Español-Inglés

Suggestiosn for new Spanish phrases

2011-03-10T09:51:00.003-06:00

I am looking for suggestions for new topics for the Spanish vocab and phrases section of the site. At the bottom of the page, I invite users to enter suggestions for new topics to be included.

Update to Spanish dictionary

2011-01-03T19:19:00.003-06:00

Following the server move over the weekend, the site's Spanish dictionary has been updated to include the latest additions and corrections. This update also fixes a problem whereby a few entries were previously not appearing.

Español-Inglés moving to a new server

2010-12-31T13:32:00.005-06:00

The Español-Inglés site today moves to a new upgraded server. As the move is finalised, there will surely be some gremlins which will be ironed out over the next few days.

The move has been deliberately timed to conincide with when most people should be sipping cava rather than doing Spanish translation and homework, but for those who are accessing the site over these next few days, thank you for your patience!

Further updates to the Spanish dictionary

2010-08-26T21:27:00.002-05:00

Today's update to the Spanish dictionary, as well as adding various new entries to the dictionary, improves on various entries for commonly looked up words. Further improvements are planned over the coming weeks -- watch this space!

Update to the Spanish dictionary

2010-08-16T09:18:00.002-05:00

Well, it's been a while, but the site's Spanish dictionary was updated today to include various new words and to expand a number of existing entries.

Spanish dictionary update

2009-11-25T17:19:00.002-06:00

Today's update to the Spanish dictionary brings additions and improvements to just over 1,100 entries in the dictionary.

Update to the "Vocabularium" software

2009-11-03T21:58:00.003-06:00

A small update to the Vocabularium Spanish vocabulary podcast software is now available for free download. For those not familiar with the software, it allows you to create vocabulary learning podcasts, relying on English and Spanish voices being installed on your computer (some free and good quality low-cost options are suggested: see the section on Spanish voice options for more details).

The software runs on Windows, Linux, Solaris and Mac OS. This update adds a new vocabulary topic (on school subjects). A few minor bugs have also been fixed.

Note that to save podcasts in MP3 format, you'll also require a plugin called LAME. See the aforementioned page for details of how to obtain LAME free of charge for your system. On Windows, the Vocabularium software can actually install LAME for you: follow the instructions that appear when you first run the program.

Spanish dictionary update

2009-11-02T22:16:00.002-06:00

Today's update adds various new entries to both the Spanish-English and English-Spanish sides of the dictionary. As with many updates, the new entries include both commonly-consulted everyday words, plus a number of technical terms.

Spanish dictionary update

2009-10-25T23:32:00.003-06:00

Today's update to the Spanish dictionary adds a number of new entries and improvements to existing entries. Various commonly-referenced entries in the English-Spanish side of the dictionary have also been improved.

Spanish dictionary update

2009-07-03T18:46:00.003-05:00

Today's update to the Spanish dictionary adds various new words and terms and improves the definitions of various common words.

Users of the dictionary may also be interested in an article I published a few weeks ago on improving your Spanish reading and dictionary skills.

Spanish chemistry terms

2009-06-25T14:33:00.003-05:00

In what will be a new series on Spanish technical vocabulary, a new section has been added to the Spanish vocabulary section of the site giving various instances of Spanish chemistry terminology.

The page starts with Spanish terms for various basic concepts such as atom, molecule, ion, bond. Then the names of different types of chemical and functional groups is given (the Spanish terms for aldehyde, ketone, ester etc).

The section on the Spanish names of chemical elements gives a list of common elements, some of which have traditional names which have undergone sound changes and are thus more difficult to predict (e.g. iron, derived from the Latin ferrum, is nowadays hierro in Spanish; sulphur is azufre). However, the names of many other elements can actually be dervied from a few simple rules, such as the fact that the ending -ium is practically always -io in Spanish.

A final section looks at how to describe chemical reactions in Spanish, including terms for different types of reaction and a few useful terms for describing chemical formulae.

