Area 6 : News & Views

LATEST SITE NEWS

22nd November 2008: Sol's Guide to HARRY POTTER: Many of you will be aware that the launch date for the sixth film, "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince", has now been delayed until 17th July 2009. See the Characters page for a link to the Warner Bros site with a trailer of the film.

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7th November 2008: DUAL-LANGUAGE WORKSHEET SETS: Just a brief note to say that we've had *three* more completed vocabulary databases returned - English~Pinyin~Cantonese, English~Pinyin~Mandarin and Urdu. Our thanks to Shalem Lee in Australia for both sets of the Chinese, and to Ayub Shaikh in Pakistan for the Urdu.

Help from any language professionals amongst our visitors is now requested for checking the English~Pinyin~Cantonese, English~Pinyin~Mandarin, Spanish-English and Italian-English vocab databases, and also with the translation/checking of the Bulgarian-English content. There's a massive demand from visitors worldwide for these dual-language worksheets so any help would be much appreciated - see the 'contact' page for how to get in touch with us.

Lots else going on here, currently - the final link changes have now been made to Sol's Guide to Harry Potter, and the database amendments and re-outputs have been done for Andy's Guide to Pokémon. Still a little more work to be done there, but everything is progressing well :)

25th September 2008: PROJECT HAPPYCHILD NEWS: We're very happy to say that a new edition of the Newsletter is now up on line! We know there's been a long wait for this ... the longest ever ... but it's been an unbelievably-busy time here since the last one :) Thanks go to all our visitors for staying around while we've been immersed in all this pagebuilding.

19th September 2008: DUTCH AND ROMANIAN WORKSHEETS: Today a further two dual-language worksheet sets have been completed.

The full set of Dutch-English verbs worksheets and overview pages went on line late last night, completing the Dutch-English resource on the site here. Our thanks again to Tom Marreel (translating) and Agnes Boddington (checking) for all the many hours of free time they have given up to make this resource possible.

We have also, finally, been able to link in the long-awaited Romanian-English vocabulary worksheets, and renewed thanks go to Vera Costea (translating) and Anca Greere (checking) for the very many long hours they have put into the creation of this resource. And also for their checking of the interlinks right across the dual-language area, which has been of benefit for all the language sets as a whole.

Many of the people who have volunteered to help with translating or checking the databases for the free dual-language worksheets area lead extraordinarily-busy lives and we are honoured that they have chosen to help in this way. And we extend our thanks to them on behalf of the untold thousands of children and students who will be able to use these worksheets over the months and years ahead.

This huge block of language sets (eight verbs or vocabulary database sets up on line in only eight weeks!) brings to a close the bulk of the ongoing sets in preparation during the last couple of years.

There are of course further languages at various stages - Spanish vocabulary is undergoing its final checks, as is Italian vocabulary, and there have recently been test outputs for the newly-built areas for Bulgarian, Tamajeq, Vietnamese and Urdu. Details of these and other languages currently in preparation can be found on the Translators' page - along with a huge range of other languages where volunteer help from language professionals would be welcomed :)

... meanwhile we have 'other things' to progress, now, in other areas of the site - we'll be in touch again as soon as we can. Our thanks to all our visitors for bearing with us during these very intermittent updates :)

8th September 2008: ARABIC AND ITALIAN WORKSHEETS: We're highly delighted to say that 800+ English-Arabic verbs and vocabulary worksheets are now on line. It's probably true to say that this is the most comprehensive set of Arabic-English worksheets available to print free anywhere in the world. Our thanks for all their hard work go to Amgad Hassan Aly (translating) and Mahmoud Al-Kanani (checking) who have provided the Arabic content for both the verbs and the vocabulary worksheets, and the Wall-to-Wall Arabic area also now on line.

Also on line today are the English-Italian verbs worksheets, and thanks go to Ed Blankenship (translating) and Manuela Prince (checking). Work is ongoing for the Italian-English vocabulary worksheets which are scheduled to go on line some time later this year.

Something of a landmark day for us here! We'll be updating the rest of the site in line with the new additions, whenever time allows - and a Newsletter should be out fairly soon .....

17th August 2008: ENGLISH-DUTCH WORKSHEETS: Following last week's developments, we're very pleased to say that 400+ English-Dutch vocabulary worksheets have now gone on line - and our thanks go to Agnes Boddington and Tom Marreel who have been putting in a lot of hard work behind the scenes since February of this year, to make this happen.

Dutch-English verbs are also in progress so should be on line fairly soon, and there are yet more dual-language worksheet sets scheduled to arrive very shortly .....

8th August 2008: ENGLISH-GERMAN WORKSHEETS: Just a note to say that the English-German verbs worksheets have now been linked in - and our thanks again to Rosa Ramdour and Cornelia Bullen-Smith :)

German is the first "double" (vocabulary *and* verbs) to go up since we started the massive "Any Language to English" area in March 2005 and asked for volunteers to help with translating and checking, so as to make the huge range of over 800 themed worksheets available in other languages. Maybe fitting that the finish line has been crossed for the first time on 08.08.08, the same day as the start of the Beijing Olympics :)

There are quite a few other "doubles" now on the horizon - more complete dual-language sets scheduled to be on line later this year (see the Translators' page for details of languages for which vocabulary or verbs worksheets are already available, and other languages currently under construction). But we're still looking for volunteers for 'new' languages ..... Afrikaans, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bengali (Bangla), Cambodian, Danish, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Kurdish, Mongolian, Nepalese, Norwegian, Portuguese EP (European Portuguese), Punjabi, Serbian, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Welsh .....

