Mainly because I’m not doing it, but also because learning new things is difficult and I like to whine!
Too many times have I said I’ll start posting regularly again and it just hasn’t happened. So I won’t promise anything until you see some results. Between you and me, I did come back to post more [...]
Posts under ‘Spanish’
Learning Spanish sucks!
Where are my Spanish flatmates?
One of my rules for learning Spanish is to always live with Spanish speakers. This has been a good rule and resulted in a lot of the improvement. While I’ve stumbled off the optimum language learning path by having an English speaking girlfriend, things are about to get much worse.
Currently I live with 2 Polish [...]
The best Spanish course
The hands down best way I’ve learnt Spanish has been though my super secret new technique. Curious? You bet!
Now the best way for my technique to work is to be without a current partner. If you have a partner, this technique may cause you more problems than you’d like. Oops, did I give the secret [...]
Free online Spanish lessons
Loquella.com is offering free Spanish lessons using the popular FSI (Foreign Service Institute) teaching method. With a large number of lessons available already, it’s probably worth checking out. It is based on a learning by repetition method which I don’t like 100% because of the boredom factor but it’s free! Plus, learning by repetition does [...]
And the Oscar goes to…multiculturalism
After the Golden Globes I was about to launch into a post ranting about how foreign language films never seem to get the recognition they deserve. After the Oscar nominations were announced, I’m glad I held my tongue.
Babel is competing in seven categories, which is a good number for them since they use an impressive [...]
Spanish Reviews
I’ve been a busy little bee over the weekend and written up two reviews for your reading pleasure. Both are for learning Spanish but I hope to be expanding into different languages as this website grows. And, as always, reader submissions are always welcome…
So head over and check out the Reviews section to read the reviews on [...]
Cultural differences
Ok, so how truly liberal is your country? Would you ever find a politician, an elected politician even, with quite high standing in the party, pose nude? I was quite shocked when I saw this had happened in Spain, and the most amazing thing? No-one cares. It was a story that lasted one day. The [...]
Language use on the Internet
I found some interesting statistics of the languages used on the Internet and I’m sad to say it’s rather biased towards English at the moment. According to the research, 29.7% of internet users are English native speakers, 13.3% Chinese, 7.9% Japanese, 7.5% Spanish, 5.4% German, 4.6% French, 3.1% Portuguese, 3.1% Korean, 2.7% Italian, 2.2% Russian, [...]
When languages mix…badly
Words are often taken from other languages and imported into your own, sometimes with funny results. In Mexico, I’ve been told that it’s become increasing common to say “vacunar la carpeta.” Now to English speakers, you might not be surprised by this, thinking it simply means to “vacuum the carpet” and that is indeed what [...]
Changing your perspective
It’s hard to avoid some exposure to the media in your country. Whether you believe what they say or not is another question. An interesting example of this is a recent speech made by none other than the US’s beloved George W. Bush. The NY Times focuses almost exclusively on the decision to send more [...]