babelhut.com

Here’s a language learning tip that has worked really well for me: learn to cook.  And when you do, use recipes in your target language.  Great way to learn language.  Here’s why:

1. Recipes are short – most recipes fit on one piece of paper, and that’s including a big picture of the end result.
2. Recipes are easy – recipes all follow pretty much the same format: picture, ingredient list, instructions.

   The ingredient list itself will provide you with half of the information you need to read the instructions.

   And the instructions are short, logical and sequential:  Cut this into this size pieces.  Cut that into that size pieces.  Put them in a pot.  Add this ingredient.  Cook it over a flame of this strength for this many minutes.  Add this seasoning.  Garnish with this.  Voila!

3. Cooking is hands-on – when you cook you will be using all five senses: touch, sight, taste, smell, sound.   This enhances the experience and you will remember it better.

   The more senses you use the better it is for recall.  Imagine sitting at a desk and looking over a vocabulary list of fruits in Swahili for 5 minutes.  Then imagine someone throwing fruits at you for 5 minutes, calling out their names in Turkish while you try to dodge.  Which set do you think you’ll remember better at the end of the day?   Assuming you don’t get hit in the head with a canteloupe.

   Senses matter.   Instead of studying words in a language you are creating an experience in the language.  That experience will imprint itself in your mind in ways that a chair and a sore back can’t.

4. Double reward – when you cook you get to eat the food at the end.  When you cook in a foreign language you get to eat the food and feel good about yourself for doing something in your target language. 

   That’s double the return.

   And if you mess up and the food tastes horrible at least you have a funny story to tell.  “Check this out.  I was trying to make some cake but the recipe was in Arabic…”

5. Foreign food – part of learning a language is experiencing another culture.  You can’t separate the two.  And food is a big part of any culture.  You need to learn the tastes, smells and names of native foods.

   How many Spanish people in Spain can talk about Spanish food in Spanish?  All of them.  (Replace the underlined words to match your language situation).

   Learning food will make your language experience more complete.  And it will help you read menus when you visit the country.

Execution

Ok, I hope I convinced you that it’s worth a try.  It’s very easy to get started.  Here’s how you do it:

Paper Method

1. Figure out the word for “recipe” in your target language.
2. Put that word into Google.  That should bring up a ton of recipe websites.
3. Find a recipe that looks good.
4. Print the recipe out.
5. Cook it.
6. Eat.

YouTube Method

Same as the paper method, but replace Google with Youtube, and of course you watch the video instead of printing out the recipe.

Using YouTube to find recipes is great because you get some listening practice in too.  Plus you get to watch somebody else cook the recipe before you do.  It has repetition built into it too because you’ll find yourself running back and forth between the kitchen and your computer to watch the video again.

I’ve been learning a little Spanish and I cooked dinner one night (actually two nights now) using this:

I’m a complete newbie at Spanish but I was able to follow this more or less after watching it a few times.  The end result didn’t quite look the same, but it tasted great.  And when I was finished I was better at Spanish than I was when I started.

Bonus Tip

If you already live in the country where your target language is spoken, here’s a bonus tip for you:

You’ve probably walked into a grocery store before and seen food that you had no idea what it was, how to eat it or what to do with it.  Instead of passing it up, buy it.  Take it home.  Here’s why:

Most recipe sites have a search box.  Enter the name of your mystery food into the search box.  Bam!  Now you have a bunch of recipes that tell you how to use it.

You may have to take another trip to the store to get more ingredients, but its worth it because you will get to try something you’ve never tasted before.

Here in Japan I often come across food I’ve never eaten before, like the day I saw a shelf full of tougan (冬瓜 – とうがん). I searched for とうがん on cookpad and found a recipe for some delicious Chicken and Tougan soup.

Try it!

Do you have any language learning tips? If so, please share them!

