Baseball may be America’s pastime, but it’s a pretty big deal in many Spanish-speaking countries, too, especially in Mexico, and Caribbean countries like Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, to just name a few.

A couple of years ago I came across this great glossary on mlb.com with baseball words in Spanish.  It’s not surprising that there are a lot of cognates here considering where the sport originated. When I was teaching it came in handy for the chapter on sports, but it’s also fun to just play around with during a game if you’re a fan of baseball who’s learning Spanish!

Download the vocab sheet here!

I was privileged to have been contacted by Oxford University Press to review the children’s picture book, First Spanish Words, illustrated by David Melling and compiled by Neil Morris. For those of you who are teaching your children other languages, there is also a French and a German edition in the series. According to the press release,

each volume takes the reader on a picture-book journey through a child’s typical day. There is a bird’s eye view of an early morning at home, the journey to school, inside the classroom, at a birthday party and even a trip to the museum and the beach. Aside from the useful everyday items, these books also incorporate many children’s favorite things: airplanes, dinosaurs, and even fairy tale characters. Over 400 foreign words and their English translations are given on the side of each ilustrated page. These books also include supplementary material– a picture/word matching game, a learning to count page, indentifying shapes, opposites, the weather, time, and a comprehensive index.

I love the Where’s Waldo?-esque feeling to this book; on each page spread there are vocabulary words with small pictures of the items going down the sides, and then the items can be found in the large illustration that spans both pages. The book is colorful and the illustrations are full of life and energy. {I will insert here the only thing I found odd which is a strange dinosaur-like animal that appears randomly in the scenes throughout the book. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was or why it was in there, but hey, I’m sure little kids will like it just fine. }

From a language learning stance, I love that the vocabulary words are taught in context, within the child’s daily activities, and found within a picture of a somewhat familiar scene. Probably my favorite part about the book is the supplementary material in the back; that is what sets apart this book from your average children’s Spanish vocabulary book, in my opinion.

As the press release states, you’ll find a wide range and large amount of words to be learned in this book, which makes it pack a lot of punch for a fun picture book. I highly recommend First Spanish Words!

Now comes the fun part! Oxford University Press was generous enough to give me a second copy of the book to give away to one of you lucky readers!! I think this is the perfect first giveaway for Gidget Loves Language!

Here’s how to win:

Winner will be chosen randomly; you get 1 entry for each of these things you do with a total of 4 possible entries per person. Make sure you leave a comment for each of your entries (i.e. 1 telling me you subscribed, 1 with the link to your blog, etc.). Giveaway will end midnight, mountain time on Thursday, November 6, 2008.

1. Leave a comment telling me why you’d like to win this book.
2. Leave a comment telling me you subscribed to my blog via RSS or via email (if you already subscribe you can post a comment telling me that).
3. Leave a comment with a link to your blog, where you mention this giveaway.
4. Leave a comment saying you Stumbled or gave a thumbs up to any page at language.gidgetgoeshome.com via StumbleUpon (post a link to your SU profile in the comment to verify your thumbs up).

¡Buena suerte!