Give us your feedback on Search policies

If you use Google all the time and have ideas about how we could provide a better Search experience for our users, we want your help. Send us your best Search policy suggestions by filling out this form. Your ideas could have a direct impact on Google.

As part of the recently-launched How Search Works website, we published our Search policy principles and a list of detailed Search content policies for the first time. Our goal was to show users how we think about controversial content in Search while still promoting fast access to the world's information.

But we’re always looking to do better, and we’re curious to know what our users think. That’s why we’d love to see your ideas for improving our Search policies and processes. Should we alert users if we suspect that there's not much information on the web about their query? How should Google surface information that might affect a website's ranking? How should we deal with businesses that we believe may be hacked? Should we do something completely different to support our users? Anything related to how we serve content in search results or interact with users is fair game.

Now’s your chance to make an impact and have fun doing it, so put on your thinking hats. You can submit entries using this form. We’ll review all of the submissions and contact some of the best contributors to discuss their ideas.

Happy searching!

P.S. If you need some ideas to get you started, check out this presentation from SMX West about Google’s search policies called "Walk a Mile in Google's Shoes: Dealing with Tough Calls in Search."

Patrick Thomas, Search Policy Specialist

Read More

I want to learn Spanish. Now what?

So you've decided to take the plunge and learn Spanish.   That's fantastic, but you may find yourself asking the question many people ask.  Where do I start?  What's a wanna-be Spanish speaker supposed to do?

Every week I meet Spanish students and speakers that ask me "How did you learn Spanish?".  Nearly everyone finds the answer quite surprising.

Soy un autodidacta del español
I taught myself how to speak Spanish

Autodidacta means self-taught.  Most people are surprised to hear that I never stepped foot inside of a traditional classroom.  Nor did I live in a Spanish speaking country.  In fact, I've never even done an immersion course.  So how did I learn Spanish?

I primarily learned how to speak Spanish by using audio courses and podcasts.   In fact, audio courses were the foundation of my learning.  My "classroom" was the driver's seat of my car, my textbooks were CD's and  the podcasts I downloaded religiously to my MP3 player.

Why use audio courses instead of taking classes?  Clearly that's a personal choice.  Here are a few of my reasons:

(1) They're portable.  Put them on your phone or MP3 player and you can take them everywhere.
(2) You can't get the amount of instruction in one class that you can from an audio course.
(3) Compared to classes, they're amazingly inexpensive.
(4) You have 24 hour instruction available, anytime of the day or night.
(5) If you want to go through the material a second time, you don't have to pay again, you just start over.
(6) You can even find free audio courses if you know where to look

There are advantages to being in a classroom and having a teacher, but I decided to put all my eggs in the autodidacta basket and it paid off big time.    

Let's talk a little more about audio courses.  

It should come as no surprise that a trip to your local bookstore or a Google search will turn up an obscene number of products all promising to help you learn Spanish with their magical CD's.  The question now becomes which one(s) should I buy?

To answer that question we need to know what to look for in an audio course.  You can find plenty of quality products but that doesn't mean they're going to get you any closer to your goal of becoming a genuine Spanish speaker.  Sure, you may learn a few things, but that will be about it.  You need what I'm going to call a foundation course.

Let's talk about this idea of a foundation course.  A foundation course should teach you:

(1) How to conjugate verbs naturally, through using the language, not memorization
(2) Lots of practical vocabulary, the high percentage words you use in everyday speech
(3) How to think and form your own sentences in context
(4) How to speak Spanish naturally, the way a native speaker would
(5) Use the listen and repeat method. This really drives the material home.
(6) Not cost you an ojo de la cara
     (literally an eye of the face, or an arm and a leg as we know it)

There are many courses available and more being released everyday, but I'm only going to talk about the ones I used, because they meet all of the above criteria, especially #6.  And more importantly
because they worked for me.

I have to admit, when I first started learning Spanish I didn't know what I was doing or what I was looking for, much less what I actually needed in a Spanish course.  In fact, most people don't, especially if it's your first foreign language.