Spanish dictionary update

2009-06-19T20:25:00.004-05:00

Well, after a slight hiatus while I caught up on some translation projects, the site's Spanish dictionary has been updated to include various new words and phrases. Notable words include patochada, the official Spanish word for "constructing a duck house at the public's expense", plus various medical terms (yes, I've been watching too many episodes of House recently).

Some new sections to both the Spanish and English grammar sections are also in the pipeline. Watch this space...

Book review: Correct your Spanish Blunders

2009-05-21T21:25:00.002-05:00

Beginner to intermediate level Spanish students (or those teaching Spanish at high school level) will be interested in the review of Correct your Spanish Blunders (McGraw-Hill) now available on the Español-Inglés site. As with its French counterpart, the book takes a particularly straightforward, practical approach to Spanish grammar that some students will welcome. It's probably fair to say that the book assumes that the reader has a small amount of previous knowledge of Spanish and basic grammar terms such as verb, tense etc. But with that in mind, the book covers most of the grammar you're likely to need at high school level in a compact, no-nonesense way.

As mentioned in the review, the main caveat is that more advanced students will be looking for something a little more in-depth, such as Butt & Benjamin's New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish, which covers more advanced topics such as regional and stylistic variation in Spanish, use of literary forms such as the future subjunctive, more detailed treatment of Spanish pronominal verbs, and in general a more "discursive" approach to grammar.

For many students, though, Correct your Spanish Blunders will hit the nail on the head in terms of providing just enough detail in just the right way. See the review for more details.

Spanish pronunciation and rhythm

2009-05-21T19:25:00.002-05:00

Users of the Español-Inglés site may be interested in an article I wrote recently entitled Improve your Spanish pronunciation: Getting the rhythm. The article looks in particular at how Spanish speakers divide their speech into syllables. The rhythm of speech can be an important factor in making it easier to understand. The article looks at some subtle cases that you may not have considered, for example, that the Spanish word usual is generally pronounced in two syllables, whereas its English counterpart generally has three.

Grammar section: Spanish object pronouns

2009-05-15T14:22:00.003-05:00

You may be interested in a recently added grammar section looking at Spanish object pronouns. As in related languages such as French and Italian, Spanish has a system of so-called clitic pronouns. When the object of a verb is a pronoun (the equivalent of English me, him etc), then that pronoun generally occurs as a kind of prefix to the verb.

For example, the Spanish for he/she saw is vio. To say he saw me (or she...), the Spanish would be me vio. The Spanish for me is coincidentally spelt the same as English. Note that the Spanish word me comes before the verb vio.

For some more examples and practice of these Spanish object pronouns placed before the verb, see the above link.

Coming soon: UK-specific site

2009-04-29T00:10:00.002-05:00

A UK-specific version of this site, at http://www.spanish-dictionary.co.uk/, will offer an interface to the Spanish dictionary and certain other UK-targeted versions of the Spanish resources available on the Español-Inglés site. UK-based users may therefore wish to bookmark the UK version of the site.

Spanish dictionary update

2009-04-27T23:33:00.002-05:00

Today's update to the Spanish dictionary adds various new words and example translations. And yes, I've you been wondering what is the Spanish for swine flu, now's your chance to find out...

Update to Vocabularium

2009-04-12T12:32:00.001-05:00

Version 0.03 of the Vocabularium podcast software now adds MP3 encoding support for Linux and Mac OS. It also adds a new vocabulary topic on The Human Body.

You can download the latest version of the software via the abovementioned link (entry on Freshmeat for this software), or directly via the Vocabularium home page.

Vocab podcast tool: minor bugfix and MacOS support

2009-04-09T19:11:00.002-05:00

A bugfix is included in the latest version of the free vocabulary podcast software available from the Español-Inglés site. The software now supports MacOS, although (as with Linux), only WAV format is supported at present on non-Windows platforms. Podcasts can of course be converted to other formats such as MP3 or Ogg Vorbis using a separate tool.

