Learn Spanish Free
With these 5 Little Known Tools
Hola chicos, Soy Violeta Bernal, Spanish teacher and youtuber from Medellin, Colombia.
I have been teaching Spanish for over 10 years and today I want to give you my top 5 tools to supplement your classes and learn Spanish free.
Vámonos..
TOOL #1 - Spanish Listening
Spanish listening is a simple website that does exactly what the title suggests, it helps you improve your listening skills.
The website has about 400+ spoken conversations with locals on a wide range of topics ranging from animals, food, culture, travel and technology to name just a few.
You can filter down the conversations by:
- Topic
- Level
- Grammar
- Country
- Speaker
For each video you get the following learning components:
Script: For each conversation you get a written script so that you can read as they speak or you can use it to identify any words that you don’t understand from the conversation.
Quiz: After listening to the conversation you can chose to take a quick to test your knowledge.
Vocab: The site gives a summary of the topic specific words and their meaning give you the opportunity to learn new vocabulary.
Speak: This last section contains some verbal questions for you to answer. You can reply aloud but obviously no one is there to correct you if you make a mistake.
What students find very useful is that the conversations give an opportunity to learn from Spanish speakers from 20 different countries. All conversations are very informal with real people, they don’t use professional voice actors or computer generated vocals unlike some other apps for learning Spanish online.
Pros: You get to hear conversations in different accents. There are quizzes to test your comprehension
Cons: the website is a little outdated and doesn’t seem to have been updated recently. Loads of ads which can be distracting.
TOOL #2 - DEEPL / Linguee
Category: Online Dictionary / Translation Service
When you learn Spanish you’ll need to learn a considerable amount of vocabulary and understand full sentences. This is where a good dictionary and translation service comes in. I’m sure you already know Google Translate but let me give you a much better option.
DeepL is a translation website, a direct rival to Google Translate and regarded by many to be the most accurate free automated translation service online.
DeepL stands for “Deep Learning” and the media claims it’s a “technology based on artificial neural networks”. What all that geeky speak simply means is that DeepL learns from real human translated content, so it is able to detect subtle nuances in the text being translated thus providing more accurate translation without sounding like a robot. They claim its 3x more accurate than Google which doesn’t have the same human learning element.
When studying Spanish having access to a dictionary/ translator is a must-have tool and if you want to learn Spanish free online then DeepL is your best option.
If you’re reading some text or talking to a friend in Spanish and not sure how to say something, simply type in the word or phrase in English and like magic DeepL gives you the best way of saying it in Spanish. If you’re reading foreign newspaper online simply cut and paste into DeepL and get the results in English.
But there’s more. Before DeepL started doing online translations they started Linguee an online dictionary. But not just any ordinary dictionary. When you enter in a word into Linguee it not only shows the translation but also some example sentences putting that word into several contexts. This can be really handy when learning a language because often words can have more than one meaning. So by reviewing the examples provided you get a good sense of the different meanings and connotations of each work.
DeepL actually shows you from which website they extracted these example sentences from, thus validating the content they provide.
Pros: Probably the most accurate free translation tool available
Cons: Lot’s of advertising on the page.
Tool #3 -Lyrics Training
LyricsTraining is a free, fun and interactive way to learn Spanish whilst listening to music in Spanish. Its particular focus is on developing your listening skills as well as learning new vocabulary based around music which can be more fun than learning from a book.
It’s pretty easy to get started.
Step 1) Choose Spanish.
Step 2) Choose one of the 30 musical genres; the choice included pop, rock, dance and Latin styles.
Step 3) Select a song
Step 4) Choose whether you prefer multiple choice or want to write the answer
Step 5) Press Play to get started
Step 6) Now listen to the song as the subtitles are presented underneath and fill in the blank when presented. If you can’t guess the word you can always skip forward.
For many students who find it hard to learn lists of vocabulary LyricsTraining helps you learn new words though the power of music. There are some additional options for those who want to subscribe free, but the standard version is fine for most people.