I started with an audio course called Learn in Your Car Spanish:  The Complete Language Course.   I learned quite a bit, mostly the basics, numbers, days of the week, etc., a few verb conjugations and some phrases that I just flat out memorized.  It was relatively cheap and it got me started.  However, even with it's 4 star rating, one trip to Mexico later I quickly realized it hadn't even come close to teaching me how to speak Spanish.

Several months later, along with more wasted money on numerous Spanish books, I somehow came across Learning Spanish Like Crazy.

In all honesty, when I first bought this course I listened to it for maybe 30 minutes, put it down and walked away from it for the next 2-3 months, maybe longer.  That was the (first) biggest mistake of my Spanish speaking career. After another trip to Mexico I decided to pick it up again, probably out of desperation.

I was thinking "well, I paid for this damn thing so I may as well use it".  It wasn't long before I realized I was sitting on a gold mine.   Let me tell you a little about the course and what I like about it.

To start off with, it's a $99 download (at least it was the last time I checked) and it consists of 30 lessons.  That's a bargain, trust me.  Over the course of those 30 lessons, (each one is 30 minutes or longer) they cover a lot of ground.  They take you from "Hola cómo estás" all the way to the subjunctive tense.

Learning Spanish Like Crazy will drill the verb conjugations into your head like no other course will.  On top of that you'll learn a ton of vocabulary.  Each lesson introduces new verbs and vocabulary that you continue to review and build upon throughout the course.  These aren't old fashioned memorization drills, these lessons use native speakers that teach you each and every verb conjugation via spoken Spanish, in context, using the listen and repeat approach.

I found the lessons engaging and if you put forth your share of the work, this course will have you speaking Spanish in no time.  I'm convinced buying this course and then level 2 and level 3 that later followed it was the best money I ever spent.  Anyway, don't take my word for it, Everybody is different and what works for me may not work for you.  Go to the website and check out the free lessons.

As great of a course Learning Spanish Like Crazy is, it's not the only option out there.  There's another course I recommend as a foundation course just as much as Learning Spanish Like Crazy and that course is Synergy Spanish.

Synergy Spanish is all about teaching you what you need to know in the simplest manner possible to get you communicating with Spanish speakers as quickly as possible.  Developed by Marcus SantaMaria, Synergy Spanish is in my opinion, one of the best courses out there.  I'd rank it in the top 3 without hesitation.  Marcus explains everything step-by-step and making it nearly impossible not to learn Spanish.

As far as I'm concerned, the man is a genius.  I used this course in conjunction with Learning Spanish Like Crazy and the two are a great compliment to each other.  Take a look at Synergy Spanish, Marcus offers several free lessons you can try.  I'm sorry there isn't pretty image I can show you, but hey, no course is perfect.  And last time I checked, the cost was around $60-70 and it's also downloadable.

Another course that I qualify as a foundation course is called FSI Spanish.

FSI stands for Foreign Service Institute.  They developed numerous language courses (it's an impressive list) that were and probably still are used to teach government employees.  FSI Spanish is a very good course.  In all honesty, I've only completed a few lessons, but that's only because I found out about it about long after I completed the other courses and I already was several years into my Spanish studies with the courses I mentioned above already underneath my belt.  You can download FSI Spanish here.

Did I mention FSI Spanish is free?  Yep,  FREE. There are many places that will attempt to charge you for it (including Amazon.com), but it's in the public domain so don't pay a nickel a for it.  Click on the links or the image above and download it for free.

The course consists of over 50 lessons and is more than worth taking a look at.  It covers all of the Spanish verb tenses, teaches a ton of vocabulary and is packed with lots of great drills to help you get a solid grasp on the language.  I recommend it, especially in conjunction with one or both the courses I mentioned above.  I know several people who have used all three.

There are also two other courses called Platiquemos and Pimsluer that are also modeled after FSI Spanish.

 


Personally I don't recommend either of these.  It's not that I don't like them (I actually own Platiquemos) , they're great courses.  I just don't think you should spend your hard earned cash on them because they're both so similar to FSI Spanish, which is free.  But honestly, take a look at both of them and read the reviews on Amazon.  Choose the courses that you think will work for you.

