Jenny Marshall
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8 Quick Clicks Away from Learning Spanish to Fluency Online
I’m going to go out on a limb and say you spend a significant amount of time surfing the net.
Why not use that online surfing productively by clicking your way to Spanish fluency?
Here is a guide to help you sort through all the ways to learn Spanish online, and find the best.
Contents
- Learn Spanish Online: You’re 8 Quick Clicks Away from Improving Spanish Fluency
- And One More Thing…
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
Learn Spanish Online: You’re 8 Quick Clicks Away from Improving Spanish Fluency
Here, we’ve compiled eight easy ways to practice your Spanish online that cover the four major categories of language learning: Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking.
Reading Comprehension
1. Change your social media settings to Spanish
How many hours a day do you waste endlessly refreshing your Facebook wall?
This step is the perhaps the most simple thing you can do. Most social media sites have an option to change the language, now that social media has permeated even the far corners of the globe.
By changing the language of sites like Facebook, Twitter or Google+, you can absorb new vocabulary unconsciously. This process feels natural too, since you already spend a significant amount of time on the page.
For Facebook, you can change your preferences to Spanish by clicking the drop-down arrow at the top right of your home screen, selecting “settings” and then editing the language.
Immediately, you’ll begin to pick up new words—ones you don’t even need to look up, since you’ll know their meaning directly from context. “Profile” is now perfil. To “tag” a picture becomes etiquetar. Your “wall” changes to your muro. Just like that, you’re one step closer to fluency. Check out this post for more in-depth methods of learning Spanish from Facebook.
On Twitter, the same option is also under Settings. You can also take Spanish acquisition via Twitter a step further by following prominent Tweeters in Spanish. A simple hashtag search using a Spanish word, or even #Spanish, can yield results of who to follow. If you like the sound of this, we’ve got a discussion of Twitter-based Spanish learning methods available for you here.
2. Read online newspapers
As print media slowly begins to fade and more and more news outlets turn to the Internet, getting your news sources online has never been easier. Set your homepage to a Spanish news source, and each day you’ll not only be a bit more informed about current events, but also be more inclined to practice your Spanish reading skills.
To start, check out these high-profile news sources from several Spanish-speaking countries:
El País, the largest news source in Spain.
El Universal, Mexico City’s daily newspaper
Clarín, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Make sure to also check out these 9 resources to learn Spanish through news.
3. Read blogs about any topic that interests you
The great thing about blogs is how easy they are to create. This means that any person in any country can start a blog on any topic. They’re ubiquitous.
So, whether your passion is cooking, downhill skiing or astronomy, there’s bound to be a blog out there about it. And these days, more and more people are publishing in Spanish—perfect for delving deeper into a subject that interests you, while at the same time practicing your reading skills.
Written Expression
4. Use online translators
Online translators get a bad rap for producing incredibly shoddy translations and, sometimes, they deserve their reputation. Language teachers can spot a direct copy-and-paste from an online translator in less time than it takes to write “F.”
However, when used effectively, online translators can help you check your writing accuracy in Spanish.
Copy a paragraph you’ve written in Spanish into the translation box and choose the option “Spanish to English.” The computer’s automatic translation back to English will give you a moderate idea of how correct your original text was in Spanish. Does the resulting English translation make some modicum of sense? Or is it a jumble of words that don’t link together grammatically?
While you shouldn’t completely rely on these online translators to judge your writing accuracy, they’re a great jumping-off point.
Listening Comprehension
5. Online music players
Online music players like Pandora and Spotify have popped up in recent years and are immensely popular. These sites act as online radios, and you can “tune” them to stations you want to listen to. In addition, they can also help you discover new artists.
If you already know and love some Spanish artists, great—just type their names in and listen to the playlists you find.
If, however, you’d like to listen to Spanish or Latin music but don’t really know where to start, these websites can help you. They can pull up new artists based on preferences, and you can narrow down your likes and create playlists as you go.
Basic subscriptions to such music services as Pandora, Spotify and Youtube are free, so happy listening!
6. Watch Spanish shows online
Most TV shows can be streamed online these days. Whether your affinity lies in original Spanish telenovelas (soap operas) or American TV series dubbed in Spanish, chances are you can find your faves somewhere on the world wide web.