LyricsTraining is not for everyone, but it is a good tool for those who love music and want to learn Spanish free with the help of their favourite music artist.
Pros: Fun & entertaining
Cons: Have to pay for all features
TOOL #4 - ReWord App
The ReWord App is a digital flashcard tool that can help you learn vocabulary fast. The app contains 5,000 words divided into thematical categories. On top of this you can also add the new words you learn on a daily basis.
The app excels over traditional written flashcards because in addition to the word you also get images and example sentences. ReWord app works on the basis that when you see something visually and see the word being used in real life sentences it makes it easier to learn and recall.
The App features spaced repetition to learn at the highest efficiency. You can set goals and track your progress to help you along the way. The app works offline so you don’t need to be connected to the internet for it to work, which is great if you’re travelling in the amazon rainforest or simply and don’t have an internet plan. Lastly it has a dark theme for those who prefer their screen in night mode.
Pros: Best flashcard app available online
Cons: have to pay for more features
TOOL #5 - Toucan
Toucan is an interesting chrome extension that can help you learn Spanish vocabulary free as you surf the web.
As you read any of the websites that you would on a normal daily basis, whether news, blogs, travel sites, Toucan actively replaces a small proportion of English words with their Spanish equivalent.
“Let’s pretend you are leyendo an article on a news website about pets. The articulo says that los gatos are much more intelligent than dogs. Cats however do nothing, they simply dormir all day whilst los perros like to run around and bark.”
As you can see its fairly easily to understand the words in Spanish when they are put in content like this. If you don’t know the meaning of the word you can simply hover over the word to get the translation.
The best part of Toucan is that you can learn Spanish for free whilst surfing any website that you would normally. Toucan also enhances your learning with quizzes and games based on the words that Toucan has shown you during the course of your surfing. The more you surf the more you progress through determined levels and Toucan awards achievements to keep you motivated.
Pro: Works with any website so you can surf and learn Spanish free at the same time, with no additional effort
Cons: Great for learning words but you still need to know grammar. Additional functions require a membership.
- My Final Thoughts -
So that’s my summary of the best 5 tools to help learn Spanish free.
I always recommend these tools to my Spanish language students and they tell me that they really compliment their classes being able to see things from a different perspective. As I keep saying learning Spanish is about practice and repetition.
You can’t learn a language overnight but if you study hard and compliment your classes with these free tools then you will soon reach your goal of becoming fluent in Spanish.
Join me on the journey from just $19.
Get to the point!
Level 1 - Beginners Course
GET TO THE POINT! is my new interactive online Spanish course which teaches Spanish to adults.
GET TO THE POINT! is structured with the same format that I teach my students here in Medellin and online. I have my own fast-track methodology that I developed & fine-tuned over the past 10 years. And it works as you can see by the many reviews on my social media sites.
GET TO THE POINT! is perfect for:
- total beginners
- those who have studied “un poco de español”, you can reinforce what you have already learned
- those who are booking a Spanish school but want to reinforce their learning with extra material
Remember! Reinforcement and repetition are the keys to successful learning.
The course comes with a FULL 100% money back guarantee should it fail to meet your expectations within the first 14 days.
I’m Violeta Bernal, 30yo from Medellin Colombia. I had dreams of becoming a dentist but after traveling and learning English abroad I found my passion for languages.
I have been teaching Spanish in Medellin, Colombia for over 10 years now, have a successful youtube channel (300,000+ views) and I’m the only Colombia teacher to have a Spanish language book available on Amazon. I teach Spanish to adults and teach everyone like a friend, not like a school kid.
In my free time I can be found exploring local cafes, rollerblading around Medellin or punching a bag at the local boxing studio.
My private class schedule for 2022 is almost fully booked with an average waitlist of 3 months. This is why I created GET TO THE POINT! so that more people, like yourself, can start learning Spanish with me TODAY.