There's another course I really like, and that's Rocket Spanish.  In my humble opinion, Rocket Spanish rides the line between a foundation course and a conversational course.  It gives you a gentle introduction to Spanish and does a good job of simplifying complex topics.  I own this one too,  it's great stuff.  You may find it more suitable to your learning style.  Click here and take a look at what Rocket Spanish has to offer.

Well, I'm done.  Evaluate the courses above and choose what you feel is the best option for you.  I ended up buying several courses myself and found that they all complemented each other because each course offers it's own strengths and presents the material differently.

Got a suggestion for a good course that meets the 6 criteria above?  Leave a comment or even better lets talk about it on the Helping You Learn Spanish Facebook page.

If you don't think any of those are good options for you, then take a good look around Amazon.com to find something that's more your style, but yet fulfills the 6 criteria we identified as being necessary components of a good audio course.

That's enough rambling for one post.  Shortly I'll be writing about the best way to improve your conversational Spanish.

¡Hasta la próxima!

Read More

Discover great in-depth articles on Google

To understand a broad topic, sometimes you need more than a quick answer. Our research indicates perhaps 10% of people’s daily information needs fit this category -- topics like stem cell research, happiness, and love, to name just a few. That's why over the next few days we’ll be rolling out a new feature to help you find relevant in-depth articles in the main Google Search results.

Now sometimes when you're searching for a broad topic (on google.com in English to start), you'll find a new block of results like the following:

If you care about censorship, you'll find a thought-provoking article by Salman Rushdie in The New Yorker, a piece by our very own Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen in the Guardian, and another great article about Iran. If you're in the mood for something lighter, search for [lego], you'll find great in-depth articles about many different facets of the topic from gender to engineering to art. For some more examples, check out new search results for population growth, capital punishment and e-waste.

I'm happy to see people continue to invest in thoughtful in-depth content that will remain relevant for months or even years after publication. This is exactly what you'll find in the new feature. In addition to well-known publishers, you'll also find some great articles from lesser-known publications and blogs. If you're a publisher or webmaster, check out our help center article and post on the Webmaster Central blog to learn more.

Posted by Pandu Nayak, Member of Technical Staff

Read More

Hace mucho tiempo en una galaxia muy, muy, lejana

I run a Spanish Meet Up group in Atlanta and every week the same question comes up, "How long have you been studying Spanish?"  And my answer is always the same:

Llevo casi 10 años aprendiendo español
I've been learning Spanish for almost 10 years

Some of you may be surprised to see that you can answer that question with the verb llevar, but that's a lesson for another day.

There's nothing wrong with that response.  In fact, you will probably impress your Spanish speaking friends with it.  So what are we here to talk about you ask?  The fact that you can say the same thing with the verb hacer.

Enough chit-chat, let's get on with it.

Before I get to how to answer the question, let me explain to you how to ask the question.  For that you'll need the phrase "hace cuánto tiempo".  

¿Hace cuánto tiempo que estudias español?
How long have you been studying Spanish?

That isn't a literal translation, so don't get caught up by that.  Now that we've got that out of the way, let's find out how to answer the question.  It's actually pretty simple.  The same verb you used to ask the question is the same verb you use to answer it.

Hace 10 años que estudio español
I've been studying for 10 years

That wasn't hard was it?  Let's look at another example:

¿Hace cuánto tiempo que no fumas?
How long has it been since you stopped smoking?

You see, hace (from the verb hacer) is your verb of choice for talking about how long ago you've been doing something or how long ago something happened.  Here are a few more examples:

¿Hace cuánto tiempo te mudaste a los Estados Unidos?
How long ago did you move to the United States?

Me mudé a los Estados Unidos hace 5 años
I moved to the United States 5 years ago

Hace mucho que no sé nada del él
I haven't heard from him in a long time

Hace mucho tiempo que no voy al cine
I haven't gone to the movies in a long time

Here are a few other ways you could have answered that last question.  You may not find these in your Spanish book, but trust me they're very common responses.

Hace mucho tiempo
A long time ago

uuuy, hace mucho
hmmm, a long time ago

Notice in that last example I omitted the word "tiempo", but it's understood.

