I just came across a webpage that has a picture of a small girl playing in the sand and then a bunch of questions in Spanish to ask children about the picture. There’s a vocabulary list too. You don’t have to be a kid to pick up some Spanish at this site…. I couldn’t remember one of the first words used, which turned out to be the word for bucket! No I didn’t have to pull out a dictionary to get it right, as there was a vocabulary list right there.

http://www.spanishplayground.net/learn-spanish-pictures-playing-sand/

There are a couple of links in the article to learning Spanish with pictures, so I clicked on one — thinking it might be a link to another website — but it was to a list of several more posts on that site, which looks to be a good site for learning Spanish, whether you are a child or not.

I admit it, I first came across the version in English and then went and found the version in Spanish… but I’m going to give you the Spanish version and then a link to the English version. See what you can make of it!

It’s titled…

Por su cuenta de facebook cayó asaltante de café internet

Something about Facebook and an internet cafe, right? Here is the link to the original newspaper article, but since it may not stay up, I’m never quite sure about newpaper articles, here is most of it:

Hasta el local llegaron dos hombres para alquilar dos computadores y poco después se acercaron a la caja registradora, con el señuelo de que iban a pagar, pero terminaron asaltando al administrador.

Ante la denuncia, uniformados llegaron al lugar para adelantar las primeras pesquisas y se encontraron con que uno de los asaltantes dejó abierta su cuenta de facebook, lo que les permitió llegar a su domicilio.

En la huida los hombres hurtaron una motocicleta, que fue recuperada por posteriormente.

Uno de los hombres fue capturado y puesto a disposición de la Fiscalía 106 de Cali.

Even if you don’t know a lot of the words, you may be able to figure it out… I have bolded the key sentence.

Here are two versions of the story in English: the one I came across first and the longer, more amusing one.

It’s surprising what you can figure out from some reading, even if you don’t know quite a few of the words.

I’ve recently been emailing with a man who has started a new website for learning Spanish. At http://www.espanishteacher.com/ you get his beginner course plus his 101 Spanish Verbs course for under $20 total. It all comes on a CD, and that includes free shipping in the US. He ships internationally too, maybe for a bit more cost, not sure.

I didn’t take it for a spin myself but I looked around the site and it looks good. He has quite a few happy customers.

Scott said in an email to me that his course involves listening, watching, and doing, and that he thinks the doing part is the strength of his course.

So if you are looking for a basic course, you might like to give it a try. If you do, come back here and post your thoughts about it!

Here are some of the topics: parts of speech, introduction to spanish verbs, it’s all about usted, phrases and questions, present tense irregular yo, boot verbs, pronunciations, ser vs estar, articles, and more.