From Saturday 7th July until Sunday 15th July we're taking a break. We're going to be out of the country and we'll not have access to email or to the web. All the automated parts of the podcast should continue to happen, eg. CBS 32 will be published on Monday 9th and MDP German will continue with daily programmes. However, we'll not be able to respond to emails or activate new signups. We have reflected this in signup pages on the websites.

The first half of 2007 has been fantastic - we're delighted that the podcasts are proving to be so popular and we're very grateful to all our faithful listeners. In the second half of 2007 there's even more exciting stuff coming with at least 3 new podcasts on the way and changes within the company which will allow us to bring you more consistent quality content. However, estamos muy cansados / siamo stanchi / wir sind sehr müde, and we need some family time and a good break. So please bear with us and we look forward to being back with you, refreshed, after 15th July! To all our listeners who are heading off on vacation: enjoy yourselves and do your best to use some of the language skills you've developed this year. We're going to be trying out our Danish!

Mark and the Radio Lingua team

Tags: news

We're delighted to announce today that My Daily Phrase Italian has just had its millionth download since the series began in January. We've just published our 80th programme and the series has around 4 weeks to go before it reaches its conclusion for current subscribers. Many thanks to all our listeners and we hope that users continue to find the podcast useful to pick up some basic Italian and to generate an interest in the language.

Tags: italian, news

With Apple's launch of iQuiz today I wonder if we're going to see a whole new type of sharing among iPod users. The quiz application works really well on the iPod: it comes with a music and movie trivia quiz and can also quiz you on the songs, artists and albums on your iPod. Very clever. But the most interesting thing from an educator's point of view about iQuiz is that it's open! Yes, you and I can create our own "trivia packs". Or learning units which are tested in a really novel interface complete with sound effects, count-downs, etc.

I've created a quiz based on the vocabulary contained in lesson 24 of Coffee Break Spanish, really to test how easy or otherwise it is to created quizzes. The answer: very! I used iQuizMaker, a companion piece of software from Aspyr (Mac only, but PC version coming in May). I'm really keen to see if there's an easy way to brand the quizzes with background artwork etc. So far I've had very little luck with the instructions on the Apple page.

Anyway, have a look at Lesson 24 iQuiz (zip file) and let us know what you think. NB. the iQuiz iPod game costs £0.79 or $0.99 and can be purchased on the iTunes Store.

Tags: news, developments

We must be doing something right! I was just having a look on US iTunes and have discovered that My Daily Phrase Italian has just joined Coffee Break Spanish in the top 10 overall podcasts on US iTunes! The only other body which has more than one podcast in the top 25 is National Public Radio. And they're kinda big...! We're not - we're a very small home-run business in the west of Scotland producing regular content which seems to be going down very well out there in podland!

It's been a really busy week - we launched two podcasts last Monday: MyDailyPhrase German will hopefully follow in our Italian podcast's footsteps, and LoveLingo was just a bit of fun for St Valentine's week. I was quite pleased to see that this morning we had the number 1, 2 and 3 spot on the UK iTunes Language Courses chart (2, 5 and 6 on the Education chart). I was actually a bit disappointed to see the "Mandarin Chinese Conversation" podcast from Times Online knock us off the top spot at the beginning of the week. Not because this isn't a quality production, but because it's not exactly independent. It's basically a podcasted version of a Teach Yourself course which is available in the shops. I just wonder how much the Times paid Hodder Education to distribute the CD in the Sunday Times last week and to offer the podcast for free. I wonder if that's the way podcasting is going... will the major publishers take over?

In the meantime we'll be quite happy to see what happens with MDP Italian, MDP German and, of course, Coffee Break Spanish.

Tags: italian, news

It seems our Norwegian friends are enjoying the Coffee Break Spanish experience: the podcast has just hit the number #1 spot on the Norwegian podcast list, making it the most popular podcast in Norway at the moment. There is some excellent repurposed programming from NRK in Norway, but we're delighted to be ahead of it! Thanks to all our Norwegian listeners for downloading the show. Tusen takk till alle våre norske venner som hører på Coffee Break Spanish!

Tags: spanish, news