Here's one more example:

We've known for a long time that women bring us happiness.

Lastly let's translate the title of this post:

Hace mucho tiempo en una galaxia muy, muy, lejana
A long time ago in a galaxy very, very far away

If you don't know what movie this line belongs to, well, I just don't know what to say.

Ya esta!  Así de facíl.  Any questions?  I know, I didn't translate that.  Consider it your tarea (homework).

Be sure to subscribe to this blog via email (at the very top of the right hand side of the page) and follow me on FaceBook to get additional tips on the Spanish language and even more free resources!

https://www.facebook.com/HelpingYouLearnSpanish

Oh!  I mentioned I run a Spanish Meet Up group in Atlanta.  Feel free to pay us a visit if you find yourself in our neck of the woods.  Just ask for the Spanish group, everybody there knows us.

Marlees Spanish Class

¡Hasta la próxima!

Read More

How to say would have in Spanish

My previous two post covered how to say could have and should have in Spanish.  Here are the links for those posts:

How to say Should Have in Spanish

How to say Could Have in Spanish

Today we'll finish off this series by looking at how to say Would Have in Spanish.

HOW TO SAY WOULD HAVE IN SPANISH

To say would have in Spanish, you need the verb haber.  Haber is an auxilary or helping verb, but don't worry about that for now.  All you need to do for the moment is learn the patterns I'm going to give you.  Eventually you'll have to know how to conjugate the verb haber in the conditional perfect tense, but today I'm going to do that for you, just like in the previous posts.

You also need to be able to form past participles.  If you read my other posts, you've already seen how to do that.  But for those of you who missed those posts, creating a past participle is easy.  All that means is you need the "-ido" or "-ado" version of the verb.  With the exception of a few irregular verbs, "-ido" and "-ado" are the only things you need to form the past participle of a verb.  Here's a very nice page that's explains how to do that in plain English.

Forming Past Participles

Just like before, I'm going to give you the basic pattern:

Haber + verb (past participle)

Let's go ahead and expand this pattern to include all the conjugations of haber in the conditional perfect tense.

I would have
Habría + verb (-ido, -ado)

You would have
Habrías + verb  (-ido, -ado)

He/she would have
Habría + verb  (-ido, -ado)

They would have
Habrían + verb  (-ido, -ado)

We should have
Habríamos + verb  (-ido, -ado)

If you read my previous posts on how to say could have and should have in Spanish, you already know we're going to work with the same examples as before.

Habría dormido más tiempo
I would have slept longer

She/He would have danced all night
 Ella Habría bailado toda la noche

We would have gone to the beach
Nos habríamos haber ido a la playa

They would have called
Habrían llamado

This is the part where I mention a few other resources where you can find help.  If you read the other posts you've already seen these.  If not, read on.  I think you'll find these suggestions to be quite useful.

Most likely you're going to need a little more help and practice to truly master how to say would have in Spanish.  One great source of practice is the book Spanish Verb Tenses.

Chapter 23 offers a great explanation of the conditional perfect tense and plenty of exercises for you to sharpen your skills with.

Click here or on the image to take a look at the book on Amazon.  You can get a peek inside the book as well.  I actually own this book and it's really helpful for learning how to conjugate any verb  tense, not just the conditional perfect.

There's also a Kindle version.

Another option to help you with those pesky verb conjugations that I wish had been around when I started is the Verbarrator.

It's an amazing tool that teaches you verb conjugations with practical examples that you can see and hear spoken by native speakers.  It will also add new vocabulary to your Spanish toolkit at the same time. I bought a copy and I'm not going to lie to you, if you take your Spanish seriously it's money well spent.  Anyway, click here or on the image to check it out.


So now you have a couple of options to help you with nailing down those conditional perfect verb tense conjugations, but mastering how to say would have in Spanish to the point where you can say it on demand with zero effort is another thing, and for that you'll need Learning Spanish Like Crazy Level 3.  Among other things it devotes two full lessons to saying would have in Spanish.  You can click here to check it out.

I hope you found today's topic useful.

