I know it's not strictly to do with this club, but thought some of you might like to see the video I have just done of our holiday cruise around the Mediterranean.
The ships languages were English/Spanish, and there were lots of Spanish on board, so it was a good opportunity for me to practice my Spanish too.
You will need a fast connection and latest flash player to view the video. I've put a more compressed version underneath if it takes too long to load.…
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Posted by Jan on 19 August 2008 at 9:47am —
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We are doing a special price offer for our newsletter subscribers to our video courses, (next newsletter is due out 1st July) Only those receiving these newsletters will receive this offer so if you are interested in our Spanish courses, and haven't as yet subscribed to our newsletters, do so quick by filling in the form here, or on our main site www.spanishlanguagesite.com
This special offer will only be available for the first week in July, so don't delay.
I have added a podcast of Rosa pron…
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Posted by Jan on 30 June 2008 at 1:21pm —
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I'm adding lots of these games to our SLS Courses. Every video lesson page (88 of them) already has on-line interactive games to help members memorize the words and useful phrases written on each page, whilst they can listen to them being read out on the podcast
Now I am adding more general vocabulary games.
Here is an example of one for beginners of Spanish to learn vocabulary for
'the face'.
These general vocabulary lists don't have podcasts…
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Posted by Jan on 9 June 2008 at 5:30pm —
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Here is an archived copy of our
SLS June Newsletter.
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Posted by Jan on 7 June 2008 at 12:15pm —
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Anoche fuimos a Benidorm Palace
http://www.benidorm-palace.com/ para celebrar el cumpleaños de mi marido. Fue fantastico! Los bailarínes son estupendos, como eran los autros artistas. A nuestra mesa un magician -
http://www.martinjohnmagic.com/ Martin John, hago usos trucos de magia increible. Os aconsejo que irais pronto!
Last night, we went to Benidorm Palace
http://www.benidorm-palace.com/ to celebrate my husbands birthday. It…
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Posted by Jan on 11 May 2008 at 4:00pm —
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Matthew and I are very pleased to announce that we will be having a new partner join our SLS team very soon. Rosa is Spanish and has been helping up with our second course podcasts.
We felt it important that we have a Spanish person on board. Rosa speaks English quite well already, but is looking to improve, so whilst we can practice our Spanish with her, she can also get a bit of help from us.
Rosa is a journalist and will be writing two simple stories in Spanish for us to use. One for beginn…
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Posted by Jan on 10 May 2008 at 9:27am —
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Look to the left of the main page and you'll see a Twitter feed addition. Twitters, for those who don't know, are like miniature, one liner blogs, or online diaries. I thought of a good way to use them. I've been busy adding lots of Spanish peoples twitters to my account, and added a feed in this club, so anyone wanting to practice reading in Spanish, in short chunks, can use them.
Some of these people do blogs, so if you would like you could also go to their blogs or websites and have bigger c…
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Posted by Jan on 30 April 2008 at 1:20pm —
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If you live locally to us in the Costa Blanca area of Spain, get this weeks Round Town News and have a look out for my piece in the Costa Blanca Clubs article, where I tell people about this online Spanish Club.
costablancaclubs.com website and my other website costablancaforums.com have joined forces so that their club members get the benefit of having their own forum to use, and my forum members get the benefit of learning about new clubs in our area. They do a regular two week article in the…
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Posted by Jan on 25 April 2008 at 8:31am —
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I've done a video of the visit I made this morning to see the shell house and cave houses in Rojales. (excuse my spelling error on the video title)
It took the owner of the house two years to complete his work and now the house is up for sale.
The caves are used by local artist to exhibit their work. If you ever go there, stop and have a beer in the cave bar, it's yummy. One evening a month they have musicians playing from 10pm to midnight. Music ranges from Jazz to classical guitar.
Fee free…
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Posted by Jan on 15 April 2008 at 4:56pm —
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I have uploaded a copy of our first newsletter for those who haven't received it, but may wish to in the future.
Matthew and I plan on sending out a Monthly newsletter to the members of our online Spanish Courses, as well as to those who have expressed an interest by adding their name to the form on the main page.
