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I’ve just released an update to Barra de Español, version 1.1. The new version has some new features that I believe make it a necessary upgrade for those of you currently using version 1.0. You can get the new version from https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/12029.
Here is what’s new in this version:

Wrapped “loose” variables and function in a javascript [...]

Every once in a while, we all run into a word that deceives us about its meaning. Often it is because the word looks similar to a word in your native language, which happened to me today on twitter. I had just discovered an excellent blog called ReVerbSpanish and I had tweeted about it. The [...]

Ladies and gentlemen, Spanish students across the globe, I’d like to introduce you to my latest creation! It’s a Firefox add-on called Barra de Español. It lets find word translations and definitions using wordreference.com by typing the word in the toolbar, or by highlighting the word and right-clicking on it. It helps insert the special [...]

Joining Twitter has become the trendy thing for bloggers to do, and while the non-conformist inside of me tells me to go against the trend, I think there may be some value in Twitter that I haven’t totally realized yet. With that in mind, Thomas and I have both signed up for Twitter experimentally, and [...]

I had once assumed that if I were to learn a constructed language, it would be Esperanto. It seems to be the most popular conlang out there, with several studies done on its effectiveness on improving language-aquisition skills. But last week my brother reminded me what assuming does and convinced me to start learning Lojban [...]

Last night I found Spanish-dubbed versions of a couple of American television shows online, and I was watching them while doing laundry. I was doing this until about 1am, when I crashed and fell asleep. I don’t remember much about what I dreamt, except that everyone in the dream, including me, was speaking Spanish. Sort [...]

This past Christmas, I received Huevos verdes con jamón, which is the Spanish translation of Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. I’ve read the book a few times now, but I just read it again, this time adding quite a bit to my SRS as I went. By total coincidence, this post is in [...]

I’ve been trying to improve my listening skills in Spanish. So far I’m terrible at it but I’m picking up more words the longer I listen. I’ve discovered part of the reason I have difficulty understanding words is because Spanish speakers like to compress their words together when consecutive words end and begin with a [...]

Photo by [nati]
One of the great challenges of learning a new language is immersing yourself in the new language enough so that you can almost absorb it through osmosis. In addition to putting index cards up around your house, setting up your mobile phone and your computer in your target language, watching movies in your [...]

When I got my Blackberry Pearl earlier this year, one of the first applications I installed on it was Google Maps Mobile. This application is very handy for checking traffic on the go, and that is my primary use for it. Imagine my disappointment when I switched my phone’s display language to Spanish, and suddenly [...]