Here are all the fantastic free resources on my site: The Telenovela Method, learning Spanish from Shakira, the most common ‘gringo errors’, and more
Ok, now I’ll get into all the fantastic free resources and posts on my site that any Spanish learner would find invaluable, including posts where I teach you Spanish using Shakira’s music videos, what the most common ‘gringo errors’ are, basic manners in Spanish-speaking countries, and nifty little slang/filler words called “muletillas”, and more below…
Music and Music Videos
Ok, my most popular posts by far, that this blog has kind of become famous for, are the Shakira posts: that is, I take a music video (mostly Shakira so far, though I’ve also done a Juanes one and will do ones by many different artists in the future) and completely dissect it. What this means is that I put a full translation up next to the lyrics and then explain all the Spanish that’s going on, the grammar, vocabulary, idioms, slang, expressions, little colloquial things specific only to a certain regional dialect of Spanish (such as Shakira’s Costeña/Barranquilla style), etc. These posts are very long and detailed and you can learn a TON of Spanish from them, here are the ones I’ve done so far, I highly, highly recommend you check these out:
Learning Spanish from Music Videos: Shakira’s ‘La Tortura’ Dissected
Learning Spanish From Music Videos: Shakira’s ‘Suerte’
Learning Spanish from Music Videos: Shakira’s “Ojos Así”
Learning Spanish from Music Videos: Shakira’s ‘Te Aviso, Te Anuncio’ aka ‘Objection (Tango)’
Learning Spanish from Music Videos: Juanes’ ‘Yerbatero’ Dissected
I’m currently working on another Shakira song, and that post should be up in a week or two, and there will be many more after that including other Spanish-language artists, so if this interests you and you’d like to know when new ones come out, be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed (click me!).
Movies and TV!
I wrote up an entire post dedicated to how to use Spanish-language TV shows and movies to learn Spanish that I mentioned before called: The Telenovela Method of Learning Spanish, plus I put together the most comprehensive and accurate (no dead links! unlike every other list I checked…) list of websites where you can watch streaming Spanish-language TV online for free here: List of Best Free Sites to Watch Spanish-Language TV Online.
I can’t possibly tell you how valuable listening to real, contemporary Spanish-language media like music, movies, and TV shows are. It gives you insight into the culture and how the language is actually used by real native speakers right now, today. If you want to be able to communicate with real people using Spanish, this sort of stuff is one of your best possible learning resources. A related post that delves a bit more into why exactly it works so well you can see here: Why Listening is SO Important – Even If You Don’t Understand a Word!
Learning to Sound Like a Native
I’ve done several very comprehensive (read: long, but good) posts about all the little sayings, phrases, and words that natives will use in everyday speech that you’ll never learn in a textbook, such as:
How to Respond in Spanish Like a Native: Comebacks and Colloquial Responses
Spanish Sentence Starters and Filler Words (Muletillas): The Grease of the Language Gears
Manners in Spanish – The Basics of Being Polite in Spanish-Speaking Cultures
How to Not Sound Like a Gringo – The 17 Most Common Spanish Errors and How to Avoid Them
My Favorite, and Most Common, Gringo Error in Spanish (aka “false friend”)
Grammar, Syntax, and Learning Vocabulary
I don’t do too much with this since I’m not a big advocate of learning a lot of formal grammar or doing a whole lot of vocabulary memorization, but it is something that does need to be covered to some degree, and I especially recommend the first post below about how many words you really ‘need’ to know to be proficient in a language:
The Beautiful Simplicity of Spanish Verbs in Chart Form
Some quick advice on using Anki
How Much Grammar and Syntax Terminology Do I Need to Know?
What Should You Start With? Grammar, Vocabulary, Basic Expressions, Everything?!!
General Language-Learning Advice, Tips, and Techniques
Below I just cover some general advice on teaching yourself a language such as motivation, how to structure things, how long to study, some various learning techniques, etc.:
What’s the Hardest Part? Speaking, Listening, Reading, or Writing? Where to Start?
A Quick Tip on Learning a Language In-Country
How Long Should I Study Every Day? How to Schedule It?
Linear vs. Global Learning – What’s Your Style?
The Scriptorium Method by Professor Arguelles
What Does It Mean to Be Fluent in a Language? Fluency Levels Don’t Really Exist
Why Listening is SO Important – Even If You Don’t Understand a Word!
Motivation: You Don’t Need a Shark, But You Do Need Something
Fascinating Interview with an Italian Polyglot
Weird, Goofy, Funny, and Miscellaneous
Below are just some posts I’ve made about interesting observations and realizations I’ve had concerning language-learning in general, plus some oddball stuff about Spanish in particular:
President Obama Wants You to Learn Spanish (short video)
The Top 22 Ways You Know You’re a Language Nerd…
English Channel = Canal de la Mancha = “Canal of the spot” = Funny Story
Funny Search Phrases that Brought People to My Site
To Have a Second Language is to Have a Second Soul
My Newsletter
I’ve spent a great deal of time putting together a 3-part series of articles for you on the internet’s best free resources for the Spanish-learner that you’ll get when you sign up for my newsletter–in addition to all of what you get below, I’ll be sure to send you any updates about cool new sites, resources, and learning tips and techniques that I come up with (I’m currently putting together a whole series that will teach you in great detail precisely how I go about learning a new language):
Part 1: A very long list of my favorite Top 33 free online Spanish-learning resources (tools, references, sites with free lessons, articles, blogs, forums, etc.) that’s far to long to include here, especially with all the other stuff I’ve got below that’s just on this site alone, and I’d like to offer it to you (completely free, you don’t have to do anything other than sign up) right now.
Part 2: I explain what language exchanges are (essentially they allow you free access to an unlimited number of native speakers to practice your Spanish with), why they’re absolutely essential if you’re teaching yourself (I’m serious when I say this: it’s impossible to get fluent without them if you’re learning a foreign language on your own), how to use them, and which ones are the best.
Part 3: I cover chat rooms which are specifically devoted to connecting you with native Spanish speakers who want to learn English so you can chat with them in Spanish (and they’ll help and correct you) and then you do the same for them with their English (these are completely free to use, but rather hard to find, but I’ll tell you where the best ones are!). Sign up below!
If you’re still not sure if you want to sign up or not, go here to learn more and see a sample of 5 excellent resources that I’ve taken from the list and posted on my site so you can see what sort of things are on there and how I explain what they are and how they work for you.
Conclusion
Ok, well that’s it, those are just about all the posts I’ve ever done. If you like what you see here please consider subscribing to my newsletter I mentioned at the beginning (you get so much awesome free stuff, right away!!), my RSS feed, and/or my Twitter feed. THANK YOU, seriously, for taking the time to read this (I imagine it took at least 30 minutes out of your day), I really hope that I’ve helped you towards your goal of learning Spanish–learning languages is something I’m more passionate and enthusiastic about than nearly anything else, and I really love it when someone else feels the same way and especially when I can help them.
Cheers,
Andrew
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