Spanish-Kit..it's here (almost)

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Jeff Tirey
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Spanish-Kit..it's here (almost)

Post by Jeff Tirey »

Hi Everyone,

It's still very beta. I'm finalizing the site copy and getting some additional readers in place. In the next few weeks I'll get a Spanish Forum running. A long-term project is to find/develop free Spanish audio content. Oh, and I need to build some more Spanish vocabulary courses. At the top of my list is irregular verb forms.

One new and different feature is that there's an online Spanish grammar. It's online so that visitors can add their own comments about a specific grammar topic. Think of it as a grammar blog.

Anyone who's interested in learning Spanish should check it out. I'm learning Spanish myself.

http://www.spanish-kit.net/

thanks,
Jeff
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klewlis
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Post by klewlis »

looks good, jeff! congrats. :)
First say to yourself what you would be; then do what you need to do. ~Epictetus

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Post by Brinestorm »

¡Ese foro será magnífico! Me registraré ciertamente cuando el sitio está funcionando. :)

Textkit will soon be the Microsoft of the noble pursuit of linguistic self-education! :P

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Post by Episcopus »

185. a. II. dicen "quo" no

But seriously that site looks great I love the colour. It should indeed revive my pretty thick spanish cobwebs from the olds days!

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Post by GlottalGreekGeek »

*applause* Good luck, it looks like a neat project (one which I suspect will become greater than Textkit). If/when I get serious about Spanish, I may join.
Textkit will soon be the Microsoft of the noble pursuit of linguistic self-education!
*grinds teeth* Microsoft is a megolmaniac monopoly devoted to expanding its empire. Textkit is a labor of love, offered for free, which aims to help people, but does not make any attempt to drive other language-help websites and resources out of the net. I certainly do not hope that Textkit becomes like Microsoft, and I do not believe it will. I beseech you to find another comparison.

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Post by Kopio »

Slick looking site man! I wish you all the best of luck with it.

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Post by annis »

Jeff, how does the commenting work?

Would this be usable here for, say, a precis of Greek grammar?
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

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Post by Emma_85 »

Look great Jeff! :D

The online grammar looks great and I love the idea of being able to leave 'grammar comments'!

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Post by Jeff Tirey »

The comments feature I hope will take off.

It's simple how it works...

Anyone can post a comment to a particular page about content on that page. An admin email is sent to me for review, if I like it I click on a link to approve the posting to run live.

I WOULD like to try it for both Greek and Latin here. The problem is getting a Greek and Latin grammar keyed in. Latin would not be as bad, but Greek would be a significant amount of work.

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Post by annis »

jeff wrote:I WOULD like to try it for both Greek and Latin here. The problem is getting a Greek and Latin grammar keyed in. Latin would not be as bad, but Greek would be a significant amount of work.
Why more for Greek?
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

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Post by Emma_85 »

maybe because of the font and the fact that there is so much? :wink:

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Post by annis »

Emma_85 wrote:maybe because of the font
Hmm. Finally time for unicode?
and the fact that there is so much? :wink:
We should get on it, then. :mrgreen:
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

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Post by Turpissimus »

On the subject of classicists learning spanish, this seems appropriate.

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Post by Jeff Tirey »

annis wrote:
jeff wrote:I WOULD like to try it for both Greek and Latin here. The problem is getting a Greek and Latin grammar keyed in. Latin would not be as bad, but Greek would be a significant amount of work.
Why more for Greek?
It's harder to key in - don't you think? All the extra aspirations and accent marks. It's a bit more work.

