Today we have a guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes for OnlineCollege.org, an online college resource.
If you want to learn Spanish at your own pace or if you just want to increase your knowledge outside of the classroom, there are plenty of resources online that can help. Here are 15 free sites, podcasts, Twitter feeds, online lessons, courses, and social networks for Spanish language learners. Most sites are for beginners, but sometimes even an intermediate learner can get something out of them.
StudySpanish.com – This comprehensive site has more than 1,000 pages of free learning materials for people who want to learn Spanish. Specific offerings include free Spanish tutorials and lessons for every level of learners, a word of the day, podcasts, and verb drills.
Spanish101.com – Spanish101.com offers a paid service, but the site also has free offering for Spanish language learners. Free offerings include language and conversation lessons, instant lesson discussions, podcast episodes, and a community forum.
LearnSpanishToday.com – LearnSpanishToday.com provides free Spanish lessons over the web. Visitors who sign up for a free membership can learn more than 500 Spanish words as well as hundreds of phrases and full sentences.
Spanish Language – The About.com Guide to Spanish Language provides grammar lessons, vocabulary lessons, online quizzes, community forums, and many other resources for people who want to learn Spanish for free.
SpanishDict – This Spanish learning website provides a free translator, free video courses, flashcards, and other helpful resources.
Coffee Break Spanish – This award-winning course from Radio Lingua Network provides free audio lessons for people who want to learn Spanish. Lessons are geared toward students at the beginner or intermediate level.
Rolling R’s – Rolling R’s is a free video podcast hosted by Larry Keim. The podcast provides free Spanish language lessons every other week.
LearnSpanishHQ – LearnSpanishHQ provides free and frequent tips, tools, and Spanish lessons through Twitter.
Spanish Language Exercises – This Ursinus College Resource provides instructor-check exercises and self-check exercises for Spanish language learners. Exercises are multiple choice and offer instant answers on self-check options.
Quizlet – Quizlet is a great place to study Spanish vocabulary. You can use the site to create your own flashcards or browse through the thousands of pre-made Spanish flashcards.
Cramberry – This unique flashcard site makes it easy to learn Spanish and other languages. Cramberry has a “smart” feature that records your progress and shows you the cards you have the most trouble with more often. You can use-premade Spanish flashcards or create your own study aids.
iTalki – iTalki offers almost everything someone needs to learn a new language. Visitors can ask questions, join a group, practice with a language partner, and find free learning resources.
Livemocha – This social language learning network is great for Spanish language learners who want to partner with native speakers. The site also provides free Spanish language lessons and other learning materials.
Babbel – Babbel makes Spanish language learning fun with interactive online courses, a vocabulary trainer, writing exercises, and a friendly community forum.
Contemporary Hispanic Literature Course – This free online course from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology explores Hispanic literature through reading and writing. It is a great course for advanced Spanish students who want to practice reading and writing the language.
Online EsPasa dictionary for free
Myngle launches in Spanish
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
This is a thorough list, thanks Ramses! Here are a few other sources I like that aren't specific to Spanish, but are still very useful for Spanish, among other languages.
Live tutoring: http://edufire.com/
This site has tons of tutors for Spanish or many other subjects. You can take 1:1 lessons or classes with up to 100 people, all through their online platform. They recently released a program called Superpass that allows a student to take unlimited Superpass classes for just $29 a month.
http://edufire.com/classes/spanish http://edufire.com/superpass
Reading and Writing: http://lang-8.com/
A journal service that allows people to write entries (or reviews, etc) in the language they are studying (Spanish, in this case). Native speakers correct the entries, and you in turn can correct their entries in your native language.
Language Partners: http://www.livemocha.com/
LiveMocha has a lot to offer, but one of the best features about it is the community. You can easily find a language partner, and there are plenty of members from all over the world. Actually, LiveMocha has been getting really big recently.
Thanks again for the list!
Thank you for the links Jerry. But EduFire isn't free, so it's not really useful for people that look for free resources.
http://www.MySpanishLife.com is a blog I just created to help you learn Spanish. I'm trying to make it super useful and interesting. One way to do that is by linking to website that have related content, and this site is full of it.
Thanks for the list, there are some good ones on here!
Hi there, at http://www.glovico.org (people from developing countries teach their mother tongues via Skype) you can get a free first lesson at least. Particularly for less common languages maybe worth a try?
Best, Tobias
Which sites are Better? I wasted a lot of time at spanishdict because they had so many mistakes in a lesson and quiz. It took a good part of the day figuring out if there was something I was just not getting or if they made an error.
I think this is the best place http://www.senorjordan.com/
Then if you want test yourself at a site like studyspanish.com
Spanishdict still has not corrected their errors and they expect you to use good grammar in Q& A even though the grammar lessons are sometimes wrong. They don't have a very good speaker on thier vids either. When I tried to get my rep points back after explaining that I was flagged because they thought the site might be in error,I was e mailed back that I was probably flagged for bad behavior. I then explained the situation again and then she lied and said she was not insinuating that I did anything wrong. Well I could go on but I only tried to help them and all I got back was BS. I did not think it was not just fair for me but for anyone to be flagged to get the attention of a mod for an issue not having to do with bad behavior because if you don't have the rep points ,you do not get into chat..I was not just about me or I would not have tried to help them in the first place.