Vocabulary podcast creation tool

2009-03-30T23:47:00.004-06:00

The first version of this new tool allows you to create Spanish vocabulary podcasts from your computer. The podcasts are designed to help you to learn and reinforce your Spanish vocab on a variety of topics. The software has been tested under Windows XP, Windows Vista and Linux. Support will shortly be added to Mac OS.

The tool itself is currently available for download free of charge. It requires English and Spanish voices to be installed on your machine, and the link above gives more information on where to get these.

The vocabulary is taken from the Spanish phrases section of the web site, although it has been modified slightly for the podcast software.

Encuesta

2009-03-03T23:02:00.002-06:00

En la página principal del diccionario inglés-español, hacemos una encuesta en que le preguntamos a cada usuario de habla español cual es su nivel de inglés. Para responder a la pregunta, haz clic en el campo que dice "Selecciona un nivel" para escoger una de las cinco opciones.

En una próxima versión del diccionario, usaremos los resultados de esta encuesta anónima para mejorar la presentación del diccionario y para proporcionarle a cada usuario información que corresponda mejor a su nivel de aprendizaje.

Por tu participación en esta encuesta, muchísimas gracias. NC

New vocabulary and games

2009-03-01T13:41:00.002-06:00

A new vocabulary section on the human body in Spanish gives the Spanish words for various parts of the body, organised by area of the body (face and neck, upper body and hands, lower body, internal organs).

Also available in the Spanish crosswords section of the site are a couple of new games based on the following themes:

Spanish animals crossword, available in basic and advanced variants (the basic version has vocabulary typically required for GCSE/SAT level Spanish; the advanced version will be of interest to learners going beyond that level)
Spanish food crossword, which includes various Spanish names of meat, seafood and other types of food (taken from the food section of the Spanish vocabulary section).

New vocabulary topic: animals

2009-02-23T22:52:00.002-06:00

Some new pages of vocabulary have been added to the Spanish words and phrases section of the web site. The pages deal with the topic of Spanish words for animals, and for convenience are split into:

Names of mammals in Spanish
Names of fish and reptiles in Spanish
Names of insects and rodents in Spanish
Names of birds in Spanish (this topic also includes words for poultry and flightless birds)

As ever, the sections attempt to include common geographical variations that occur in the use of words for animals among Spanish speakers. However, if you come from a Spanish-speaking country where a different word is used for one of the animals listed (or indeed, if you want to suggest that another animal be added to the list), please leave an appropriate comment on this blog entry.

If you're learning the Spanish words for animals, you may also be interested in the vocabulary section on Spanish words for pets, which also includes a few useful phrases for describing your pet.

Updates/corrections

2009-02-14T19:20:00.003-06:00

A few updates to the site:

Improvements to the Spanish dictionary entries for several common verb forms such as tengo. (Unlike many dictionaries, the Español-Inglés site's dictionary actually treats some of these forms specially, and includes some common phrases with those declined forms as well as a redirection to the base form such as the infinitive.)
Various other new words and phrases have also been added to the dictionary.
A few additional entries in the list of Mexican Spanish words.
Some additions to the page on Spanish pronunciation, in particular the description of the Spanish ñ sound.

More dictionary updates!

2009-02-07T08:24:00.001-06:00

The latest updates to the Spanish dictionary add various new words and expand on the entries for various commonly referenced Spanish words.

Spanish dictionary: update

2009-02-02T18:26:00.001-06:00

The site's Spanish dictinary has been updated with various corrections and new entries. Various of the new words added are from the fields of science and technology.

The Pequeño Larousse Ilustrado: using a monolingual dictionary

2009-01-22T10:44:00.003-06:00

Students that have reached a medium to advanced level of study may be interested in a Spanish monolingual dictionary such as the Pequeño Larousse Ilustrado reviewed on this site. In the review, we look at the virtues and pitfalls of a monolingual dictionary for language learning, and one or two subtle language features to look out for in the dictionary definitions.

