Dual language site for Spanish/English language learners

Storyflip is a free resource for Spanish who are learning English, and English who are learning Spanish. Its aim (with the help of volunteer readers,) is to help you learn to understand the language as it is spoken through the use of dual language audio-text.

The short stories, articles, phrases, jokes and vocabulary with audio, are written in English and in Spanish , in this way you can listen to the text being read out clearly by a native speaker whilst reading the text, helping you quickly develop an ear for the language you are learning.

They need volunteers who can speak clearly - native of Britain or America, to record themselves reading the English texts on the pages and send them to the site, so that they can be added. An accent doesn´t matter, because the same texts can be listened to in different accents.If you would like to help, please email your mp3 readings to info@storyflip.com

Great tax news for holiday home owners in Spain...

Alistair Darling may not have wanted to draw too much attention to it, but there was some positive news for owners of holiday homes in Spain that was buried away in the small print of his most recent Budget - and we thought you'd like to know about it!

The Budget stated that Britons with an unprofitable holiday home in an EU country outside of the UK (such as Spain) are now able to offset losses on their property against their earned income.

Until now, no Spanish holiday home owners have been able to do this, but HM Revenues and Customs have at last admitted this discrepancy may have been unlawful, and are therefore allowing owners to offset losses going back 5 years.

However, you must act fast, as this tax break will be banned completely by the UK government in April 2010.

Apparently you'll be eligible to claim back your losses if you've had your property available to rent out for more than 140 days of the year, and have actually achieved 70 days worth of rentals in that year.

If you feel this situation directly affects you, and would like more information about it, we would urge you to contact your UK accountant or financial advisor.

Information supplied by WIB member HomeCareOnTheWeb