Suggesting words and topics
The list started with the words the owner chose. It grows the way the images do: someone proposes, the community judges, and an accepted word opens for images like any other.
What a word needs
- The Spanish word, spelled correctly, with its gender if it has one.
- The meaning in plain English. One meaning per word; a second meaning is a second word.
- A sound-alike, if you have one. Not required, but a word with a good keyword gets its first image much sooner.
What makes a good sound-alike
Say the Spanish out loud and listen for English. It doesn't have to cover the whole word; it has to cover enough to pull the word back. It has to be drawable: an object or a short scene, not an idea. And it should connect to the meaning in one gesture, so the image can show both.
| Word | Meaning | Sound-alike | Why it works |
|---|---|---|---|
| casa | house | casserole | a house shaped like a casserole dish |
| perro | dog | pear oar | a dog rowing a boat carved from a pear |
| cerradura | lock | cereal door | a cereal-box door with a padlock |
| azotea | rooftop | zoo tea | animals having tea on a roof |
| taladro | drill | tally drawer | a drill boring into a drawer of tally marks |
A word can have more than one keyword competing. Casa via casserole and casa via "quesay" can both exist, and the vote decides. Images are tied to a keyword, so two keywords are two separate contests.
Topics
Words are grouped into topics: the house, food, the body, travel, and so on. Topic pages show every word in the group with its image state, so you can see at a glance which words still need one. A suggested word goes into a topic when it's accepted.
Sentences
Words carry one short Spanish sentence that puts them in a natural place; the app speaks it aloud, and it stands in for an image on words that don't have one yet. The first 200 words have theirs, spoken; the rest follow. Sentences are drafted at a beginner level; the first 32 have been reviewed by the owner and the rest are awaiting his review. If you have a better one, say so in the word's comments.
Scope at launch
The app and this site open with the same 200 words, chosen by a written rule: beginner topics with a fixed number of seats each (family, food, the home, the body, animals, weather, town, clothes, colours, numbers, time, everyday verbs), filled with the words Spanish speakers use most often inside each topic, plus every word that already has an image. Each has its sentence and its recording. The rule is written down and anyone can rerun it; the list is what you see on this site. It grows as images and reviewed sentences arrive.