Do you use a monolingual dictionary in your Spanish studies? Do you use the Pequeño Larousse or did you opt for a different dictionary? How useful do you find it? As ever, we'd be interested to hear your comments and experiences.

Using the on-line Spanish exercises

2009-01-20T11:31:00.004-06:00

Various of the pages in the Spanish grammar section of the web site contain on-line grammar exercises that are designed to help you make sure that the information you are learning is "sinking in", or simply as a refresher if you're already familiar with the material. Particularly if the grammar point in question is new, it is worth spending a few minutes doing the corresponding exercise, as this will help the point in question to become part of your "active knowledge".

Note that to learn grammar and vocabulary effectively, most learners will have more success if they have a variety of experiences with that grammar or vocabulary: so your strategy for learning Spanish needs to encompass a variety of activities such as on-line exercises, "active" reading (where you're needing to look a small percentage of words up in a dictionary), creating a video diary or blog in Spanish etc. So the on-line exercises in the grammar section should be seen as part of this strategy, but you should also be actively looking for the examples of the grammar points you've learnt while reading, for example.

Now back to the exercises. There are essentially two ways in which you do most of the grammar exercises on the site:

for working privately or in small groups, you can fill in the exercise directly on the page
for larger groups, or when working with a whiteboard, you can use the exercise in full screen mode

In full screen mode, the question and answer are shown in a large font, and an on-screen keyboard appears below the exercise which will function as a touch-screen keyboard when using an interactive whiteboard. (Note that if you are looking for other Spanish activities to use on a interactive whiteboard, you may like to check out the Spanish wordsearch games and Spanish crossword games also available on the site.)

Private/small group use: filling in on the page

In this mode, you see ten questions at a time (1). To the right of each question, you fill in the answer (2). When you press ENTER (or TAB) inside one of the question boxes, that question will be "marked", and you'll start the next question. If you get the question wrong, you can go back. To type accents, you can either use one of the standard ways of typing accents, or you can use the accent buttons at the bottom of the exercise (3).

Vocabulary used in exercises

Note that the exercises will generally expect particular vocabulary to be used. If a word list isn't explicitly given on the page, then which word to use should be obvious from the type of exercise. (In the example -ar verb exercise pictured, if we're asked for a form of the verb meaning "to drink", this obviously would not be beber, as the latter is not an -ar verb!) However, if you're not sure which word to use, then most exercises have a vocabulary button (4), which will give you the list of vocabulary used by the exercise in question.

Full-screen/whiteboard mode

To use the exercises on a whiteboard (or with a large group), access the full screen mode (5). In this mode, questions are displayed one at a time, in large font, and the on-screen keyboard can is used to type the answer. In this mode, an overall numeric score is kept as follows:

3 points for an answer correct on the first attempt
2 points for an answer correct on the second attempt
1 point for an answer correct on the third attempt

Comments about the exercises are always welcome and can be left on this blog entry. Please contact the author if you wish to use these or similar exercises in your own web page.

Recordings in Spanish Pronunciation section

2009-01-15T12:10:00.004-06:00

Various recordings have been added to the section Spanish Pronunciation. If you haven't seen this section, you may wish to check it out: it presents a basic overview of the typical pronunciation of the various sounds/letters of Spanish, with some tips on how native speakers tend to pronounce the various sounds, and how they often differ from English.

Difficult Spanish words and 'falsos amigos'

2009-01-13T04:06:00.006-06:00

The site's section on difficult Spanish words looks at various items of Spanish vocabulary that can cause trouble for English-speaking learners (and sometimes foreign learners in general) because either they look similar to another Spanish word with different meaning, or because they wrongly lull the reader into thinking that they have a particular meaning.

