Spanish Resources
If you search “Learn Spanish for Free”, endless pages of Spanish learning resources appear. With a disciplined study program, these resources can help advance your Spanish competency over time. Duolingo (Duolingo - Learn a language for free @duolingo ), one of the most well-known language learning platforms, is an excellent resource and can help students with A1/A2 competency if used as part of a broader program.
We encourage our students to use these programs in conjunction with their lessons with us.
Listening
One of the most important ingredients to learning Spanish is to acquire your “Spanish ear”. You do this by listening, and for this reason, we encourage students to listen to podcasts, radio, talk radio, and music in Spanish. There are numerous resources to help you with this activity including:
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​Music
- ​Listening to Spanish music exposes you to the vitality of Spanish culture and provides you with an opportunity to learn lyrics
- Learn Spanish for Free with Music Videos, Lyrics and Karaoke!
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Vocablulary
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Spanish Dictionary - SpanishDict
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Spanish Dictionary is a tremendous resource. Check out the vocabulary section to learn basic and intermediate vocabulary (SpanishDict Vocabulary ). Be sure to sign up for the Word of the Day and receive a daily email.
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Word Reference - https://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp
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Word Reference is an excellent dictionary that provides sentences so that the word being looked up is seen in context. You can also sign up for a Word of the Day email at Word Reference.
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Anki - Anki - powerful, intelligent flashcards
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Anki is a free flashcard app that uses spaced repetition to help with memorization. Anki has numerous vocabulary flashcards for Spanish.
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Memrise - Learn a language. Memrise is authentic, useful & personalised.
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An excellent resource to help with vocabulary and phrases
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Reading
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Reading Spanish children’s books, books in Spanish, and news articles will help you learn phrases and learn the word order of Spanish.
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Reading the news in Spanish will improve your vocabulary, immerse you in local culture, and help your retention. News is typically written at a basic language level and while you will initially not understand everything you read, you will eventually pick up the context of what is being said.​
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​​Newspapers in Spanish I Spanish Newspaper Articles I Newsdle
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BBC News in Spanish - Noticias - BBC News Mundo
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Movies and Television
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Many language learners have learned a second language by watching television. If you have a streaming service such as Netflix, you have an excellent and fun resource at your fingertips to learn Spanish. Initially, short programs are best but watch programs in Spanish and utilize the audio and subtitle features of the streaming service.
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Benefits:
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you are exposed to an immersive experience
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you learn colloquialisms and slang (a more realistic way of conversation)
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there is an ability to pause, rewind and rewatch
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its fun!
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How:
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watch a program in English and use Spanish subtitles. Then watch the same episode with Spanish audio and English subtitles and finally when your Spanish improves, watch the episode with Spanish audio and Spanish subtitles.
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make notes of words that you recognize and write down words that you do not understand and add them to your Spanish notebook.
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telenovelas (soap operas) in Spanish can be quite entertaining. In addition, the dialogue is often relatively simple which is of real help to beginners.
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