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This post was originally posted on Babelhut.

Can’t figure out how to type “¿Dónde está el baño?” on your keyboard? If you use Windows Vista, this article will tell you how to setup a Spanish keyboard so that you can type all those characters that aren’t standard on your keyboard. Users of older versions of Windows (XP, 2000, etc) won’t be able to use the directions exactly, but you should be able to get a general idea of how to setup a Spanish keyboard.

This post was originally posted on Babelhut.

I was on the phone with my friend Patrick, who has been my friend for about 12 years, and one of the things we discussed was our study of Spanish. Patrick has gone a little further than I have and I found his description of his study habits interesting. He doesn’t use an SRS program like myself or Thomas, but through his use of Rosetta Stone he has had some similar results to what users of SRS programs have seen. I asked him to write a brief description of his study methods so that I can post them here:

This post was originally posted on Babelhut.

I recently purchased a book called Spanish Verbs And Essentials of Grammar to strengthen my understanding of Spanish grammar and conjugation. I didn’t feel I was getting enough of this from my existing study materials. It’s funny how some themes seem to occur at the same time. On Friday, Ramses at Spanish Only posted Studying Grammar CAN Help. He discusses how much grammar has improved his study progress, which is what I am hoping for with my recent purchase.

This post was originally posted on Babelhut.

Earlier this evening I was reading a book to my five year old son as I do almost nightly. He and his brother are blessed to have a large collection of children’s books, many of them they have not read yet. A significant portion were given to them by a family friend who is a former school teacher who natively speaks Spanish and English. Most of the books are in English but a few are in Spanish. I’ve looked at a few of the Spanish books before but for the most part I am not far enough along in my studies to read them. I’m very much in a beginner with Spanish and I just don’t know enough words yet.

This post was originally posted on Babelhut.

“Al rescate” is Spanish for “to the rescue.”

Some of you may have noticed my lack of posts in the past couple of weeks. My work life and my home life conspired to consume any free time I had so that I could not even study new Spanish or Greek material, let alone write about it. I did manage, with the help of Mnemosyne, to maintain what I had already learned so that I was able to pick up where I left off. That little bit of maintenance did the job fantastically!

This post was originally posted on Babelhut.

Last night, having been delayed by sickness, I studied Step 2 of Spanish Step-by-Step. In this book, each chapter is called a step, which contains a list of sentences and phrases in Spanish which will introduce new words and concepts. At the end of each step is a section called “Instant Conversation” in which you read along with a conversation between Spanish-speaking people, followed by a quick test. Underneath each Spanish sentence or phrase is a line describing how to say the words, and underneath that is the English translation. Sprinkled between some of the sentences are little “sidebars” which explain new concepts or things to pay special attention to.

This post was originally posted on Babelhut.

Quite by accident, I found a site with a recording of a Greek alphabet song. I personally am far too shy to sing this aloud, even by myself, but this could be a good memory aid for those just learning the Greek alphabet. The rest of the site is pretty interesting as well. The author is a Christian Missionary in Mozambique with his family and has interesting little stories about life there.

This post was originally posted on Babelhut.

Spanish has been a back and forth battle for me for years. A better analogy would be a series of small border conflicts, as most of the time nothing is going on, but when I do decide to learn Spanish, I charge into it and I’m soon pushed back away, and nothing more happens for a while. I’ve finally had enough, and I’ve declared war! I will learn Spanish, and I intend to at least be able to hold a conversation, watch television in Spanish, and read a Spanish newspaper or book with ease.

This post was originally posted on Babelhut.

Εν αρχη (en archae) means “in the beginning.”

After 7 months without studying at all, I’ve finally sat down and spent some time a couple nights ago to study New Testament Greek (also called Koine Greek). I’m primarily following the lessons in a book called “Learn New Testament Greek” by John H. Dobson. I started on the third lesson as the first was all about the Greek alphabet, which I still remember, and the second lesson was mostly simple words that I also still remember.