For example, the Spanish word actual, generally carrying the meaning of current, presentday, would virtually never be translated by the English word actual. A carpeta in Spanish is a folder: nothing to do with carpets! Various books for Spanish learners give lists of similar words, sometimes referred to as falsos amigos or "false friends".

However, a problem with the typical list of falsos amigos is that many of these words sometimes can actually carry the meaning of their English counterpart. Many textbooks that give a simple list actually present a misleadingly pessimistic view! So in our treatment of tricky Spanish words on the Español-Inglés site, instead of a simple list of words, we try to give an explanation of how the word in question is used, comparing and contrasting it with the use of its apparent English counterpart.

Comments and suggestions for new falsos amigos or otherwise additions to the section are always welcome and can be left on this blog entry.

Spanish wordsearches/crosswords in PDF format

2009-01-01T18:04:00.005-06:00

Firstly, let me offer all users of the Español-Inglés site most hearty Felicidades for 2009!

The first new content of the year is some freely-downloadable Spanish crosswords and wordsearches, available in the new Spanish worksheets section of the web site. The activities are downloadable as PDF files, so you should be able to print them out from any machine that has a PDF reader installed.

The wordsearches and crosswords are organised into various themes, chosen from the basic Spanish section of the web site. Each PDF file includes several activities on the chosen theme, of varying levels of difficulty (small/medium/large grid size). Watch this space for further topics.

New Spanish vocab sections and word games

2008-12-17T20:00:00.003-06:00

The following new Spanish vocab sections have been added, along with corresponding on-line crossword games to help reinforce this vocabulary.

Christmas in Spanish: various words and phrases for Christmas and the New Year, including names of Christmas icons and foods traditional in Spanish-speaking countries. A corresponding Spanish Christmas crossword is also available.
House and furniture: the first page of this section deals with how to say different rooms of the hosue in Spanish, then the following page deals with more specific items found in different rooms. A corresponding home and furniture crossword is also available.
Clothes and accessories: covers the Spanish words for general terms such as coat and trousers, plus more detailed vocabulary. A corresponding Spanish clothes crossword is also available.

Dictionary update

2008-12-15T00:07:00.000-06:00

The latest update to the Spanish dictionary includes various new definitions and corrections.

Verb conjugations shown in Spanish dictionary entries

2008-11-10T22:52:00.003-06:00

The conjugations of many Spanish verbs are now shown in the corresponding Spanish dictionary entries. At present, conjugations are shown for verbs with "interesting conjugations": that is, either arbitrary irregularities in one of their stems, or a more typical vowel change (e.g. pedir > pido). Not every tense is shown:

the conditional is not shown, as it is completely predictable based on the future tense form (see the grammar sections on the future and conditional tenses for more information);
the past subjunctive is similarly predictable based on the preterite, so only the latter is shown;
only a single compound tense is shown, namely the perfect (he hecho etc); other compound tenses, e.g. the pluperfect (había hecho), are predictable based on the perfect.

See the Spanish verb tables section of the site for a list of semi-regular and irregular Spanish verb patterns, with accompanying notes.

Any suggestions or corrections to the verb conjugations displayed either within the dictionary entries or within the verb tables are welcome on this blog entry.

Text accentuation tool

2008-11-02T23:37:00.003-06:00

A simple text accentuation tool is available on the Español-Inglés site that allows you to add accents to a piece of text where you wouldn't normally be able to type the accents very easily. The tool is particularly aimed at adding accents to Spanish and French text, though various European languages are supported.

The tool uses a similar system to the Spanish translation tool, so that sequences such as the following are converted:

Sequence	Accent
e/	é
e\	è
n~	ñ
c,,	ç

The tool is implemented as a widget that you can embed in your own web page, blog, MySpace page etc. See the accentuator widget home page for more details.

English-Spanish lookup now recognises more inflections

2008-10-30T13:14:00.003-06:00

Improvements have been made to the site's English-Spanish dictionary to make it recognise more English inflections. In particular:

most irregular English verb forms are now recognised
many plural forms are also recognised where they weren't previously.

