As I did the lessons, I was reminded of the many reasons I do not speak another language fluently. Grammar is a beautiful but challenging thing, especially when you just start to learn it. That is exactly what this felt like.

I started learning French years ago. For awhile I was very good at it. So good in fact that I could translate for friends and family. I could read and write easily and quickly. I even had dreams in French, as strange as that sounds. How did I become so fluent? I practiced everyday. I incorporated speaking it into every aspect of my life.

That is what I will have to do to become at least slightly proficient at HTML and eventually all of the other languages. It is actually very simple. Especially since these are the building blocks, but like with English or French grammar understanding and then remembering where to put what is the challenging for me.

I was reminded of this at the end of each lessons. I thought I had absorbed enough and remembered enough of the steps to know where each line of HTML went. But each time, I had to go back and read through the lessons again before completing the assignment. Both fortunately and unfortunately, Codecademy does not save your progress if you hit the back button at the bottom of the screen. While this was annoying, it was actually very helpful. It pushed me to go back over the lessons I apparently did not understand. It made me work just a little bit harder to understand the grammar.

Thankfully after a few tries it is coming along. I am fairly confident that I could build a basic, not so pretty web page. I am also very confident that I can break it, and hopefully then fix it again.