Other language learning tips:

• Start A Translation Project
• Read Children’s Books

Today I received yet another envelope from Time Warner Cable addressed to “Peter Carroll or Current Resident,” which was seconds from being thrown in the trash can when I decided to open it. This is what was inside:

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

I was surprised to receive the advertisement in Spanish. I don’t think the neighborhood I live in has a high concentration of Hispanic people, though I could be wrong about that. All my previous dealing with TWC has been in English. Still, it was nice to read it before I threw it away, and realize I understood most of it without any trouble. I did have to look up sorteo though, which looks odd to me the way it was conjugated, but I’m no expert.

Has anyone else ever received mail in an unexpected language? Talk about it in the comments!

The latest version of Barra de Español is now available from addons.mozilla.org! Those of you who already have an older version installed should see an update notification in Firefox soon, if you haven’t already.

What’s new in 1.2? The biggest new feature is the ability to find pronunciations of Spanish words. You can select a word on any web page, right-click on it, and choose “Pronunciar,” or you may type in the word into the toolbar’s search box and select “Pronunciar” from the dropdown to the right. The pronunciations are found on forvo.com.

Version 1.2 also adds support for Firefox 3.6, and drops support for Firefox versions below 2.0. Inserting the accented characters now works in rich text email editors such as Gmail and Yahoo mail. I’ve also added a new video link to fomny.com.

Check it out and feel free to leave feedback in the comments!

I received an email today from the Mozilla Add-ons group that Barra de Español has been approved to be in the public listing on addons.mozilla.org! This means that it no longer has the “experimental” label and can be installed without the user needing to check a box. For those of you who forgot what Barra de Español is, check out the original announcement. If you haven’t installed it yet, do so today!

Our good friend Ramses has just launched a wonderful database of Spanish-English sentences at http://sentences.spanish-only.com/. I insist that you go there now and bookmark it. I’ll wait.

This thing is great for the Spanish student! How many times do you learn a new word but you don’t have a sentence for it to put in your SRS? This happens to me all the time. Now you can go to the Spanish-English Sentence Database (SESDB? Am I allowed to make acronyms for something I didn’t create?) and search for the word and find a sentence containing that word. You may browse the database  by the first letter in the sentence, if you like, too.

Ramses has a lot more detail about his creation at his blog, read it for more details.

The bold statement that is the title of this post should really read “Why You Should Be Using the US International Keyboard Layout If You are Studying Languages that Use the Roman Alphabet and Especially If You are a Software Developer,” but that makes a monster of an already long title. So keep in mind this post is not aimed at anyone studying languages that use non-Roman-derived writing systems.

It all began so innocently…

On June 13th, I received this tweet from @darmorrow which thanked me for creating Barra de Español and asked me how to type the “@” key. That was followed by a comment she made here on babelhut, explaining that she had transformed her whole computer to Spanish but was still figuring it out. I realized that she had begun using the Spanish keyboard layout exclusively, but I was still primarily using the US English keyboard layout and switching to the Spanish layout only when I needed to type in Spanish. Oh no, I thought. My immersion experience is incomplete unless I use the Spanish layout full-time!

The quest for the holy grail a more complete immersion experience

I decided right away to switch my keyboard layout to a Spanish layout full-time, but I was concerned that learning where the various punctuation keys were would be a nightmare. I briefly considered purchasing an actual Spanish keyboard, but instead found a more frugal solution. Stickers! I bought three sets of stickers which I put on my keyboards at home and at work. The first keyboard I did I put every single sticker on the keyboard, which took some time. On subsequent keyboards I only put on the stickers on keys that were different between the US and Spanish layouts. Once the stickers were in place, I switched all of the computers that I used to the Spanish layout.

Codito ergo sum

With this setup I was doing fine writing emails and surfing the web. But I’m a software developer, and one who deals with a lot of HTML and XML. I very quickly realize there was no easy way to type the greater-than and less-than signs! “<” and “>” were seemingly unobtainable! On my Linux computers at home I discovered an obscure key combination that produced those characters, but on my Windows machine at work, nothing worked. Greater-than and less-than were not my only problems though. When I write code, I need to know where all the various punctuation marks are. The Spanish layout has them moved all over the place, and although I planned to just learn the new layout, many of the keys seemed like there were in very inconvenient places. I was frustrated.