¡Hasta la próxima!
Until next time!

Read More

Google Finance adds exchanges from Brazil, Turkey, Thailand, Austria, and Switzerland

We want you to have the world’s financial data at your fingertips. We’ve launched five new exchanges on Google Finance -- try these examples to see them in action:

BM&F Bovespa (Brazil): AmBev, Petrobras, Índice Bovespa
Borsa Istanbul (Turkey): Turkcell, İş Bankası
The Stock Exchange of Thailand: PTT, Siam Bank
SIX Swiss Exchange: Nestlé, Novartis, Swiss Market Index
Wiener Borse (Austria): OMV, Voestalpine

As always, you can see the full list of stock exchanges we make available.

Posted by Greg Pennington, Product Manager, Google Finance

Read More

How to say should have in Spanish

In my last post I talked about how to say could have in Spanish.  Today we're going to talk about how to say should have in Spanish.

If you didn't read my post on How to say could have in Spanish, just click here.

Now let's get to the task at hand.

HOW TO SAY SHOULD HAVE IN SPANISH

To say should have in Spanish, you need the verb deber.  Deber means should or ought to.  You will have to know how to conjugate the verb deber in the conditional tense, but don't worry, I'm going to help you with that too.  And just like saying could have in Spanish, you'll also need the helping verb haber.  It doesn't need to be conjugated, you just use it as is.

The last thing you need to know is how to form past participles.  All that means is you need to the "-ido" or "-ado" version of the verb.  With the exception of a few irregular verbs, "-ido" and "-ado" are the only things you need to form the past participle of a verb.  Here's a very nice page that's explains how to do that in plain English.

Forming Past Participles

Just like I did when I explained how to say could have in Spanish, I'm going to give you the basic pattern:

Deber + haber + verb (past participle)

Let's go ahead and expand this pattern to include all the conjugations of deber in the conditional tense.

I should have
Debería haber + verb (-ido, -ado)

You should have
Deberías haber  + verb  (-ido, -ado)

He/she should have
Debería haber  + verb  (-ido, -ado)

They should have
Deberían haber  + verb  (-ido, -ado)

We should have
Deberíamos haber  + verb  (-ido, -ado)

While those are helpful, nothing beats a few good examples. And just to keep things simple, I'm going to work with the same examples I used in the How to say could have in Spanish post.

Debería haber dormido más tiempo
I should have slept longer

She/He could have danced all night
 Ella debería haber bailado toda la noche

We should have gone to the beach
Nos debreríamos haber ido a la playa

They should have called
Deberían haber llamado

There you go.  Simple right?

Even though this really isn't that hard, you may find yourself needing a little extra help to really nail down those conditional verb tenses for deber, or any verb for that matter.  Here are a couple of suggestions.

If you're the old fashioned type and you like the traditional reading and writing exercises, a pretty good book to use is this one:

Click here or on the image to take a look at the book on Amazon.  You can get a peek inside the book as well.  I actually own this book and it's really helpful for learning how to conjugate any verb  tense, not just the conditional.

Another option to help you with those pesky verb conjugations that I wish had been around when I started is the Verbarrator.

It's an amazing tool that teaches you verb conjugations with practical examples that you can see and hear spoken by native speakers.  It will also add new vocabulary to your Spanish toolkit at the same time. I bought a copy and I'm not going to lie to you, if you take your Spanish seriously it's money well spent.  Anyway, click here or on the image to check it out.



While I do think the Verbarrator is probably the best and most effective tool on the market for learning verb conjugations, you can still find plenty of free Spanish verb conjugation trainers on the internet with a simple Google search.  One that I used quite a bit in the past is the Spaleon Verb Conjugation Trainer.

So now you have a couple of options to help you with nailing down those conditional verb tense conjugations, but mastering how to say should have in Spanish to the point where you can say it on demand with zero effort is another thing, and for that you'll need Learning Spanish LikeCrazy Level 3.  Among other things it devotes two full lessons to saying should have in Spanish.  You can click here to check it out.

Well, enough is enough.  I hope you found today's topic useful.

¡Hasta la próxima!
Until next time!

Read More