Continuing improvements are being made to the dictionary's handling of inflected word forms. The improvements that are being made are based on an analysis of failed lookups. Future work will include not only matching an inflected word form to its base word, but also helping the user to translate that inflected word into the other language. Watch this blog for more news!

New vocabulary topic: the weather

2008-10-23T23:48:00.002-05:00

Finally, find out how to say that it will be raining mainly on the plain, but with sunny intervals late afternoon. Well, almost. The new vocab section on Spanish weather phrases contains various adjectives and phrases useful for describing the weather in Spanish.

As well as simple present tense statements such as it's sunny, the section includes a brief summary of past tense forms of verbs commonly used for describing the weather (for example, if you're saying that the weather was sunny on holiday). A difficulty in Spanish as in many languages is deciding which of the various tenses to use (in particular between the preterite and imperfect). The new weather vocabulary section includse a brief overview of this problem with examples.

New flash card topics

2008-10-10T20:05:00.004-05:00

Some new Spanish flash card topics have been added. You can now print your own flash cards on the topics of greetings, sport, computing.

To print the flash cards, you will generally need to print in two runs. First of all, make sure you have "Spanish only" selected as illustrated opposite. After printing the Spanish side of the flash cards, put the printed pages back into your printer the other way round and select "English only". Normally, you shouldn't need to change the order of the pages before putting them through your printer the second time: the flash card printing program will reverse the order of the pages when printing the English words on the back.

Spanish-English dictionary update

2008-10-10T17:15:00.002-05:00

The latest update to the Spanish-English dictionary contains various new words and also includes some omissions from the previous update.

A new experimental auto-complete feature has also been added to the Spanish-English side of the dictionary. As you type a Spanish word to lool up, common Spanish words will be suggeste d that begin with the letters you have typed so far. Note that the system currently suggests only fairly common words, not every single Spanish word possible. Generally, only "base" forms (singulars of nouns, infinitives of verbs) are suggested. However, a small number of common inflected forms are also suggested.

Updates to Spanish grammar section

2008-10-09T20:54:00.003-05:00

Firstly, a few of the Spanish grammar section of the Español-Inglés web site have been updated. Principal updates include:

expansion of the section on the imperfect tense, with on-line imperfect tense exercises and information on when to use the imperfect tense including when to use the simple vs continuous forms of this tense;
a section on the future tense, again with simple future tense exercises to do on-line;
a section on the Spanish conditional tense with on-line exercises to allow you to practise conditional verb forms;
more information on when to use continuous verb forms in Spanish (and when not to use them!).

Another section of the Spanish Grammar section which is currently being extended is the material on the Spanish subjunctive. Several new pages are already available summarising and exemplifying the main uses of the subjunctive, with more on the way soon. Watch this space...

Dictionary update

2008-09-27T14:09:00.002-05:00

The latest update to the Spanish dictionary includes various corrections, improvements and new words in both the Spanish-English and English-Spanish side.

Spanish dictionary update

2008-08-30T07:30:00.003-05:00

The latest update to the Español-Inglés site's on-line Spanish dictionary adds a few 'everyday' words that were missing from the dictionary and contains translations of various new computing and technology-related terms such as whiteboard and wikify.

New sports vocabulary pages

2008-08-15T16:18:00.004-05:00

Several pages have been added to the basic Spanish vocabulary section giving sports vocabulary. The vocab has been organised into several sections:

Names of team games and ball games in Spanish: this includes your basic football etc;
Names of combat sports and martial arts: this includes your judo, taekwondo etc (without entering into a debate about which of these is officially a martial art...)
Names of winter and water sports covers Spanish names of a few sports such as canoeing, windsurfing...
The sports phrases section gives some more general sprots vocabulary;
Some specific Spanish terms for sportsmen and sportswomen (e.g. fútbol > futbolero) are included;
Also included is a more specialised section on Spanish football vocabulary. If you'd like to see a similar specialised section on your favourite sport, drop me a line....