The US International Keyboard Layout

I then remembered a comment made by my friend Ramses suggesting that I try the US International keyboard layout. I set it up and I immediately knew this was what I needed. The layout has all of the punctuation marks where I expect them. I can easily type áéíóúñ¿¡ just by hitting the Alt key on the right side of the space bar and the corresponding key. I can also get those accented vowels by hitting the ‘ key first. I am able to type äëïöü with the “ key, even though only ü is used in Spanish. I can do all that without having to switch keyboard layouts or being mindful of my current keyboard layout.

Like everything else, there are some drawbacks. In order to produce a ‘ or ” or ~ or ^ you must hit the space bar following those keys. I’ve had this layout setup for over a month now and I’m finally hitting the space bar automatically after those keys. Overall, I feel the benefits outweigh the drawbacks and I intend to continue using the US International keyboard layout.

Have you experimented with other keyboard layouts, or are you considering it? Write about it in the comments!

Listening and understanding Spanish is a big weakness for me. I can read Spanish much better than I can listen to it. So, to get better at it I’ve been spending more time listening to Spanish music and podcasts. Since I last wrote about finding music you like in your language of study, I have discovered Pandora. Pandora is great because you start with an artist or multiple artists you like, and it starts playing similar artists. As you listen, you can give thumbs up or down to each song, and Pandora will adjust what it plays next based on your choices, essentially learning what you will probably like to hear. Another great thing about Pandora is that it will often play artists in your target language that are difficult to find in your home country, even stuff that I’ve found difficult to find on Amazon.

In English I listen primarily to metal and hard rock, but in Spanish I’ve noticed that while I still like some metal, I’ve been leaning more towards rap, even though I can’t stand most rap in English. I’m not entirely sure why this is yet, I’m still getting a feel for what’s out there. I’ve also been listening to a couple of podcasts, these are also to practice listening to Spanish.

Here are some of the things I’ve been listening to:

• Hamlet
• Skunk DF
• Skizoo
• A.N.I.M.A.L.
• Molotov
• Control Machete
• News in Slow Spanish
• VOA en Español – Buenos Días America
• SSL4YOU

Definitely check out Pandora for yourself. (Update: Thomas tells me that Pandora only works within the US. It may be possible to get around this using a proxy.)

What have you been listening to in your target language?  Tell us in the comments!

I’m sure the question on your mind right now is: So, who won the free copy of 601 Spanish Verbs? Was it me?

Well if you are mrcneff, then the answer is yes, you won! I will be contacting you for delivery information shortly.

For everybody else, I’m sorry. Maybe you will win next time. You could always purchase a copy for yourself.

¡Felicidades, mrcneff!

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 think of it and how you can win a free copy for yourself!

The Verb Guide

The Verb Guide section at the beginning of this book is pure gold. I’ve had trouble with the more advanced tenses in Spanish until I read this section. The descriptions of each tense are the clearest and most easily understood of any Spanish book that I’ve come across. I know some of you have heard “Screw Grammar!” from my friend Ramses, and to some extent I agree, but I think you still need to know when and how to use your verb tenses. You don’t need to memorize the rules but you do need read about them, and more importantly study sentences in your SRS that demonstrate these rules. This book has enough example sentences for each of the verb tenses that you will learn how to use them well.

This book also does an excellent job of explaining many of the exceptions that you must deal with in Spanish, and identifies the patterns you will see with irregular verbs, as well as the cases where there is no pattern, like that fui/fuiste/fue/fuimos/fueron can be either ser or ir, which I did not know before. I can honestly say that my Spanish has improved a lot just because of this section of the book.

The 601 Verbs

The bulk of this book is the reference section for the 601 verbs. This section is neatly laid out, with one verb per page. The verb’s infinitive form and meaning in English are at the top of the page with all the possible conjugations laid out in charts neatly over the rest of the page.  The charts are very easy to read, with the suffix changes for each conjugation in bold. Some verbs in this section are highlighted as “must know verbs.” These pages have a light blue background instead of white, so that there are easy to see as you flip through the book. As a reference section it’s very well done, there’s only thing I think it lacks. In other verb books I’ve seen there are a few example sentences for each verb demonstrating the use of that verb in a several different tenses. Unfortunately this book does not have that.

