Sunday, April 15, 2012

Happy Hour Spanish

As usual, I ran across this resource as I was spending a bit of time this Happy Hour Spanish Logomorning on Twitter. Happy Hour Spanish is a fairly new site (2011) that features videocasts, podcasts and exercises to help you learn Spanish and about the Spanish culture.

Hayley, a California native, was a student of Maider who was teaching classes in Bilbao (her native city) when they decided to start the Happy Hour Spanish program. More information from the About Us page:

After becoming fast friends, we decided to embark on creating the ultimate language learning program based on our unique experience in both teaching and learning foreign languages. We have designed Happy Hour Spanish as a program that teaches Spanish grammar while also giving you an immersion-style experience of Spanish culture and the Spanish lifestyle.  We like to say you can consider our program a cross between “Rick Steve’s Europe” and “Rosetta Stone”.  Follow along with us on our video tours throughout Spain and enjoy all the sights and sounds the Iberian Peninsula has to offer while feeling what it is like to be immersed in a foreign language…

With the podcasts, you’ll find transcripts and translations. Accompanying the videocasts are transcripts, translations and printable exercises (beginner and intermediate).

Here is look at one of their videos about La Boqueria in Barcelona:

4 comments:

Ana said...

I really liked the idea, but, ugh, I tried to watch a few of them and between the music, the poor audio of who was speaking, and the distracting subtitles (I tried to ignore them, but it was hard - I find it very difficult to follow full-speed Spanish if I'm reading along, too), this was really difficult to watch. It was a great mix of culture, though - I just hope they find a way to clean up the audio (maybe with better recording equipment?) and stop playing background music.

Karen said...

I imagine they will improve. Great potential though! ;)

Sharon Jackson said...

Thanks for the great resource, first time I heard of Happy Hour Spanish. I encountered the same problem - the audio was really bad - but I'll wait for them to fix that. Cheers - excellent potential as Karen said.

Unknown said...

I appreciate that you have given me a way to practice Spanish. As a Spanish major in college I have struggled to find ways to keep using the language and not lose what I have learned. If you know of any other websites that do something similar to review the language I would love to know of them!