We SHOULD get on it though. Maybe it could be a distributive project.
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Post by Brinestorm »

GlottalGreekGeek wrote:*grinds teeth* Microsoft is a megolmaniac monopoly devoted to expanding its empire. Textkit is a labor of love, offered for free, which aims to help people, but does not make any attempt to drive other language-help websites and resources out of the net. I certainly do not hope that Textkit becomes like Microsoft, and I do not believe it will. I beseech you to find another comparison.
I apologize for my metaphor, which was only intended to be interpreted at the basest of levels. Obviously I underestimated the critical eye of one particular Textkit member. :(

I don't even have the will to liken Textkit to something more appropriate after your post. :P

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Post by Bert »

Brinestorm wrote:
GlottalGreekGeek wrote:*grinds teeth* Microsoft is a megolmaniac monopoly devoted to expanding its empire. Textkit is a labor of love, offered for free, which aims to help people, but does not make any attempt to drive other language-help websites and resources out of the net. I certainly do not hope that Textkit becomes like Microsoft, and I do not believe it will. I beseech you to find another comparison.
I apologize for my metaphor, which was only intended to be interpreted at the basest of levels. Obviously I underestimated the critical eye of one particular Textkit member. :(

I don't even have the will to liken Textkit to something more appropriate after your post. :P
*hesitantly* Red Cross? Maybe not. It had the tainted blood scandal. How about Mother Theresa?
In a few years we won't be needing this discussion. Textkit will be household name like -United Nations- and -General Motors-.

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Magnificent!

Post by Jefferson Cicero »

Wonderful! You know, I never have come acrossd a freely downloadable Spanish grammar before, and I have looked. So the one you have provided is a great thing all by itself. I'm looking forward to the audio files! The grammar comments are a wonderful idea.

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Post by chrisb »

Great site! I shall re-learn a mostly forgotten language with it. Thank you.

Btw, will the audio files give a Castillian or a South American pronunciation of Spanish?

chrisb

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Post by Jeff Tirey »

chrisb wrote:Great site! I shall re-learn a mostly forgotten language with it. Thank you.

Btw, will the audio files give a Castillian or a South American pronunciation of Spanish?

chrisb
We'll need both. Ideally, I would even want some identical readings in both South American and Castillian so that a learner can hear the differences.

I'm not yet sure how to get the audio files produced. I'm banging around a lot of different ideas.

jeff
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Post by William »

Turpissimus wrote:On the subject of classicists learning spanish, this seems appropriate.
Very interesting read–thanks for the link. I can attest to the quality of Bodmer's The Loom of Language recommended at the start of the article.

William

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Post by Turpissimus »

Very interesting read–thanks for the link. I can attest to the quality of Bodmer's The Loom of Language recommended at the start of the article.
Yeah, I've got that book too. Alongside A Mouthful of Air by Anthony Burgess, it has to be one of the most interesting beginners' books ever written on languages.

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Post by Brinestorm »

Turpissimus wrote:Alongside A Mouthful of Air by Anthony Burgess, it has to be one of the most interesting beginners' books ever written on languages.
I bet the father of Nadsat has some interesting things to say on language. I ought to add it to my to-read list, ut it's already teeming with books I won't read for another decade. ;)

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Post by mingshey »

Very nice site, jeff!
Well, I took a bit of Spanish at the college but I forgot most of it. Someday I should refresh my memory and begin to teach myself Spanish, :D but it's near the far end of my LLL. :roll:

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Post by tdominus »

Excellent work. I can't wait 'til the reader texts are available. I hope there will be vocabulary and grammar automatic mailing lists too. (I could help with this)

Do you plan to have material to attract native speakers of Spanish?

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Post by Jeff Tirey »

tdominus wrote:Excellent work. I can't wait 'til the reader texts are available. I hope there will be vocabulary and grammar automatic mailing lists too. (I could help with this)

Do you plan to have material to attract native speakers of Spanish?
The readers are just about ready. I'll be posting 5 very soon. 3 of them are 'ok'. Very basic readings that is constructed and mechanical. But one of the readers is pretty good and another is excellent.

I'll be adding more vocabulary courses as time permits. At the top of my list will be an irregular verbs list.

It would be nice to get some native Spanish speakers to the site, but I'm no sure how? Perhaps I could find some advanced Spanish literature to post to attract them.