We can put up a 'new dual-language 800-worksheet set' only a few weeks (sometimes *days*) after receiving the translated and checked databases. All the set-ups are now in place (including those for the complex conversions required for languages that use non-English character sets). So why not help, if you can?

Any language you like, even if it's not in the above list. If you can find your language visible on a web browser somewhere ..... then we should be able to make worksheets for your-language-to-English (all the worksheets test both ways). Even if you're not qualified to 'translate' or 'check' the database content, perhaps you know someone who is? We'd appreciate help from all quarters ..... so we're asking our visitors to help spread the word :)

24th July 2008: ENGLISH-GERMAN WORKSHEETS: We're delighted to say that 400+ English-German vocabulary worksheets have now gone on line - and our thanks go to Rosa Ramdour and Cornelia Bullen-Smith whose hard work over a very long time has made this possible.

German-English verbs will be along in the not-too-distant future, and several other language databases are nearing completion, so we hope to have more dual-language sets on line shortly :)

Our thanks to all the many people giving up their free time to make this happen - the Translators' page gives details of languages currently in progress, as well as details of where help is still needed.

6th July 2008: SOL'S GUIDE: The massive amount of set-up work to engineer the interlinking of tens of thousands of keywords (characters, magic and spells, locations, items and creatures) from all 198 chapters in all seven books, for Sol's Guide to Harry Potter has now been fully completed, and keywords for the first section have now been re-output (still a small amount of work to be done to tidy up links after the recent massive restructuring). Visitors to this area may wish to check out the Special Note here.

5th May 2008: A LEG TO STAND ON: Just a note to flag up a wonderful charity that helps provide corrective surgery and prosthetic limbs for disabled children in several countries.

Their annual rock benefit in London is being held on 15th May at the Café de Paris, 4 Coventry Street, London W1D 6BL. Individual tickets are a bit pricey (Ł125) but donations can be sent if wished via their USA site here (that site also has details of USA events).

1st April 2008: KEYWORDS FOR LEARNING: Our thanks go to the many site visitors here who have sent in wordsearches over a long period, for our "Keywords for Learning" area.

Updating this area has taken a long while! but only because so much has been going on elsewhere within the site. Our thanks to Mario in New Zealand who has just completed the new programming to enable the rest of the wordsearches received so far, to be created and uploaded - additions to new and existing categories include Plants, Ice Skating, Racing Cars, Ice Hockey, Chemistry, Composers, Rocks, Roads, Transport, Music, Concert Halls, Country Music and Solo Singers.

New sets-of-20-words are always welcomed for this area! See the main index page here for sample categories.

23rd February 2008: SPELLINGS, SOUNDS + MEANINGS: We're very pleased to say that over 2000 new worksheets have now gone on line, linked from the Sounds Database, alongside the related 400+ sound files already available. This area has now been completed!

Our thanks to Mario Becroft in New Zealand for all the programming work that has been required to generate the worksheets. These range across all the main sound sub-groups within the English language, and include wordsearches, crossword clues, spelling practice, writing practice and dictionary/meanings. Further template worksheets are also on line for lateral thinking, making crossword puzzles, and writing poems and MC Lyrics. All worksheets can be accessed via the main Sounds Database page.

13th January 2008: A belated Happy New Year to all our visitors! and sorry that contact over recent months has been so intermittent. We haven't been idle here of course! but what has been going on behind the scenes has been fairly demanding and there hasn't been space or time available to keep you all posted on what's taking place.

EVENTS CALENDAR 2008 / 2009: The new calendar has just gone on line - everything from celebrity golf days and gala events to coffee mornings and extreme adventure challenges. Something for everyone! and we hope that our regular visitors will find some way to raise funds for one of the featured Directory Charities or any that appear on the worldwide "projects helping kids" pages.

ANDY'S GUIDE TO POKÉMON: We're delighted to say that the upgrade and expansion of this area is almost complete now. Pokémon remains the area that brings most of our younger visitors into the site, but the games are demanding beyond belief (especially for younger kids) and the work now done to index and interlink the help sent in over the last seven years will provide a valuable and unique resource for the games. A somewhat daunting task, this one has been! but worth it, in the end. Take a look at the red/blue/yellow Pokédex for some idea of what has now been achieved.

ANY LANGUAGE TO ENGLISH: Progress on our free dual-language worksheets area has been solid over recent months (and our thanks go to the many translators and people checking, worldwide, who are giving their help free of charge). German-English vocabulary is almost ready-to-go; likewise German-English verbs, and Romanian-English vocabulary, with Spanish-English vocabulary not far behind. This is a *huge* undertaking and the new worksheets will be processed as soon as the final checks are completed.

Details of other languages in progress can be found on the Translators' page.

NEWSLETTERS - this website has been on line since 1998 - there have been a lot of Newsletters! The archive is here and the very last Newsletter is here.