I'm not going to give too much away until finalists are announced on Feb. 19, but some interesting contests appear to be shaping up for this year's About Spanish Language Readers' Choice Awards. La Antigua Guatemala (the colonial capital of Guatemala) and Madrid are picking up the most nominations for the best place to travel to learn Spanish, and iPhone and iPad owners are showing plenty of interest in nominating their favorite apps for Spanish students.
The travel category has received the most nominations including duplicates, while the iOS phone/tablet category has received the largest number of different nominations. In fact, there have been more iOS nominations than there have been in the desktop computer and Android categories added together.
Any reader of this site can make nominations in eight categories until the end of Monday EST, although you must first sign up for a free About.com account or log in via Facebook. A month of voting will begin next week. About.com launched the awards to encourage reader involvement and to provide a fun way for readers to recommend products or share their views.
Here are the eight categories:
- Best travel destination for learning Spanish: Nominees in addition to Antigua and Madrid so far include destinations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
- Best desktop software for people to learn Spanish: To be eligible, software should work in the Windows, Mac and/or Linux operating systems. Because of some nominations that have been made, this category also will include cloud-based software aimed at desktop computer users.
- Most admired person who speaks Spanish: Most nominees so far are political leaders, but the category is open to any living person who speaks Spanish.
- Best iPad and iPhone apps for people learning Spanish: Most nominations have been for instructional or reference software, although other types of apps are also eligible.
- Best Android apps for people learning Spanish: All types of apps are eligible provided they have some value in learning Spanish.
- Favorite Spanish-language entertainer: This category is broad enough to include book authors and movie directors.
- Best Spanish-language website: Any Spanish-language website that's safe for work or school is eligible, as long as it's not the Spanish version of an English-language site.
- Best online Spanish-English dictionary: If there's one you find yourself going back to repeatedly, make sure it's nominated.
Comments