I have a degree in Spanish but that doesn’t mean I know all there is to know about speaking, reading or understanding Spanish. Not even close! I graduated in 1982 and I did not get a job utilizing my Spanish. For our trip two years ago(I have various posts here about that trip, here’s a sample about Barcelona), I wanted to be sure that I could guide my family around Spain. And since I had not used my Spanish in a long while, I practiced and practiced by reading all kinds of things in Spanish and having a few pen pals in Spain who were learning English. We would write in both English and Spanish and then correct each other’s errors. In that process, I collected alot of resources on learning Spanish. I thought it would be nice to have all these resources in one spot. So, here we go!
- I never go anywhere without a good dictionary. Here’s one more for translation which is the same site I linked for verb conjugation and I found the translation page later on.
- A forum with more fun learning opportunities
- Verb conjugation made easy
Notes in Spanish
I found this site years ago and joined their forum(the forum is no longer active but one can still view the posts there). It was created by a couple who live in Madrid, Ben and Marina. I found alot of great information as well as fun videos to watch to continue learning Spanish. They do a great job and I have learned a great deal. Here are some links with helpful learning advice from their forum and podcasts:
- Best way to improve listening skills
- Learning Spanish by reading literature in Spanish
- Another thread with book recommendations
- Some free Spanish learning reports
- Many Ben and Marina videos
Other sites
- Listen to radio broadcasts from Spain – there is also an app for your phone and I’ve been listening that way as well.
- Type Spanish accents – if you can’t figure out how to do the character map on your computer (one I have, one I haven’t), this is a handy tool for typing Spanish accents and tildes.
- Cody’s Cuentos – another fun way to enhance your Spanish learning, reading classic fairy tales in Spanish
- Spanish podcast – a site I found via this blog post that has a few more Spanish learning links
- Spanish language and culture – another site with good learning activities
- Learn Spanish online – another site I had bookmarked
- Spanish idioms
- A site with audio and transcripts
- More fairy tales in Spanish
As I find more I will update this page. If anyone reading this has other sites they visit that they like and that have helped you, feel free to leave a comment and I will update this page. Thanks! And happy learning :)
travels with toby 
thank you so much for this amazing resource. Gracias!
de nada :) Espero que aprendas bien. It’s been a lifelong journey for me!
…and a quick question. I had a friend who did a Spanish degree. She loved the language but, in her second year, was forced to take Brazilian portuguese and loathed it. I had mistakenly thought they were similar – have you any experience trying to learn south american portuguese?
None at all, I’m sorry. I’ve taken French and Italian. They are all very similar as they’re all romance languages. And I imagine Brazilian Portuguese is likely different than what they speak in Portugal as the same holds true for all Spanish speaking countries. Too bad your friend was forced to take it and didn’t like it.
Hello Thingsmybellylikes :-) I did both Spanish and Portuguese at uni, and I’d say yes, they are similar, but I agree with Tobyo – what a pity your friend was forced to study something that wasn’t her choice. I loved Portuguese – it was a bit of a doddle really, because if you didn’t know a word you could just stick in the Spanish word and use a Portuguese accent. About 8 times out of 10 it worked! (In my cheeky undergraduate days, when I had a “less is more” attitude to studying!) ;-)
I have a fun memory from when I lived in Spain and was visiting Portugal. I started out speaking Spanish and I recall one person in a store that got very agitated by this and spoke English to me instead of replying in Spanish. Your way must have worked better :)
Hi Tobyo! This is a great collection of Spanish resources. Thank you. I am adding them to my own bookmarks now. My little blog, my labour of love, is a word-of-the-week type thing – vocabulary building for advanced speakers and language lovers. If you think anyone might be interested, here’s the link: http://mylittlespanishnotebook.wordpress.com/ Gracias. Un abrazo. :-)
I love the idea behind your blog and hope to add more to my own vocabulary. what a great idea! I’m glad you found more resources from my little Spanish learning page. Un placer en conocerte :-)
How wonderful! I never leant Spanish, although I blog also in it!!!
que interesante!
Sí, pero es normal, porque hago mi blog también en inglés, francés y portugués. :)
Pues muy bien!