The Top 8 Spanish Radio Apps for Language Learners

Radio is alive and well, and it’s the perfect tool for any Spanish student looking to improve his or her skills.

It gives you a direct line to authentic, regional, often ad-lib Spanish—and there’s always new, up-to-date content to listen to.

But maybe you don’t want to sit in your car or next to your grandmother’s vintage radio all day long just to hear some real-world Spanish.

No matter your Spanish proficiency level or the type of show you’re interested in, radio apps will provide you with lots of great options to tune up your Spanish skills!

Contents

1. Uforia Música

Available: iOS |Android

Uforia Música is a free app dedicated to Latin music and radio. It offers more than 65 live radio stations. Plus, there are some stations that are exclusive to the app.

You can sort stations by city, genre or language to help you hone in on your ideal station. Once you’ve found it, you can even set an alarm in the app that’ll play your favorite station at a set time. This way, you’ll never forget your listening practice!

2. Los 40 Radio

Available: iOS |Android

Los 40 Radio is a free app that offers live radio from a variety of Spanish-speaking countries, including Spain, Mexico, Costa Rica, Argentina, Ecuador and more. That makes it perfect if you’re hoping to learn Spanish from a specific region, or if you’re trying to diversify your exposure to different accents.

Live radio is accessible through the en directo (live) tab in the app. You can also browse DJs and programs through the a la carta (à la carte) tab.

Additionally, the app itself is in Spanish, so you can sneak in a little extra reading practice along with your listening practice.

3. Spanish Radio Stations

Available: iOS |Android

Spanish Radio Stations is a free app that offers access to 40 radio stations broadcasting out of Spain.

You can sort the stations thematically based on content. Categories include music, news, Spanish talk radio, culture, sports and more, so you can easily find a station that piques your curiosity and plays to your interests.

This also makes Spanish Radio Stations a great way to familiarize yourself with different levels of formality in Spanish speech. For instance, radio news reports will be more formal and grammatical than most DJs you’ll hear joking it up between songs on music stations. You can also save your favorite stations for easy access.

Since this app features exclusively stations out of Spain, it’s an exceptional tool for any students who want to focus on improving their Castilian Spanish.

4. Radios de Colombia

Available: iOS |Android

Radios de Colombia offers dozens of Colombian radio stations. These stations include music, news, sports and more.

Radios de Colombia also has special features, such as allowing you to share with others via social media or text message. Not only is this fun, it gives you an opportunity to practice multiple language skills by writing about what you’ve been listening to in Spanish.

Plus, since the radio stations are based out of Colombia, this app is ideal for anyone looking to master Colombian Spanish. However, since Colombian Spanish is one of the slowest and clearest dialects, it’s also a great choice for any Spanish student looking to ease into listening to Spanish-language radio.

Radios de Colombia is free to download. Additional in-app purchases allow you to remove the ads.

5. Radio Mexico

Available: iOS |Android

Radio Mexico offers dozens of Mexican radio stations.

It’s designed by the same developer as Radios de Colombia, so it offers many of the same features, including the ability to share via social media or text. The difference is that all of the stations for Radio Mexico are based in Mexico, so this app is a great choice or anyone looking to perfect his or her Mexican Spanish.

Radio Mexico is free to download and additional in-app purchases remove ads.

6. myTuner Radio

Available: iOS |Android

If you want an abundance of diverse options for your Spanish listening practice, myTuner Radio is a good choice. It offers over 40,000 stations from 200 countries, with plenty of Spanish-language options to choose from.

You can sort by country, genre and more, so it’s easy to switch between different regions and material. This gives you access to a wide variety of dialects and different views into the culture and current events of the Spanish-speaking world.

The app provides several special features, including the ability to share via social media and a “favorites” list to keep track of your preferred channels. The app also provides podcasts.

The myTuner Radio app is free to download. Additional in-app purchases remove ads.

7. TuneIn Radio

Available: iOS |Android

TuneIn Radio offers 100,000 radio stations from around the world, including sports coverage, news, music and more.

You can browse by location to target specific countries. Once you’ve selected a country, you can even select a preferred city. This will allow you to practice local variations of Spanish and perfect your regional accent.

Additionally, once you’ve selected a station, TuneIn will suggest top programs and similar stations. Browsing top programs will give you easy access to the most popular options on the channel. Perusing similar stations will help you find more content that you may enjoy, so you’ll never run out of terrific Spanish listening options.

TuneIn Radio also offers offline content, so you don’t always have to burn through data to get some listening practice.

The basic version of TuneIn Radio is free to download. Additional in-app purchases allow you to unlock more material and/or subscribe to TuneIn’s premium service.

8. iHeartRadio

Available: iOS |Android

iHeartRadio offers thousands of live radio stations, including Spanish-language stations from the U.S. and Mexico, so it’s a great option if you’re hoping to learn from and about the Spanish-speaking communities of those countries.

There’s a whole category of content dedicated to Spanish-language radio, which you can further narrow down by region.

The iHeartRadio app is free to download, but in-app purchases are necessary to unlock additional material and continue the subscription after the trial period is over.

Why Use Spanish Radio Apps?

First of all, Spanish radio apps are convenient. You can listen to a wide selection of stations broadcasting from anywhere. It’s like carrying around unlimited Spanish learning content all compressed into one convenient device.

Additionally, Spanish radio apps offer terrific listening practice. They allow you to build your comprehension skills while listening to authentic Spanish, which you can do actively by taking notes and looking up words. This is similar to the method used by many audio and video-based language programs, including FluentU, which supplies active listening practice through real media clips paired with annotated interactive subtitles.

You can also practice passively by letting Spanish radio pour into your ears while you drive or do chores. If you take the time to imitate what you’re hearing, you’ll get the added bonus of boosting your pronunciation.

Finally, listening to Spanish radio apps is enjoyable. Who doesn’t enjoy great music, news, sports or other entertainment? And because listening to these apps is enjoyable, you’ll do it more often. Do you know what that means? More learning!

How to Get the Most out of Spanish Radio Apps

  • Experiment with different stations. You might not like every station. After all, some stations focus on different music or content. Plus, it’s a well-known fact that not all DJs are as funny as they think they are.

Since radio apps offer tons of different stations, just flip around until you find some stations you really love. This will make you much more likely to continue listening.

  • Target a specific region. If you plan on traveling to a specific location or just want to study local variations of Spanish, targeting specific countries or cities when selecting which stations you want to listen to is a useful way to get regionally-appropriate listening practice.
  • Set a schedule. If you listen to the same radio station at the same time each day, chances are that you’ll hear the same program. Not only will this allow you to become more familiar with the topics that the program covers, but it’ll also provide you with valuable motivation to keep coming back.
  • Squeeze in some listening whenever you have time. Since apps are convenient and easy to use, it isn’t hard to listen to a Spanish radio station when you have just a few minutes. Increased exposure to Spanish really will improve your Spanish skills, so it’s valuable to use radio apps even if you just have a few moments to listen here and there.

 

So give these Spanish radio apps a try to dial in on improving your Spanish skills!

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:

learn-spanish-with-videos

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.

learn-spanish-with-interactive-subtitled-videos

Review a complete interactive transcript under the Dialogue tab, and find words and phrases listed under Vocab.

learn-spanish-with-songs

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.

learn-spanish-with-music-videos

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. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)

Enter your e-mail address to get your free PDF!

We hate SPAM and promise to keep your email address safe

Close