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Update: The deadline for entering the drawing has been extended, see details at the bottom of this post. A couple of months ago I received a copy of 601 Spanish Verbs for me to review. I incorporated this book into my Spanish studies to see how well it fared. Read on to find out what [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

I ran across a word in a book the other day.  植民 (しょくみん [shokumin]). The first character (植) means plant, as in trees, vines and flowers.  You find it in the Japanese word for plant, 植物 (しょくぶつ [shokubutsu], plant+things), and also in the word that means “to plant (a tree)”, 植える (うえる [ueru]). The second [...]

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 [...]

I’ve been reading a book in Japanese on World Religions.  It’s basically an overview of the major world religions, and some of the not-so-major ones too.  I was looking at one of the history sections in the book and I saw this cool word: 十字軍 (じゅうじぐん – juujigun). The character 十 (juu) normally means ten, [...]

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 [...]

What do you call the different fingers in your language?  In English we have: Thumb Index Finger or Pointer Finger Middle Finger Ring Finger Pinky or Little Finger Japanese fingers are a little different: 親指 (oya yubi) – Parent Finger 人差し指 (hito sashi yubi) – Person-pointing Finger 中指 (naka yubi) – Middle Finger 薬指 (kusuri [...]

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 [...]