Update to the "Vocabularium" software

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 chemistry terms

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.

Update to Vocabularium

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

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.

New vocabulary and games

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

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

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.

Difficult Spanish words and 'falsos amigos'

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

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 vocabulary topic: the weather

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

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.

New sports vocabulary pages

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.