lesson has around 50 flash cards. It starts word for word and builds to sentences. Each time they give you a new section, they ask you to say it back. The colors in the words are great, as many times, in Spanish, the words move when you say them in Spanish or English. If you need more time, you can click on that part, or if you get frustrated and need the answer, you can click Show the Answer and it will drop down.
You can See the words, Hear the words and Say the words. They are repeated. Where is, Excuse me, Where is, Good Morning, Where Is – and then the rest of the sentence. The Hotel, the Bus stop, the Restaurant.
I sat with my son this morning to work on lesson 16. I was impressed at how much he knew of the words. With all of his Spanish work, he has a hard time with pronunciation. With programs in the past, I spent too much time, I felt, making him say the word exactly right. This time, we moved on to introduce more lessons, and the pronunciation came with time. The speaker in the class says the phrases VERY quickly. I think this is good, as they are said quickly in public/person. If you are learning, and need it slowed down, then you can re-play the words as many times as you like.
Nathan did quite a bit of his Latin on his own after work. I would hear him in the other room but did not interact with him as close as Jon. I asked him to share his thoughts.
I used How to Speak Latin and it is an easier way to speak Latin. I liked that they repeated themselves a lot, that helps. You can go at your own speed at re-reading it re-hearing it if you didn’t understand the first time. I felt like it was a really good program.
The cons would be that they repeated them selves so many times that it was annoying, but it did get stuck in your head. The first few lessons give you so much information of stories of important paragraphs that are in Latin, but I didn’t really care about it, honestly, and that got boring. It was boring to learn words that I would not use day to day. Except for words like Flumen – River, and Sunt They are, or Y’all.
One thing that bothered me was the colors for words. Colors changed each time. In one sentence it was Purple, then the next sentence it was orange and that hurt my head. The next thing there are four words that are purple, but now they are Orange. ( I saw the color thing, and for Jon, it was just matching the English word with the new Latin or Spanish word. I see what he is saying though. If Bus Stop could be purple through the whole lesson. Jon didn’t notice this at all. I am now wondering if the letters corresponded to grammar, and I will pay attention now that he brought it up.)
There are quite a few words I can now say on a daily basis. It would be better to study more words that we study in English, the few that we covered, it gave me understanding of the origin. I don’t think it helped with my English vocabulary. Quite a few of the words we covered, I already knew, like man and woman. Familia feminine, Female.
I can say – that this is the first program we have used, that has brought the words into our every day speech and conversation. Except for El Tenador (the fork) which Jon says non stop. Even when asking for a spoon. It is just fun to say. Go ahead. El Ten a Doooooor. Just us? This is the third Spanish Curriculum we have used this school year, and so far it is my favorite. There is Zero prep to do as the parent.
My experience is based on a Beta launch. We were able to see quite a few things in the works the last few weeks which stirred quite a bit of excitement – Mango Languages would like to take a moment to share:
What is currently available on the site:
Over 60 different languages
Progress Assessments
Built-in journals, discussions and
wikis Collaborative learning spaces eNote messaging
/chat rooms
Access to embedded/downloadable content
Support from other community members
Calendars to schedule meetings or study groups
Over the next several months, we’ll be introducing other exciting features like:
Enhanced Tracking and Progress Monitoring – including seat time (for students and parents)
Goals and Personal Lesson Plans (both stand-alone and tied into Mango courses)
Resume and Portfolio Builder
Subscription Prices:
1 subscription is $18/month or $125/year total
2 subscriptions is $28/month or $175 /year total
3 subscriptions is $38/month or $225/year total
4 subscriptions is $48/month or $275/year total
5 subscriptions is $58/month or $325/year total
Anything over 6 subscriptions is a special group rate that will depend on the number in the group.
If you are looking for great homeschool high school language curriculum, you may want to follow Mango Languages on Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook. I like the Pinterest Board for their Language Learning Resources.
Filed under: Language, Reviews, Schoolhouse Crew Tagged: High School, Home School, HomeSchool, Homeschool Curriculum, homeschool high school, hsreviews