Note that a section on card games and board games in Spanish is also available.

Spanish dictionary update

2008-08-05T21:10:00.002-05:00

The latest update to the English-Spanish dictionary includes translations for around 8,000 additional words, including a number of translations from Sofronio Calderón's 1915 Spanish-English-Tagalog dictionary (now out of copyright).

New Spanish vocabulary topics

2008-07-29T17:49:00.003-05:00

Two new vocabulary topics have been added to the Basic Spanish Phrases section of the web site:

Spanish computer vocabulary: including names of parts of a computer, plus phrases for describing computer-related activity such as checking e-mail, browsing the web etc.
Making reservations in Spanish: vocabulary related to making a hotel, train reservation etc.

Spanish translation tool

2008-07-24T21:36:00.003-05:00

An experimental automatic Spanish-English translation system has been added to the site. Like its French/English cousin, the tool is based on the Google Translate system and incorporates features such as extra orthographical correction, annotations on the resulting translation, and automatic submission of a variant to the translation system if it is detected that an alternative source sentence may give a more accurate translation.

Update to Spanish spellchecker

2008-07-19T13:05:00.003-05:00

The algorithm to the Spanish spellchecker has been improved. The spellchecker, built into the Spanish dictionary), is designed to help users find the correct word when they don't know the exact spelling. For example, typing aragante will find the Spanish word arrogante. As mentioned in the technical overview of the spellchecker, the algorithm is particularly designed to take into account spelling difficulties for non-native speakers of Spanish, so will suggest some alternatives (such as p for b or t for d in some cases) in words where native speakers probably would not have a doubt.

The update includes some improvements around how the spellchecker distinguishes between accented and non-accented syllables when suggesting spelling corrections.

Spanish dictionary update

2008-07-18T14:36:00.002-05:00

The Español-Inglés site's Spanish Dictionary has been updated. As usual, various new words and expressions have been added based on words searched for by users that were not in the dictionary. A few corrections have also been made.

Because of the methodology used, updates to the Spanish-English dictionary generally apply automatically to the English-Spanish dictionary.

Feedback on individual entries is always welcome via the feedback button at the bottom of the entry. Thank you to everyone who uses the dictionary for your valuable feedback.

DGT glossary available for English-Spanish

2008-07-08T15:07:00.003-05:00

DGT glossary entries are also now available for English-Spanish lookups. (See the previous post for more information.)

Dictionary update: DGT glossary beta

2008-07-08T00:08:00.004-05:00

This site is now trialling a new feature for the Spanish-English dictionary. Entries in the Spanish-English side now include related entries from the EC's DGT Multilingual Translation Memory. The latter is a set of translated terms extracted from a body of parallel texts produced by the European Union. Many of the entries are translations of technical or legal terms.

At present, approximately 15,000 translated terms from the DGT translation memory are included alongside this site's dictionary. They are clearly attributed under the heading "Terms from the DGT glossary" at the bottom of dictionary entries.

Not all terms from the DGT translation memory are included, since many are repetitious (e.g. translations of scores of similar chapter and article headings, "ARTICLE XX" etc), or are translations of large chunks of text. The filtering process used to select terms to include alongside dictionary entries is ongoing.

Dictionary update

2008-06-29T06:40:00.001-05:00

Various updates have been made to the Spanish Dictionary, including the addition of new words.

Bug fix: frequent word profile links

2008-06-29T06:37:00.003-05:00

A minor correction has been made to the frequent Spanish word profiles: a problem with the link formats meant some of the profiles for accented words were not displaying.

New vocabulary topic: daily routine

2008-05-25T23:51:00.003-05:00

The following page gives words and expressions related to daily routine and household chores:

Housework and daily routine

New grammar tutorials

2008-05-23T23:21:00.002-05:00

You may be interested in the following Spanish grammar tutorials added this week:

continuous verb forms in Spanish
the Spanish perfect tense and preterite
the present subjunctive
how to say I like in Spanish
how to choose between the preterite and perfect tense

The interactive parts of these tutorials require a recent version of Java to be installed.

