Update: User asdfforvo is the winner. Congratulations!

Have you planned your holidays? Well, you already know that you can count on Forvo to improve your pronunciation of those typical travel words but this year we want to help you even more.

Thanks to our friends at Alquiler Costa del Sol we are giving away a full week stay in a nice apartment in Algarrobo Costa, Málaga (Spain). Yes! The heart of the sunny Costa del Sol.

Do you want to participate? Just follow these two steps.

1. Send a “participation tweet” including your Forvo username, i.e. with my username in brackets “[israel] I’m going to the Costa del Sol with @forvo More info: http://tinyurl.com/36utn43“.
Click on this button to make it faster:

2. Add or pronounce a word in Forvo.
Every single word will count as a participation, so the more you collaborate the more your chances to win are. For example, 3 pronunciations count as 3 participations, it’s easy to understand.

The contest will be held between 07/14/2010 (16:00h*) and 07/21/2010 (16:00h*). The winner will be contacted and announced in this website after all the words and pronunciations are reviewed and validated. Give us a few days to do it. The participation tweet could be sent anytime from now on so we recommend you to join as soon as possible and start gathering words you want to add when the competition starts.

The prize includes:

- Apartment rental for 4 persons.
- Dates: A week of your election between 10/01/2010 to 12/15/2010.
- Features: Shared swimming pool, Shared garden, Fitted kitchen, Television, Air conditioning, Bed linen, Parking, Terrace.

The prize does not include:

- Transportation.
- Any other cost associated to your stay as meals, deposit to cover damage, etc.

The prize is available for any person older than 18.
The prize would not be refunded or changed in any way if the winner can not make use of it.

We hope you have a nice stay and a happy pronouncing!

* Time is UTC+2.

Almost everyday we find a new article or post about Forvo, here are some recent highlights:

- BBC.co.uk, in Persian.
- Habrahabr, in Russian.

What about new languages? We are working on these translations, if you want to collaborate it will be really appreciated:

- German (91% translated)
- Dutch (95% translated)
- Romanian (46% translated)
- Hindi (60% translated)
- Polish( 58% translated)

You have also a new way to stay in touch with Forvo news, our brand new Google Buzz profile. See you there!

Forvo supports the following manifesto:

A group of journalists, bloggers, professionals and creators want to express their firm opposition to the inclusion in a Draft Law of some changes to Spanish laws restricting the freedoms of expression, information and access to culture on the Internet. They also declare that:

1. Copyright should not be placed above citizens’ fundamental rights to privacy, security, presumption of innocence, effective judicial protection and freedom of expression.

2. Suspension of fundamental rights is and must remain an exclusive competence of judges. This blueprint, contrary to the provisions of Article 20.5 of the Spanish Constitution, places in the hands of the executive the power to keep Spanish citizens from accessing certain websites.

3. The proposed laws would create legal uncertainty across Spanish IT companies, damaging one of the few areas of development and future of our economy, hindering the creation of startups, introducing barriers to competition and slowing down its international projection.

4. The proposed laws threaten creativity and hinder cultural development. The Internet and new technologies have democratized the creation and publication of all types of content, which no longer depends on an old small industry but on multiple and different sources.

5. Authors, like all workers, are entitled to live out of their creative ideas, business models and activities linked to their creations. Trying to hold an obsolete industry with legislative changes is neither fair nor realistic. If their business model was based on controlling copies of any creation and this is not possible any more on the Internet, they should look for a new business model.

6. We believe that cultural industries need modern, effective, credible and affordable alternatives to survive. They also need to adapt to new social practices.

7. The Internet should be free and not have any interference from groups that seek to perpetuate obsolete business models and stop the free flow of human knowledge.

8. We ask the Government to guarantee net neutrality in Spain, as it will act as a framework in which a sustainable economy may develop.

9. We propose a real reform of intellectual property rights in order to ensure a society of knowledge, promote the public domain and limit abuses from copyright organizations.

10. In a democracy, laws and their amendments should only be adopted after a timely public debate and consultation with all involved parties. Legislative changes affecting fundamental rights can only be made in a Constitutional law.

More info: Wiki

Recents comments about Forvo in websites and TV.

- In Mexican TV: Noticieros de Televisa at 07:15 in the tv watch.

- In ReadWriteWeb: 5 great translation tools.

- In a Polish aggregator: Wykop

- In MetaFilter: You say poe-tay-toe.

We have introduced a new lovely feature: translations for each word. Thanks to the Google Translate service, now from every word page you will see that word translated from the original language (more than 50 languages in google´s tool) to the interface language (spanish and english at this moment).

So if translations are not perfect blame Google :)

All Forvo members hope you will enjoy and learn more with this new feature.

It seems that Chris Pirillo had a great time reviewing Forvo. See it for yourself:

Maybe we should link to this video when someone ask for a video description of Forvo. Well, at least the first part. Complete post.

Forvo has a great coverage in this week´s Startup Review. We sent it for a review and only two days later it´s online. That´s working fast!

A great article about Forvo in General Anzeiger (german required).

Great article about forvo.com in downloadsquad, a reference site about technology.

You can read it here: http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/07/16/forvo-helps-you-speak-like-a-native/