The official guardians of the Spanish languageyesterday launched a reading on YouTube of the Spanish masterpiece “Don Quixote de la Mancha” in order to promote the use of the language on the Internet.

Miguel de Cervantes´ 17th century novel was divided into 2,149 segments which will each be read out by member of the Royal Spanish Academy and volunteers from around the world on the video-sharing website.

Those who wish to take part in the project can sign up on www.youtube.com/elquijote and one of the segments will be assigned to them to be read in a video which they then post on YouTube.

There is only one condition to participating — that the reading be carried out in Spanish.

“The Spanish language does not occupy the space that it deserves on the Internet,” the secretary of the Royal Spanish Academy, Dario Villanueva, said during a presentation of the project.

“We want to denounce that and do something to correct it,” he added.

“Don Quixote,” the tale of a mad, errant knight and his sidekick, Sancho Panza, is one of the world´s most acclaimed literary works and helped to cement Spanish as a world language.

In the original, “Don Quixote” spans 126 chapters and nearly 1,000 pages. The novel was first published in 1605, with a second part 10 years later.

via AFP: Spain launches YouTube reading of ‘Don Quixote’.

Queen Sofia of Spain was snapped testing out her shiny new motor while on holiday this week. And though the white car didn´t look like anything flashy, it was among the first in a new generation of new eco cars.

The Pergeot Ion vehicle is a 100 per cent electric, zero-emission car which has a battery life of 80 miles per charge. It won´t be going on the market till December, but a prototype was sent to the Spanish royal – who will be trying it out for the next month – directly from Japan.

She was seen test-driving the model close to the Marivent Palace in Mallorca, where the Spanish Royal Family are spending their summer break.

She called the vehicle “phenomenal” and was said to have accepted Peugeot´s offer as a show of support for electric cars, which do not contaminate the environment.

via The green queen: Sofia takes electric car for a spin | Latest celebrity news hellomagazine.com.

Babylon Idiomas, the leading Spanish language school where you can learn Spanish in Spain and Latin America, has launched a Spanish home stay program called “Mi Profe” where students can learn the Spanish language at the home of their teacher.

Students can choose from three modules: 15, 20 or 30 hours per week of private classes. Full board accommodation is provided and at least three cultural and/or social activities are shared with the teacher and his/her family every week. The minimum age for Mi Profe is 14 years. Babylon Idiomas has developed a network of highly qualified Mi Profe teachers throughout Spain which allows the student to choose the region of his or her preference.

According to Dolores Coronado, Academic Director of Babylon Idiomas; “A home stay Spanish learning program really helps a student immerse completely in the language and the culture. You immediately apply what you learn during your study period which makes this the most efficient format of learning the Spanish language.”
Says Sandra Tavares, product manager for Mi Profe: “We saw a strong demand in the market for a premium, more tailored Spanish language product which our school environment could not provide. Mi Profe has been extremely well received by individual students and language travel agencies and we expect this segment to develop favourably in the years to come.”

About Babylon Idiomas: Babylon Idiomas S.L. operates four academic centres in Barcelona, Madrid, Sevilla and Valencia offering Spanish and English language classes. The company won the award for Best Spanish Language School in 2008 by Language Travel Magazine and has been accredited by Instituto Cervantes and many other international bodies.

For more information: http://www.babylon-idiomas.com/en/spanish-courses-mi-profe.htm or contact Sandra Tavares at sandra@babylon-idiomas.com or +34 93 488 1585.

English: shopping

Sample:

hacer la compra
to do the shopping

Quiero comprarme unos zapatos
I want to buy a pair of shoes

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English: meat

Sample:

No como carne
I don´t eat meat

carne de cerdo
pork

For a great Spanish course, easy to use with good results, try this one.

English: dessert

Sample:

De postre tomé un helado
I had ice cream for dessert

¿Qué hay de postre?
What´s for dessert?

For a great Spanish course, easy to use with good results, try this one.

English: Joke

Sample:

gastar una broma a alguien
to play a joke on someone

una broma pesada
a practical joke

For a great Spanish course, easy to use with good results, try this one.

Spanish: la farmacia

English: Chemist shop

Sample:

Lo compré en la farmacia
I bought it at the chemists shop

For a great Spanish course, easy to use with good results, try this one.

Spanish: la cabeza

English: head

Sample:

se arrascó la cabeza
he scratched his head

Al oírlos volví la cabeza
When I heard them I looked round.

For a great Spanish course, easy to use with good results, try this one.

After the English-speaking director yells “Cut” through 189 takes, Mr. Torres rips the letter “P” from a Pepsi sign behind him and boldly tells the director that in his neighborhood, it´s called “Pesi.”

This approach was a big hit, although somewhat controversial, in Argentina last year when Pepsi humorously renamed the brand “Pecsi” in keeping with Argentine accents. Now Pepsi is parsing different Spanish accents, adopting the “Pesi” spelling in Spain without the Argentine “C.”

In Argentina, the challenge for the brand´s agency, BBDO, was to do a price comparison with Coca-Cola to emphasize Pepsi´s lower price during the depths of the global economic crisis last year. The message was that in a tough economy, Pepsi costs one peso less than Coke, so you can either save money by drinking Pepsi, or save by drinking Pecsi.

“Changing Pepsi to Pecsi was a way of gaining closeness [to the consumer] and transcending a mere value message,” said Ramiro Rodriguez Cohen, a BBDO Argentina creative director.

Pepsi also created a Pecsipedia for Argentine slang that more than 1,500 people contributed to.

“This campaign is based on a universal insight: Pepsi is pronounced in many different ways, as was reflected in the BBDO Argentina campaign,” said a spokewoman for Pepsi´s agency in Spain, Contrapunto BBDO.

In Spain, the execution is different. In addition to the TV spot with Mr. Torres, Contrapunto BBDO also created a “making of” version that tells the whole narrative: Mr. Torres, a famous player who used to play for the Atletico Madrid soccer team, was hired to make a blockbuster Pepsi commercial, set in a space ship that´s surrounded by monsters and princesses. But the story changes dramatically when he takes his linguistic stand and becomes a true hero, defending his neighborhood and the way people speak there.

Both videos are on the website lodigascomolodigas.com (Spanish for “You say it like you say it”), which was created by Spanish agency La Despensa and attracted more than 200,000 visitors in the first two weeks.

Another video on the site introduces the Comando Pesi, a team charged with going first to Mr. Torres´ neighborhood and then to other parts of Spain to see how they pronounce the soft drink´s name and what other local expressions they use. Their local words and idioms will be added to the Real Pesipedia Española, which sounds like a spoof of the Real Academia Española, Spain´s conservative body responsible for establishing the rules governing the usage of the Spanish language.

As in Argentina, the overall message in Spain is, “Do you say ´Pepsi´ or ´Pesi´? If you say ´Pepsi,´ it´s correct. If you say ´Pesi,´ it´s even better. It doesn´t matter how you say it, you are saving either way.”

With all the buzz in Latin America about the Pecsi campaign, BBDO Argentina´s Mr. Cohen said he´s heard consumers in other Spanish-speaking countries like Mexico and Venezuela also have trouble with the standard pronunciation of Pepsi. “We are very proud that the success of the campaign in Argentina allows the concept to be applied in other parts of the world,” he said.

A Pepsi spokesman at the company´s New York headquarters said that other than Argentina and Spain, “There currently are no plans to use similar advertising in other Spanish-speaking markets.”

via Marketing: In Spain, Pepsi Becomes ‘Pesi’ – Global News – Advertising Age.