Saturday, August 29, 2009

20 Free Online Resources for Spanish Language Learners

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer.

Learning Spanish is a great way to open doors to opportunities in travel, professional areas, and even education. The Internet plays host to many different resources that would be useful to anyone who wants to learn Spanish. Here is a list of 20 free resources for Spanish language learners to explore:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT offers over 1,900 free courses for online learners, including several free Spanish courses. Course offerings include Spanish I-IV, oral communication, and advanced Spanish communication.

123TeachMe - This free service offers basic and conversational courses that cover vocabulary, grammar, and conversational Spanish. 123TeachMe also has resources strictly for kids, including games and quizzes.

Discover Spanish - Discover Spanish has fun, free podcast Spanish lessons. Podcast episodes last 15 minutes and cover greetings, numbers, age, and much more.

Insta Spanish - This online learning site features free Spanish podcast lessons for all levels of learners. Throughout this site, you can also find Spanish speaking pen pals, an e-learning newsletter, and a forum.

Learn Spanish Online - Learn Spanish Online offers 903 free pages of Spanish grammar with audio files to guide all examples. Language learners can find everything they need--from accents to verbs.

BBC - The BBC offers a large collection of resources for learning Spanish. Learners can find online courses, speaking resources, and quick fixes.

Radio Lingua Network - The Radio Lingua Network provides two free learning podcasts for learners to build their Spanish speaking confidence.

Study Spanish - This teaching site offers free tutorials for anyone interested in learning Spanish. The tutorials consist of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, verbs, idioms, and a travel helper.

Vocabulix - Vocabulix offers over 90 vocabulary lessons for improving your Spanish skills. Users of this site will also find verb drills and verb conjugation tables.

Babbel - This online language platform offers fun, multimedia courses for learning Spanish, English, German, Italian, and French. This is a great place for Spanish learners to find grammar builders, multimedia courses, and grammatical exercises.

Rolling R's - Rolling R's has a series of free videos lessons for building your Spanish speaking and writing skills. The site offers over 75 video lessons, most of which are available for free download or viewing.

don Quijote - This language site offers free Spanish lessons from Spanish teachers. Simply register for a free membership to gain access to this online language resource.

Edufone - Edufone has 40 free podcast lessons for all levels of Spanish speakers. The podcasts cover grammar, verbs, pronunciations, and conversations.

SpanishUnlimited - SpanishUnlimited features free services for learning and practicing Spanish. This site offers users lessons, vocabulary words, tests, and vocabulary games.

Spanicity - This Spanish learning site features grammar and vocabulary lessons complete with audio. Spanicity also comes complete with a Spanish dictionary and quiz.

LearnerSpanish.com - The LearnerSpanish.com site provides online tutorials on vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. This site utilizes both text and audio to help you learn.

Spanish Romance - Spanish Romance offers free online Spanish courses created by Spanish teachers. This site features resources for learning vocabulary, numbers, and phrases.

Palabea - This online social network offers video lectures, virtual classrooms, documents, podcasts, and language partners for Spanish language learners.

iTalki - iTalki is an online social community for learning a wide variety of different languages including Spanish. Users of this site will find 43 different courses, language partners, groups, and a knowledgebase.

Livemocha - Livemocha is a free way for Spanish learners to find self-paced lessons, practice, and native speakers who want to share their skills. All you have to do is sign up for a free account to immerse yourself into the Spanish language.

Karen Schweitzer is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes for OnlineCollege.org, an online college resource.
___________________________

33 comments:

TuSpanish said...

Excelente lista. Si me permites también añadiría los estupendos recursos que se encuentran en la página de the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/series/learn-spanish

Saludos, David.
http://tuspanish.com/

Anonymous said...

Great list! I especially like iTalki and LiveMocha.

There are a few other free online sources that I'd like to add as well.

http://smart.fm/ - A flashcard service that allows you to use lists made by others or brand new lists.

http://lang-8.com/ - A journal writing service. You can write entries in Spanish (or another language) and native speakers will correct them. In turn, you can correct journal entries in English.

For live tutoring, both eduFire and WiZiQ have free classes, but you can also take advantage of further classes or 1:1 sessions for a price.
http://edufire.com/
http://www.wiziq.com/

Anonymous said...

And another with lots of free podcasts, rojasspanish.com

Subhashish Bose said...

You can try another good website for learning Spanish vocabularies. It is http://aafter.com/?term=s?Spanish The method adopted is easy and fun. Check out..

Tony

menloe said...

Thanks for the list. I have an article on a similar subject but I don't have as much information as you provide have provided.

http://www.spanishverbsconjugation.com

diane said...

Thanks for this extensive list!

