Learning Spanish

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 in 2010(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 a lot 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.
• Verb conjugation made easy
• I also have the Bravolol app on my phone.  They have a phrasebook app as well.
• 5 Steps to Understanding Por vs. Para – this has always been an issue for me!

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I found this site years ago and joined their forum(the forum is no longer active but one can still view the posts there).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 a lot 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
• Notes in Spanish blog

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, this is a handy tool for typing Spanish accents and tildes.
• 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
• 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 :)