The newsletter will be a combination of news of our spanishlanguagesite a few tips from Matthew on grammar and an idiom or joke of the month. When we are able, we will also include o…
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Posted by Jan on 5 April 2008 at 10:00am —
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Here are a few differences in the way that the English and Spanish do animal sounds:
English - Spanish
Bird
cheep cheep twee - pío pío
Cat
Meow - miao
Chicken
cluck cluck - caca-racá/cocorocó
Rooster
cock-a-doodle-doo - quiquiriquí/kikiriki
Baby chick
cheep/peep - pi-pi
Cow
Moo - muuu/meee
Bull
Snort – buff
Crocodile
Snap - clap/clack
Cuckoo
Cuckoo - cu-cu
Donkey
hee haw/eeyore - iha iha/ji-jo
Got any more?
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Posted by Jan on 4 April 2008 at 10:02am —
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I was in Spain in January 2008 with my pal Jean who absolutely adores animals in particular dogs. She has 2 dogs, Ella and Pepe, both of whom are getting on a bit and have suffered a lot over the last couple of years with ailments afflicting those of advancing years.
So imagine her glee when I told her that during our visit we would be taking part in the service in the church in Torrevieja for San Anton, the patron saint of domestic animals. I personally am not so besotted with animals but love…
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Posted by Liz on 27 March 2008 at 7:56pm —
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I started learning Spanish many years ago, after several wonderful holidays to Spain as a teenager, however I dabbled and achieved very little.
As time marched on I realised that I wanted to spend my later years in Spain and thus enrolled for a night school course. This had its good and bad sides. From a positive perspective it got me started: from a negative perspective it got a lot of other people started as well and I soon realised that I did not want to share the attention of my tutor with a…
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Posted by Liz on 26 March 2008 at 1:24pm —
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Whenever we, as foreigners, think of Spain, our thoughts usually conjure up images of sunny beaches, lively towns and cities, and noisy friendly Spanish people who love to party until the early hours of the morning. Nowadays, the work ethic in Spain is similar to that in any other European country, so how do they achieve this with their lifestyle? Simple - the Spanish sleep less. Working hours are little different from those in the rest of Europe, but from an early age the Spanish are brought up…
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Posted by Jan on 25 March 2008 at 9:30am —
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Just a thought, but would you like me to add a
help tab and page on how to do things in this club - like adding a photo or image to your profile? How to use the forums/blogs etc. ?
Let me know if you'd like this and I'll add a Help tab to the top.
The Google map page is a page under construction b.t.w. Apparently by editing the code you can add javascript for a google map and I thought it would be neat (sorry I got that word from my teenage daughter) to have a google map where we could…
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Posted by Jan on 12 March 2008 at 8:12pm —
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'El que no llora, no mama'.
Literally this means 'the one who doesn't cry, doesn't suckle', so the English equivalent idiom would be 'the squeaky wheel gets the grease'
Matthew
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Posted by Matthew on 12 March 2008 at 7:30am —
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Liz has been telling us about the film festival currently on in Manchester that she is enjoying in the forum. I have uploaded four podcasts from the site
http://www.vivafilmfestival.com/story.php?newsID=6 which explain what some of the films showing are about, three of the podcasts are in Spanish (good for comprehension practice) and one in English. You can find them in our music player below, or you can listen or download them on…
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Posted by Jan on 11 March 2008 at 12:00pm —
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No necesitar abuela = to blow your own trumpet.
For example: Pedro no necesita abuela = Peter blows his own trumpet
This is an interesting idiom, because it is based on the principle that it is your grandmother who gives you a lift and praises you, even when you don´t deserve it, so if you don´t need your grandmother, it´s probably because you are doing all the necessary praising of yourself, you are blowing your own trumpet.
Has anyone got any other favourite Spanish idioms?
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Posted by Matthew on 5 March 2008 at 11:55pm —
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Found this website today where you can download for free lots of classical Spanish books in pdf format.
Now you advanced learners have no excuse not to read
Here's the link:
www.bibliotecayacucho.gob.ve/fba/index.php?id=103
Let us know how you get on with them.
Jan
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Posted by Jan on 5 March 2008 at 5:40pm —
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Read this passage, then answer the questions below
1. LA ESCUELA
Voy a la escuela. Voy a la escuela el lunes, el martes, el miércoles, el jueves y el viernes. El sábado y el domingo no voy a la escuela. El sábado y el domingo estoy en casa. Soy un discípulo y estoy en la escuela. El discípulo aprende. Aprendo la aritmética, a leer y a escribir. Vd. aprende el español. Todos nosotros aprendemos diligentemente. Algunos discípulos no son diligentes. Algunos son perezosos. El maestro…
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Posted by Jan on 23 February 2008 at 9:30am —
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Video of my cruise on the med.
San Anton - saint of "mascotas"
Idiom of the Week