Steve Kaufmann said...

I would also recommend SpanishLingQ http://www.spanishlingq.com/
and the whole LingQ site itself. You will find lots of content and a unique community of learners.

johnny walker said...

Wow, great resource list, would it be acceptable to use it on our Spanish learning site? With your name and site link of course.

Learn Spanish said...

Hi Karen, great blog! Kim from http://www.SpanishPod101.com sent you an email. Let me know when you get a chance to read.

In regards to this post, I'd like to suggest http://www.SpanishPod101.com. There are great audio and video lessons taught by native Spanish speakers plus tons of great iPhone apps to help master the Spanish language.

Braddy Bash said...

Thanks for this great list. I really appreciate for the help that you have given through your blog.

French Spanish Online said...

hi, i would like to introduce you this website too: http://freespanish.frenchspanishonline.com for English learners.

Maestra Jen said...

awesome list Karen. Muchas gracias!!

Bárbara said...

Hola Karen,
very nice link list, may i set a link to your page.

Saludos
Bárbara

Anonymous said...

Great list university in barcelona

Thanks for sharing.

Tati said...

Thank you for putting together this list! What a resource!

Spanish Dilettante said...

I'll echo that this is a great list! As you mention the BBC, I particularly like their interactive video series Mi Vida Loca: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/mividaloca/

Gracias!

Anonymous said...

Karen,

Add Google’s new language Dictionary to your list!

http://www.google.com/dictionary

Beginner Spanish Curriculum said...

A valuable post that has to be bookmarked. Thanks for putting in all these together. A great reference for Spanish learners.

delpino said...

Also check out this site:
http://www.online-spanish-course.com/

Gregorio Meleán said...

For Facebook users you have the group Spanish Language Learners http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=85922882863

Instant Immersion Spanish said...

This is a WONDERFUL list! I have been looking for something exactly like this. It's funny how you try to search for this stuff in Google and it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack!

Steve Catalunya said...

I started out with the great podcasts from Ben & Marina at Notes in Spanish.

I'm trying to put my own small resource up as well at Spanish Examples

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this list.

I recommend http://linguagame.com for flash cards and games to learn words and phrases for the traveler.

best
kim

Beatriz said...

Great list!

Also take a look at http://learnspanish-blog.blogspot.com

Regards,

Beatriz Garrido

Oscar Upegui said...

That's an amazing resource, I like this blog, I'm starting with my new blog teaching Spanish and I think this blog can be used by students, so come and visit us, the link is http://imlovingspanish.blogspot.com/, we'd like to make a blog friendship with you!!! :P

El Blog para Aprender Español said...

This is a great list of resources, we have not excuses to learn Spanish anymore.

I would like to add one more to the list:
Spanish Learner: http://itunes.apple.com/es/app/spanish-learner/id502478776?mt=8
It is an App game that allows you to learn and review must-know Spanish words and their spelling.

I hope you enjoy it... I am going to try some of the resources i have just found out!

El Blog para Aprender Español said...

This is a great list of resources, we have not excuses to learn Spanish anymore.

I would like to add one more to the list:
Spanish Learner: http://itunes.apple.com/es/app/spanish-learner/id502478776?mt=8
It is an App game that allows you to learn and review must-know Spanish words and their spelling.

I hope you enjoy it... I am going to try some of the resources i have just found out!

Kelly Blackwell said...

There is a really cool elementary Spanish curriculum by Calico Spanish that has a bunch of online videos and music. My students love it! Complete Playlist

Simon Turkas said...

This is an excellent list and I will definitely try some if not all of these out. My new year's resolution is to greatly improve my Spanish this year.

Learn Spanish Online said...

Great list - My students are always looking for some extra resources to self-study outside of textbooks - Most of these I know , but a few new ones I haven't bookmarked before - thanks!

Jen said...

I'd also like to add another to this list: http://loogla.com is new to the scene and in beta. Their philosophy is that learning happens when you're engaged, so they turn ANY Spanish language page on the web into an interactive learning environment with a built in toolkit, expert teachers, and more. Sign up! : )

Alicia said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Amar Kumar said...

Well Learning Spanish Online Is Not Difficult today. You can get various video tutorials For Learning Spanish On Youtube. I started learning Spanish before 30 days and Its a Great feel. Learning online is Easy but not a success until you get the right Profe For it. I discovered it when i visited youtube and found various Spanish tutors, And realized that Learning is not successful without a profe. I was really impressed by Profe Krista Croghan, On her Official Youtube channel You can find many videos and that's the goodness of youtube that you will find similar videos there.
Search For her name on Google Or Yahoo You will know her Popularity ;)Or Simply visit
Profe Krista Croghan