Digame*, Ricardo

Mexican summers lull me into a perpetual siesta, augmented with lots of reading. My brain is a finely tuned, somewhat obsolete computer that must be kept in a climate-controlled environment or it goes into sleep mode, leaving me semi-comatose (and bored). Now summer's half-gone, and I've made almost no progress on my big goal: to improve my Spanish. I missed out on an intensive (and cheap!) course at Colegio Americano that took place while we were away on the boat.


With no teacher to demand my best performance, I have to nag myself into making progress. However, I have resources. Yesterday I started working with flash cards on SpanishDict, a website that has emailed me a word-a-day for months. Mexico Bob swears by flash cards and set up his own Cornflake System, but SpanishDict's flashcard system goes a step further with its Listen feature. A deep, mellow voice pronounces each word, complete with accents in the right place, running the vowels together like a regular native-born Spanish speaker. (Of course, Bob has Gina to do that for him.) 

I've named the voice Ricardo, after the actor Ricardo Montalban.

Comprehension is my greatest downfall, due to those run-together vowels. I could ask people to please write down what they're saying,  but such inconvenience would be a real conversation-killer.  These flashcards include a Recall level that requires me to type in the correct word when Ricardo says it, complete with accents. With a push of a button I can hear it as many times as I need to. I was scoring pretty high before I got to Recall, but I had to do the office supply topic over three times before I scored 100%.



The flashcards are organized by topic, such as days of the week, food items and colors at the easy level, to office supplies (medium level) on up to parts of the body at the hard level (this includes everything from hair follicles and eyelids to knees and belly button!)  I can print the cards out, too.


There's a Recognition level that shows a Spanish word and multiple-choice translations in English, timed so you have to stay on your toes.

My favorite flashcards cover common expressions such as, "Me saca del quicio." El quicio is literally a door hinge, so I'm assuming the rough translation is, "It makes me unhinged (or crazy)." 


If I'm feeling competitive and take the time to log in, the website will keep track of my results and list them along with other students on a Leaderboard, ranked by score.


One thing I really like is that each verb comes with its article, so you learn right away whether it's masculine or feminine. 


The site also a has complete Spanish/English dictionary, which is handy to keep open when I'm reading Mexican newspapers such as Expreso. And beyond individual words, you can translate an entire phrase.


Did I mention that SpanishDict is free?

*Digame = "tell me."