For the past couple of weeks I have been hard at work creating the framework for an Idiom dictionary for Tomisimo.

Why do idioms matter?

An idiom is a word or phrase that does not mean what it says literally, such as telling an actor to “break a leg“.

You can search the idiom dictionary in Spanish or English to find an idiom and (hopefully) get an equivalent idiom in the other language, or browse the idioms alphabetically in Spanish or in English.

Anyone who is a member of Tomisimo can also contribute idioms, translations and comment on each idiom page. If you’re not a member, now’s the time to sign up for a free account.

Special thanks go out to Rusty and Gemma who spent a lot of time testing the interface while I was developing it, and in the process entered literally hundreds of idioms and sayings.

This is a work in progress, so if you have any suggestions for improvement or see something that’s not working properly, please let me know in the comments so it can be fixed immediately.

On the technical side, I will choose a beginner to intermediate level Spanish word and then give the translation(s) for it in English, it’s gender, and then finish with a sample sentence, exemplifying its use. The sentence will also be translated into English, for easier understanding of the sentence if needed.

I will try to use additional, more advanced vocabulary and syntactic structures in the example sentence to make the daily word more relevant for more advanced learners. And given that the sample sentence is in both languages, hopefully it will be of benefit to learners of English as well.

Enjoy, and if you have any comments or suggestions, leave them here or on the forums.

I’ve sifted through all 113 posts from the last 365 days and the following are the cream of the crop, the most helpful posts of the year.

1. Five common mistakes that English speakers make when learning Spanish.

2. Seven tips for foreign language learning success.

3. The right way to use a bilingual dictionary.

4. Focus on learning the Spanish you’re interested in.

5. The 24 most useful Spanish words you can learn.

6. Nine vital factors in language learning.

7. Have you got attitude?

8. The one most important thing you can do to learn a foreign language.

9. Memory tricks to help you learn vocabulary.

10. Eleven way to learn Spanish or any other foreign language.

Here’s to hoping (and knowing) this coming year will be even better than this last one.

• Conjugate Spanish verbs by clicking the [conjugate] link beside them (it actually works now!) or by typing conj:someverb in the search box.
• Automatically look up the word you were searching for in the RAE, Merriam-Webster dictionary and on Dictionary.com by clicking the links at the bottom of the search results page.
• Get corrections if you mis-type a word. The search now offers a spelling suggestion at the top of the results if it detects a misspelled word.

I just wanted to mention these to you all so I could get your opinion of them– and if you think of any other things I could add to make the place better and easier to use, please let me know.

Tengo ya como tres semanas trabajando duro, parece que cada momento libre lo dedico a terminar este nuevo diseño para Tomísimo que ves aquí. Estoy muy animado porque me gusta como está quedando, y aunque faltan todavía algunas cosas que terminar, todo se va a ver bien. Pero quería preguntarte a ti ¿qué tal se ve? Si tienes alguna sugerencia, no dudes en ofrecérmela, quiero mejorar esto aún más.

Si notas algo del sitio que no funciona, o si tienes algún problema, por favor díme, que quiero arreglarlo.

Y por último, si no estabas aquí hace cuatro años cuando empecé este sitio, aquí te va cómo se veía.

I’ve been hard at work for the last few weeks putting the finishing touches on this new design you see around here. It’s been hard work, but it’s worth it because I really think it looks sharp. Of course, a few things still need to be done, and hopefully I haven’t broken anything important. But hey- enough about me- what do you think of it? Is it an OK design?

I think the site has come a long way since I first started it back in 2003. Here’s a screenshot from 2004 for all you history fanatics out there.

If you have any comments or even more importantly, if you see anything that’s broken or not working right, please do let me know in the comments below or via email.

It is now live.

There have been numerous other bugfixes and improvement with the dictionary. For example it now simply returns the first 100 results instead of returning only 90 results and splitting them across three pages. The forums have also been improved by moving over to new forum software.

If I go on, I won’t get anything else done today, so check it all out and let me know what you think.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that there’s a couple of keyboard shortcuts when using the dictionary. If you hit ’s’ it will take you directly to the search box so your hands don’t have to leave the keyboard. Also, you probably already know that you can click on any of the words in the results to search for that word. If you want to search for a phrase that’s there, just highlight it and hit ‘g’. You’ll be taken to the search box and whatever you had highlighted will be pasted in there so you can hit enter.

Dictionary keyboard shorcuts:
’s’ => Search
‘g’ => Go to the search box and paste whatever text you highlighted

EDIT #2: After thinking about this, it didn’t make any sense to use 2 different keys, so ’s’ works for both going to the search box or copying whatever text you have highlighted on the page into the search box. So…

s => Go to the Search box (if there’s any selected text on the page, it will be copied into the search box)
b => Ir a la Búsqueda (Si tienes texto en la página seleccionado, será copiado y pegado en el cuadro de búsqueda)

On Sunday, I decided to update my installation of SMF, the forum software I was previously using. The update went fairly well, I reinstalled my modifications and all looked good. The only problem (and I didn’t realize it at the time) was that there was an error in one of the script files that didn’t allow anyone to post anything. Now that’s not good.

The decision to buy vBulletin had already been made. I just hadn’t gotten up the nerve to drop the cash on it.

Purchasing vB was a breeze, I got my license key and downloaded the zip file withing minutes of paying. I also downloaded vB’s special conversion script called ImPex, and imported all the posts from SMF. All went well except some of the user’s avatars didn’t get imported correctly.

After that, I tweaked the templates and got the forums integrated with the rest of the site (I still need to change the colors to make it more congruent). Then I sent out a mass email to all the users notifying them of the change and of the fact that you all will have to change your passwords. I guess vBulletin can’t import the passwords, since they’re encrypted in the other script.

I’m really liking how this new software works. I hope you all like it too.

If you already have an account on the forums, be sure to reset your password and update your profile. If you don’t already have an account, come check out what it’s like and register for your own free account.

You might have noticed the burgundy buttons above; I’m testing out some slight design changes, and when I get it looking nice, I’ll push it out on the entire site. I know I’ve been working on redesigning the site for some time, but I’m really pushing to wrap this up and have a fresh look for 2007.

Let me know what you think.

You can use it too.

Just go to http://pda.tomisimo.org and search for the word you need.

I’ve tested this on a couple of phones and it seems to be working right. If you have a chance to test this out on your phone, pda, palm or other mobile device. I’d really appreciate it. If you have any problems or would like to suggest better formatting, design etc, please give me your feedback. I just created this last week and I’m more than open to improving it. You can leave feedback here in the comments or on the forums.