Are you looking to find the best resources to learn Spanish? It can be a little daunting at first when you realize that sentence structure is all over the place, and that native Spanish speakers in different countries seem to speak separate languages altogether. Whether you feel Spanish is currently confusing, too quick, or simply too hard to learn, we, at LinguaLinkup.com have compiled a list of resources to complement your lessons, so that you can reach your Spanish-speaking goals faster and easier than ever.
To see all of the resources on our website, take a look here at our list of the best resources to learn Spanish.
SpanishDict
Visit their website: https://www.spanishdict.com/
Having a great dictionary always helps!
You can be doing your homework and struggling with the content or the instructions themselves, or maybe reading a book to sharpen up your skills. Either way, a good dictionary will always help you reach your goals quicker, helping you connect meaning to words, and ultimately making your vocabulary more complete.
SpanishDict has an amazing translation feature, as well as a very well-designed interface to make the search experience very seamless.
We recommend reading a book a bit ahead of your level and have this dictionary to understand the meaning of more complex sentences. If you want to be extra about it, manually translate the more confusing parts to strengthen the aspects that you struggle with, then compare with the SpanishDict translation and revise.
TinyCards
Visit their website: Duolingo Spanish Course
TinyCards is the more customized version of your study materials. This site is hosted by Duolingo and is great for memorizing and mastering the more complex bits of Spanish, such as the conjugation common irregular verbs, or more advanced vocabulary/common slang. You can do it on a computer or a phone with their app and study on the go.
We recommend that you compile the content that you learn in your tutoring lessons and create a couple of flashcards on the topic. When you need to study, go through all of your material, and you will be amazed at the results you’ll get.
The site also has a feature where you can use other people’s flashcards, so if you don’t have time to create your own, you can study specific topics with other people’s (usually high quality) material.
Watching Movies & TV Series
Netflix/Amazon Prime/YouTube/Hulu
As weird as it sounds, watching series in Spanish with English subtitles can yield good results in getting accustomed to the sound of the language. If you’re advanced enough, watching it without subtitles is a great way of improving conversational listening skills. If you’re doubtful about this, watching movies or series is something you probably already do, feel free to check out this study for more information.
For beginners, watching them in English with Spanish subtitles is more recommendable.
We recommend Netflix because Spanish subtitles (and audio) are available almost in every movie, although they may lack in variety of content.
Amazon Prime might have a particular material that you like more, but certain users report that they can’t turn on Spanish subtitles on their US accounts. The problem is not there if you use a global subscription.
YouTube is great for finding a lot of material (maybe not series and movies), but make sure that the video you are watching has manually created Spanish subtitles, not auto-generated, which can be pretty confusing and counterproductive to your learning.
Finally, Hulu is good if you already have the service, but a Netflix or global Amazon Prime account is plain better if you are planning to get a new streaming service, simply due to the variety that you’ll find there.
Listen to music in the language
Again a weird one, but the repetitiveness of music, along with the fact that singing allows for a slower pronunciation that can help you understand the words better, listening to music in Spanish is a great idea. Zoé is a great psychedelic-pop band from Mexico, Soda Stereo, from Argentina hosts beautiful complex lyrics and a classic rock sound, and if you like the style, reggaeton and other party music is good too. The classic two options are Apple Music or Spotify, as well as YouTube if you’re used to streaming music there.
Lyricstraining.com is a great one if you’re looking for a more interactive experience, where you can sing-a-long or even complete lyrics out of the music that you hear.
Change your phone to Spanish
We do not recommend you do this if you are a plain beginner, but maybe after a couple of months of studying, changing your phone will do two things for you:
It will put you in real situations (doing a particular function on your phone or watching ads that you will get because of your phone language), and it will help you really settle down the basics (date and time, basic vocabulary).
If you are already an intermediate/advanced learner, changing your phone to Spanish is a must.
We truly hope that these resources help you on your path to learning this beautiful and useful language, the goal, in the end, is to immerse yourself in the language and sharpen up the parts that you struggle with. Your LinguaLinkup.com tutor will be very glad to answer your questions and recommend you even more resources adapted to your particular situation! Thank you for reading and good luck.
Social Media
More top online Spanish resources are right under your nose on social media. If you are on Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, or any other popular social media channel, make sure to follow popular pages in Spanish for memes, news, jokes, or pages dedicated to learning a new language. This way, even in your downtime, you’ll be absorbing new Spanish words. Go into your top social media channels and type in “Spanish”, “español + your interest in Spanish”, or just search in Spanish for what you’re interested in. Then start engaging with those communities as well.
Spanish Tutors
Hiring a Private Spanish tutor on Lingua Linkup is a great way to learn online. We offer 5 free paid lessons per month to our students where we still pay the tutors and you, the student, get a free Spanish lesson with a private tutor. You can email us at support@lingualinkup.com to ask for a free lesson to get started.