Other sections

The book has a few more smaller sections in the back. The first is an activity section which is basically just a little test of how well you can use verbs in a sentence. Some of the questions are multiple choice and some are fill-in-the-blank. I haven’t tried quizzing myself with it just yet, but I intend to because this is another good source of sentences that show how the verbs are used.

The next section is a list of 75 “must know verbs,” which are the same 75 verbs highlighted in the main reference section. Following that are a list of tech verbs. The list is pretty short, and if you’ve already setup your computer for Spanish, you’ve probably seen most of these already. Following this is a section on text message abbreviations in Spanish. This is an interesting section, and maybe useful to those of you who text message with Spanish speakers. I can’t verify its utility though, as the only Spanish speaker that I send text messages to doesn’t know any of these abbreviations, although to be fair, we are in Texas and not in a Spanish-speaking country.

The next little section is a test preparation guide which are useful tips for students in academic settings, and they’re applicable for tests in subjects other than Spanish as well. Following this is the answer key to the earlier activity section. After that is the last section, which lists over 2500 more verbs. This section is actually great because if you could not find your verb in the main reference section, you can find it here with a short English definition and a page number which refers to a verb in the main reference section that conjugates in the exact same way. They really could have named this book 3101+ Verbs because that’s really what you get with this section.

The CD-ROM

Like many educational books, this book included a CD-ROM. Don’t waste your time with it. It contains an e-book for the iPod of useful phrases in Spanish. It only works with the iPod, and not any other music device. I don’t own an iPod so I borrowed one from a friend to review the CD-ROM. The installer program on the CD is very clunky and requires you to changes all sorts settings in iTunes that you may not want to change. Once installed on your iPod, the e-book is located under “Extras -> Notes.” The whole experience feels very kludgy and you’re really better off with a real travel guide if that’s what you’re after. There are actual mp3 files on the CD if you want to listen to Spanish pronunciation of the phrases in the e-book.

The Verdict

Because I find that numeric ratings are pretty useless, I like to give a score of either buy, borrow, or avoid. I rate this book as buy for any student of the Spanish language.

The Pros:

• Description of verb tenses are clearest and easiest to understand of any Spanish book I’ve read
• Covers typical verb stem-change patterns well
• Good example sentences demonstrating the various tenses
• The reference section is laid-out well
• Low price: the cover price is only $15.99
• You really get over 3101 verbs

The Cons:

• In the verb reference section there are no sentences for each of the verbs
• The CD-ROM is not very useful

Giveaway: Win a free copy of 601 Spanish Verbs

I have an extra copy of 601 Spanish Verbs that I will give to a randomly selected entrant. There are two ways to enter the drawing. The first way to enter is to leave a comment on this post. The second way is to send a tweet via Twitter that contains both the text “#babelhut.com” and a link to this article (it’s okay to use a url-shortener like tinyurl.com or bit.ly). The drawing is open to everyone. You may enter exactly twice, once in the comments on this post, and once on twitter.

The winner will be selected on Monday, June 22 June 29 and notified either by email or by a direct message on Twitter. Good luck!

Update: The deadline has been pushed by a week to give people more time to enter the drawing.

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 object to meet addons.mozilla.org’s standards.
• Added http://www.cinetube.es/ to video sites
• Fixed unicode text in search history being stored incorrectly. This change may cause you to lose your previous search history.
• Replaced CNN en Español with CNN Chile, since the Chile site actually contains news.
• Words selected in text areas can now be defined with the right-click menu.
• Added a menu to insert the punctuation characters: upside-down question mark and upside-down exclamation mark.

For those of you who aren’t yet using Barra de Español, it’s a Firefox toolbar for students of the Spanish language. Find out more from the original release announcement.