Is Podcasting revolution over before it began? BusinessWeek seems to think so and quotes Pew Internet & American Life Project’s statistics. The topic is also generating some buzz in the blogosphere, with BusinessWeek’s interpretation being gleefully accepted by some and thoughtfully rejected by others.
I believe into podcasting’s future because it is here already for me. I have a 40 minute walk to work each day, so I have over six hours of content a week I can consume.
(Update for June 2007: The website got reorganised and the link is gone. Fortunately, it was archived by WaybackMachine)
It is quite frustrating how often a good material hides so deep in a random website that it can only be found by total accident.
Such seems to be the case with Suspense, no suspenso. From what I can tell, it is a complete detective story book written in Spanish for an intermediate language learner and even includes some exercises for the teacher’s use.
I was listening to the Trying to Learn Spanish podcast and in its 11th episode somebody mentioned an interesting e-book (Thirteen Senses by Victor Villaseñor) that has parallel English and Spanish text and allows to quickly switch between them.
I like the idea of bilingual books, so I went hunting for it. The book is available for purchase in a couple of places, but I wanted to see an excerpt first to see the quality and ease of use.
This is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I could not avoid noticing the differences in phrases I am learning in Spanish as compared to the ones I was learning in French.
Both language classes spent a first couple of weeks with Name, Surname, Workplace, Street address, Phone number and suchlike. No surprise there, even though I don’t normally rattle out my full details at the first meeting with a stranger.
However, I distinctly remember also having to divulge my marital and parenthood status in the early French classes (e.
When I was studying French, my teacher liked to measure out the knowledge at her own pace. If you asked about something that in her study plan was a couple of weeks later, she would pretty much tell you to learn what you are supposed to know first.
Being the kind of person who likes to connect the dots and figure out what’s important and what’s not himself, I was somewhat annoyed at this spoon-fed method.