2008 is officially here and I wanted to wish you all the best.

I hope this year will be a good year for learning Spanish. It should be, since the UN has declared 2008 the international year of languages in an effort to promote unity in diversity, and global understanding. Thanks Simon for that link.

So what are your plans and goals for 2008?

Today, December 28th is your opportunity to pull practical jokes on others in most Spanish speaking countries. It’s Día de los Santos Inocentes and it’s a bit like April 1st (April Fool’s Day) in the United States. Schoolchildren often borrow pencils or books from others, and then recite the refrain Inocente palomita que te dejaste engañar, sabiendo que en este día en nadie se puede confiar, not returning the borrowed item. It’s also a time for any kind of practical joke.

This custom is based on King Herod, who ordered all male children under three (the santos inocentes) in Bethlehem to be killed, hoping to avert being dethroned by Jesus who had been born a short time before.

So here’s your chance to pull a practical joke on someone, then call them an inocente palomita.

This post was supposed to have run yesterday, December 21, but I wasn't able to post it.

94 years ago today (Dec. 21), in 1913, Arthur Wynne published the first crossword puzzle, called the Word-Cross puzzle, in the New York World.

In remembrance of Mr. Wynne, and to get us into the Chistmas Spirit, I thought I'd give you all a Christmas themed crossword puzzle. The words are all in Spanish, with no accent marks. So enjoy this crucigrama navideño.

Across

1. una noche que no es mala
2. uno de los tres regalos
3. objeto redondo
4. donde estás ahora
5. día de regalos en algunos países
6. quien cuida a las ovejas
7. mensajero de Dios
8. uno de los tres regalos
9. quien nació
10. un tipo de pan
11. oveja
12. árbol de hojas verdes

Down

1. muchas luces
2. que se usa para adornar
3. algo que te dan
4. los parientes más cercanos
5. ave que se come
6. uno de los tres regalos
7. mamá de Jesús
8. planta supersticiosa
9. canción navideña
10. cobija blanca de la tierra
11. día de regalos en algunos países
12. la última noche del año
13. primer día de enero
14. pequeña cama
15. trajeron regalos
16. bebida caliente
17. se le pone lucecitas
18. papá de Jesús

Google just began offering instant machine translations for Google Talk and Gmail.

You can access the new service from within Google Talk, the chat window in Gmail or any IM client that supports the Jabber protocol. To use the service, add these addresses as friends en2es@bot.talk.google.com for English to Spanish translations, or es2en@bot.talk.google.com for Spanish to English translations.

You can also add the robot to a group chat and let it translate between the two of you on the fly. Here is a complete list of languages and their codes that are available.

The translations are far from perfect, as you can see from the following dialog.

David: How good are translations when you use machine translation software?
en2es: ¿Cómo son buenas traducciones cuando utilice programas de traducción automática?

The translation probably should have been something like this: ¿Qué tan buenas son las traducciones cuando usas programas de traducción automática?

When translating from Spanish to English, you need to use all the correct punctuation marks and diacriticals to help it guess the right meaning.

David: Buenos dias como estas?
es2en: Hello like this?
David: Buenos días, ¿cómo estás?
es2en: Good morning, how are you?

In 2008 Lamborghini will offer a car called the Reventón to 20 people who can scrape together the million Euros to buy it.

The word reventón has various meanings for Spanish speakers, including party, explosion, burst, flat tire, and blowout. Lamborghini has also made cars called the Espada, Diablo, Murciélago, and Gallardo, but it’s not the only car manufacturer to use Spanish words to name cars.

Ford manufactured the Fiesta, Festiva, Pinto, Granada, Cortina, Sierra, and Bronco. Chevrolet sold the El Camino for a while. Dodge has the Durango, which is also the name of a Mexican state. Hyundai sells the Veracruz (another Mexican State), and the Santa Fe. In Toyota’s lineup are the Corona, Paseo, Premio, and Vista.

Do you know the meaning in Spanish of all the car models named above? Can you think of any more?

Picture credits: Tacoekkel and Zölle.