Spanish flash card printing tool

2008-05-02T20:25:00.003-05:00

If you haven't already tried it, the Spanish flash card tool allows you to print your own vocab flash cards for free from this site.

Spanish word frequencies

2008-05-02T20:18:00.002-05:00

Look out for the new "word profile" feature in the Spanish-English section of the dictionary. Click on the view word profile link of a Spanish entry allows you to see statistical information about that word. For verbs, a breakdown of frequency of each tense usage is provided.

You may also be interested in the following (calculated from a sample of newspaper and magazine articles):

List of the most common words in Spanish.
List of the most common Spanish verb forms.

Dictionary update and methodology

2008-04-05T17:01:00.003-06:00

The Spanish dictionary has been updated.

For those interested, a couple of pages of information are available explaining the methodology used in compiling the Spanish-English dictionary.

Games: new crossword and wordsearch themes

2008-04-05T16:57:00.003-06:00

Crosswords and wordsearches are now available on the following themes:

New vocabulary topic

2008-04-05T16:55:00.002-06:00

See the new jobs and professions section of the basic Spanish vocabulary section.

Tutorial: Introduction to Spanish verbs

2008-04-05T16:50:00.002-06:00

A new interactive tutorial on Spanish verbs has been added to the Español-Inglés site. At the moment, this tutorial covers the present tense of -ar verbs, including common radical changing verbs.

Note that your browser must support Java in order to use the interactive exercises.

Tutorial: adjectives with 'ser' and 'estar'

2008-03-19T08:19:00.003-06:00

The first section of the new Interactive Tutorial section teaches you how to form basic sentences using adjectives and the present tense of ser and estar. The tutorials feature interactive "fridge magnets" exercises that allow you to practise forming sentences and aim to give feedback appropriate to your answers.

More tutorials using a similar style are in the pipeline. If you have any feedback on the adjectives tutorial, then please feel free to leave comments on this entry. We're particularly keen to hear from people using the "fridge magnets" exercises on a touch screen or interactive whiteboard.

New vocabulary topics

2008-02-12T18:21:00.000-06:00

A few new vocabulary topics have been added to the Spanish phrases section:

Some corresponding crossword games have also been added.

Suggestions for new topics are always welcome and can be left as a comment to this blog or on the site's feedback section.

Common Spanish verb forms

2008-02-12T18:14:00.000-06:00

If you're learning to read Spanish, you may find this new list of common Spanish verb forms useful. The idea is that buy learning these frequently-occurring forms, readers will find it easier to acquire new vocabulary from written Spanish before mastering the conjugation of verbs and tense forms generally.

The list was produced from a computer analysis of a corpus of around 2,000 contemporary newspaper and magazine articles. The list therefore reflects common verb forms found in this genre and writing style (for instance, third-person forms predominate, and there are a variety of verbs to do with "utterances", but fewer to do with "actions").

For convenience, the list has been split up into various semantic/syntactic categories (auxiliaries, action verbs etc). Note that the criteria for assigning the verbs to these different categories is rather ad-hoc and does not conform strictly to any particular semantic or syntactic theory.

New wordsearch and crossword games

2008-02-05T04:33:00.000-06:00

Some new crossword and wordsearch themes have been added.
Visitors are invited to leave comments on this entry suggesting further topics.

Palabras mexicanas

2007-11-16T22:42:00.000-06:00

Nos gustaría recibir tus comentarios sobre la lista de palabras mexicanas:
¿Vives en México y no usas una de las 'palabras mexicanas' que están en la tabla?
¿Utilizas en otro país hispanohablante una de las 'palabras mexicanas'?
¿Vives en España y no usas la 'palabra española' que hemos indicado?
Déjanos un comentario...