If a show is widely popular in the States, it has most likely also been dubbed into Spanish to reach a much wider audience overseas.
As tempting as it may be to take the easy way out and watch the original version, viewing the dubbed version—or at the very least, watching with Spanish subtitles—will be much more beneficial to your language acquisition. Plus, you don’t have to feel guilty about wasting hours watching TV shows if it’s for as noble a cause as Spanish fluency!
Speaking Skills
7. Participate in online language exchanges
Online communities have popped up all over the Internet to fill a basic language learning problem: Distance between countries. How can a native Spanish speaker in Venezuela and a native English speaker in California mutually help each other? Online language exchanges, or intercambios de idiomas, work the same as in-person. Thanks to tools like webcams and Skype, thousands of miles are no longer an obstacle.
In an online language exchange, you’d generally spend half the allotted time speaking one language, and half of the time, the other. Language exchanges are normally free of charge, though you might pay a small fee to the company that sets you up with the person overseas.
Check out My Language Exchange as a place to get started, and make sure to review some great tips to ensure you’ll have an awesome online language exchange.
Some native speakers or language teachers offer private one-on one tutoring sessions over Skype. These lessons are more typical “classes” than a language exchange, and aren’t free. Ads for these would be posted on Craigslist or country-specific websites. For example, Tusclasesparticulares.com in Spain is a listing for all private classes, and some are willing to do lessons over Skype. Payment is usually set up via PayPal.
8. Pronunciation videos on YouTube
Not sure quite how to pronounce that ñ or double r? There are plenty of online videos to help specifically with pronunciation.
YouTube is the greatest hub for such videos because, of course, the media giant’s policies make it easy for anyone to post things.
Check out a few different videos to get a feel for what’s reputable—page views, comments and official company postings should be strong indicators of a video’s credibility.
If you enjoy learning with videos, FluentU’s website and app also has a library full of authentic content that addresses all four of the categories mentioned above, allowing you to…
- Read the transcript of each video before you watch it, then follow along with the video with interactive subtitles.
- Write your answers to adaptive quizzes to test your understanding of each video.
- Listen to authentic Spanish speech as it’s used by native Spanish speakers.
- Speak along with the videos to practice tone, pronunciation and speed.
FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.
You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.
Of course, the internet is loaded with resources for learning Spanish, and it’s impossible to list them all here. Some simple Googling will yield you more results than you could ever use in a lifetime.
Each student has different learning styles. Some may learn better from more classroom-like lessons, with online modules that cover grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. For this type of learning, check out Study Spanish or Que Onda Spanish.
Others (perhaps with shorter attention spans!) may stick with language learning if it’s more dynamic and lively, such as through online games and quizzes. There are sites for Spanish tongue twisters to help your pronunciation and jokes of the day to help you catch idiomatic nuances (and laugh in the process).
Lastly, if you ever have a question, there are plenty of Internet forums devoted to learning Spanish. Post your doubts, and the rest of the world will come to your rescue.
It’s all at your fingertips on the World Wide Web.
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
And One More Thing…
If you've made it this far that means you probably enjoy learning Spanish with engaging material and will then love FluentU.
Other sites use scripted content. FluentU uses a natural approach that helps you ease into the Spanish language and culture over time. You’ll learn Spanish as it’s actually spoken by real people.
FluentU has a wide variety of videos, as you can see here:
FluentU brings native videos within reach with interactive transcripts. You can tap on any word to look it up instantly. Every definition has examples that have been written to help you understand how the word is used. If you see an interesting word you don’t know, you can add it to a vocab list.
Review a complete interactive transcript under the Dialogue tab, and find words and phrases listed under Vocab.
Learn all the vocabulary in any video with FluentU’s robust learning engine. Swipe left or right to see more examples of the word you’re on.
The best part is that FluentU keeps track of the vocabulary that you’re learning, and gives you extra practice with difficult words. It'll even remind you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned. Every learner has a truly personalized experience, even if they’re learning with the same video.
Start using the FluentU website on your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play store. Sign up by November 28th to receive a 60% discount with our Black Friday sale!
