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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 character （民) [...]

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, but [...]

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 yubi) – Medicine Finger
小指 (ko yubi) – Little Finger

According to [...]

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 [...]

It is said that the best way to learn a foreign language is through total immersion. So why should your shower be any different? Someone who was Christmas shopping for me found this wonderful shower curtain, which contains 250 Spanish words and their English definitions. It’s also available in French.
Honestly, I’m awestruck.
Have you seen other [...]