Wörter sind sowieso was tolles. Das finden auch andere. Über Wörter schreibt zum Beispiel Detlef Guertler im tazblog Wortistik. Beim Word Spy finden sich Neologismen dieser Tage (allerdings nur englischsprachige), während sich der Wortretter jener Worte annimmt, die womöglich im Alltag untergehen würden.

Übrigens findet hier in Magdeburg am Freitag und Samstag das Symposium Sprache und Humor statt. Da wirds wohl auch um Wörter und Worte und so gehen.

Abgesehen davon, dass ich da nur zustimmen kann und das Schablonengraffiti wirklich gelungen finde, ist noch anzumerken, dass in der spanischsprachigen Jugend-/Handysprache das @-Zeichen oftmals für die Sache des Gender Mainstreamings im Sprachgebrauch verwendet wird. Es ist ein wenig wie das Binnen-I blosz jünger und eleganter, da es feminine und maskuline Endung auf einfacher Weise ineinander vereinigt.

Desweiteren wäre vielleicht überhaupt das Wort wap@ hervorzuheben, dass wohl eine Pendant zum guap@ sein soll, das ich auch in Chile kennengelernt habe und so viel wie hübsch, schmuck, und süsz bedeutet.

There are several ways one can prepare a stay in a country with a different language besides formal courses. In my case i did tandem meetings with a Mexican girl in Magdeburg. For me this worked like a alarm clock for awakening my sleeping Spanish abilities that i once acquired in school. The idea is that two persons meet on a regular basis talking both in mother languages and the new one to be acquired. In this way the process of learning and teaching a language is combined. I think i will do this here too. Vamos a ver.

Furthermore i also did employ – claro – web 2.0 technologies. In this case it was podcasting. If you are into computer and internet things this one is for you: Latin Tech Talk. A podcast about information technology held in Spanish via Skype by several Latinos discussing the latest developments in the tech world. The good thing for beginners: technical terms often remain in English, so it is possible to follow the course of the conversation vaguely even though you might not understand all words.

In another podcast i learnt that reading a book still helps even if you almost understand nothing. You get accustomed to co-occurrence of words and the order in sentences. So much about my amateurish insights in learning a language.

The Word Nerds: This is an awesome show produced weekly covering words, their etymology, modern usage, and social implications. Very good! They are three eloquent teachers in the U.S. covering English, Latin, German, and other subjects.

IT Conversations: Most of the time this is actually not a ‘classical’ podcast, since it features many recordings of speeches at big tech conferences. But it has also interviews with people in the IT in general.

You can download the shows within the browser or you can subscribe to them with a podcatcher application, such as iTunes. Enjoy.

But if the dictionary can’t help me, there’s still WordLookup. Oh, as i’m writing these lines, i read that there’s a new version out which is commercial, yet it doesn’t seem have to many new features except a leaner interface. Since the previous, free version is still available and working, I guess i stick with the free one for a while.