SpanishPod - johnb Conversations

Re: What floor?

johnb — 2008-06-20 05:03:36

Vivo en el sexto piso, y no hay ningún ascensor. Complejos de apartamentos sin un ascensor son muy comunes en China. I live on the sixth floor, and there is no elevator. Apartment complexes without elevators are common in China.

Re: Dialog Videos!

johnb — 2008-04-09 05:39:14

Thanks for the link, JP. The page that JP linked to will list all of the videos that I make -- I should make a couple a week as I go through the newbie and elementary lessons.

Re: What's your favorite pastime?

johnb — 2008-03-06 17:33:29

Me gusta caminar en el centro de Shanghai y estudiar idiomas. :)

Re: Writing Practice!!!

johnb — 2008-01-30 00:17:09

That's pretty cool. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like many people are writing in English... I'd be happy to correct people's English in exchange for Spanish or Chinese help, but without anything to correct I'll run out of credits sooner or later...

Re: Blog Show and Tell

johnb — 2008-01-18 02:03:48

I run a pair: My Chinese Life, which basically covers the sort of topics a blog titled "My Chinese Life" would be expected to cover, and AngrySwarm, which is about self-improvement (including language learning).

Re: How do you study vocab?

johnb — 2007-12-18 00:45:26

I love flashcards (or at least their electronic equivalents). They appeal to my analytic, statistics-loving side, I suppose. I'm somewhere right in-between thirsy and kerou85 -- I'm a native English speaker, but these days I used Chinese almost as much as English, and I'm learning Spanish along with SpanishPod. In learning Spanish I'm basically following the pattern that worked for me with Chinese: massive input (text and audio), extracting sentences that use vocabulary and grammar that I want to master and making them into flashcards (organized using Supermemo CE), then breaking specific trouble words (that is, those I can't seem to remember) into their own individual flashcards). Rinse, and repeat. I'm having mixed results with Spanish because (compared to Chinese) its grammar is more difficult, but its vocabulary is easier (lots of cognates, no characters), and grammar is harder to break into tiny repeatable chunks. That and I've been dividing my time between Spanish and 古文, and 古文 is destroying my mind :P

Re: How to type áéíúóñ¿¡

johnb — 2007-11-28 18:02:12

Oh, I missed one: ¡ is typed by pressing option + 1, not option + shift + 1.

Re: How to type áéíúóñ¿¡

johnb — 2007-11-28 14:18:52

On a Mac, you can type these characters straight from the English keyboard layout. To get any accented character, first you type the key combination for the accent, then you type the letter that should be accented. The accent mark on áéíóú is produced by typing option + e, then you type the letter you want accented. The ñ is produced by typing option + n and then the letter 'n'. The ¿ is produced by just holding the option key and typing a normal ?.

Re: Pay Phone

johnb — 2007-11-21 19:27:14

¿Cómo se dice "around" en español? What I want to say is: Hay muchos viejos en la acera around la oficina de ChinesePod. I'm I headed in the right direction with that, or totally lost? The dictionary has a lot of entries for "around," but I can't figure out which one to use, or if Spanish uses a different preposition altogether.

Re: Pics of the team

johnb — 2007-11-21 18:41:40

Muchos guapos! :P

Re: Pay Phone

johnb — 2007-11-21 18:13:51

How about... Hay un viejo hombre en la esquina. Can I say that? There are always old men standing around on the sidewalk near the office...

Re: Where are you from?

johnb — 2007-11-20 04:55:22

Yo soy John B. También soy de Florida, pero vivo en Shanghai.

Back to School Promotion!

johnb — 2007-09-03 23:52:53

Students all across the world (or at least across the northern hemisphere) are gearing up to go back to school, and many of them are going to be studying Spanish in the coming semester. We want to help, and so we’ve launched a Back to School promotion! Anyone with an active .edu e-mail address can purchase an 8-month Premium subscription for just US$99 -- $50 cheaper and two months longer than our normal $150 six-month Premium subscription.

To sign up, head over to the Back to School page. For more information, check out this blog post.

SpanishSense forum launched!

johnb — 2007-07-17 08:37:57

Hello, all! My name's John B, and I'm part of the Praxis team. I do a lot of my work on the ChinesePod side of the operations (mostly because my Chinese is about 100x better than my Spanish), but I'll pop in here from time to time.

Today I'd like to announce the launch of the SpanishSense forum. It just launched today, and is looking for a little love from the SpanishSense community. Go check it out!