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Post by Turpissimus »

Perhaps I could find some advanced Spanish literature to post to attract them.
Jorge Luis Borges!!

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Post by eris »

Thank you for all your efforts, Jeff!

I just started learning Spanish this semester. My class is using the book, Sabias que...? 4th ed. by VanPatten.

If you decide to have some sort of book give-away (similar to the Ides of March contest), I would be more than happy to donate some books. Perhaps a handy dictionary & 501 Spanish verbs.

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Post by Bardo de Saldo »

Hi, Jeff. I´m not the greatest bard in the world, but I can offer you some audio recordings of poetry (not my poetry, don´t worry). My repertoire includes Boscán, Garcilaso, Quevedo, Góngora, Unamuno, Machado, Borges...

"in both South American and Castillian" (Jeff)

Castilian is both a noun and an adjective. As a noun, it is a PC sinonym of Spanish, so you can say that Mexicans, Chileans and Spaniards speak Castilian. As an adjective, it is an accent, so you can say that Mexicans speak Castilian with a Mexican accent, Chileans speak Castilian with a Chilean accent, and Spaniards speak Castilian with a Galician, Catalan, Andalucian, Aragonian, (...) or Castilian accent. (I myself speak with a Castilian accent with a touch of Catalan accent.)

Analogy: Texans speak English with a Texan accent, Australians speak English with an Australian accent, Welshmen speak English with a Welsh accent, and Englishmen speak English with an English accent.

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Post by Yhevhe »

Some Pablo Neruda on that site wouldn't hurt :D

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Post by phoebus »

Hi to the boards. I looked at Spanish Kit the other day and have been having lots of fun brushing up my spanish with Worman's First Reader. The subject matter and attitude at times lends a curious wonder for me as though reading in a dead language. My usual spanish dictionary lacks such useful words as hat-maker and Prussia, but I'm coping well enough so far.

It really is sparking up my spanish a little, and I'm truly grateful for the extra confidence here as this will plough back nicely into my limited latin and greek. The Worman has inadvertently made me laugh out loud on several occasions, mostly for when the content is most at variance with the attitudes of today. At the next moment, often after something funny, one is then plunged into paragraphs of fathomless obscurity, which again are rather perversely amusing to persevere through.

Roll on Worman Book Two! And congratulations on the site so far.

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Post by Jeff Tirey »

Hi Phoebus,

I'm glad you like it. In some strange way I like Worman's too. Without question is has many outdated beliefs and attitudes. Some of them about race and gender really bother me but I don't edit the book because it is what it is and on the whole it is still quite useful.

Still, its approach really does work. One thing that's neat is that there is absolutley no English in the book other than the author's introduction. With the help of the images, a reader really can make their way through the book without having to look words up.

My only complaint is that the subject matter is very basic and the sentences are a mechanical.

Have you tried yet, Elementary Spanish Reader?
http://www.spanish-kit.net/details-esh_ ... reader.php

This reader is excellent. The stories are fun and each lesson does a good job of advancing particular grammar topics.
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Post by Yhevhe »

Hi Jeff,

In the grammar section I've seen that sometimes you misspell some words, like auga for agua, or Halba for Habla. I'll make you know if I see another little things like that.

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Post by annis »

phoebus wrote:Hi to the boards. I looked at Spanish Kit the other day and have been having lots of fun brushing up my spanish with Worman's First Reader. The subject matter and attitude at times lends a curious wonder for me as though reading in a dead language. My usual spanish dictionary lacks such useful words as hat-maker and Prussia, but I'm coping well enough so far.
A friend of mine found an English-French phrasebook from the late 1800s. It is also a fascinating historical document. The "Steam Liner" section has sentences like "his presence is a burden to me."
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
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Post by adz000 »

The idea of Latin & Greek user-extensible grammars is really exciting. And as a distributed typing project the load won't be so onerous, you're sure to make discoveries along the way.

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