Go to Forvo.com, instructions on how to use it follow
Ok, so that’s the site you want (image on the left links to it or just click here) and here I’ll briefly show you how you can download the audio files and then use them to make electronic flashcards (with a program called Anki, it’s free) which you can use later to review your pronunciation and listening comprehension.
You’ll need to register for an account in order to be able to download files, it’s free and easy.
Once you’ve done that, go back to the homepage and now search for a word or phrase you want to hear pronounced. At this point Forvo has just about every word in existence for the most common languages of the world, and a lot of common phrases, expressions, and proper names of things. We’ll use the Spanish word, “aeropuerto”, for this example.
Now you’ll have the search results page. Frequently the same word appears in multiple languages, so you’ll need to select the result for the language you’re interested in. I have an arrow pointing to the one you’d want to click here for Spanish.
Notice that for each result you’re told (in the parentheses just to the right of each result) the gender of the speaker and which country they’re from. Our options here include both male and female speakers from Mexico, Peru, and Spain. This is useful if you want to focus on a specific dialect.
To download it, click the down arrow I’ve circled in red there.
Next you’ll want to open Anki (it’s an electronic flashcard program, if you’re not familiar with it see my article on Anki), go to the deck you want, and click add.
Lastly you’ll just drag and drop the MP3 file you’ve just downloaded into whichever field you want it in. Here I’ve made the obvious choice of writing the word on the front and having the audio file as the back of the card. What happens here is that you’re shown the front of the card (the word, “aeropuerto”, in this case) and then have to remember what’s on the back (the correct pronunciation of “aeropuerto”, in this case).
Please see the video I made for you below if any of this is unclear (it’s just me quickly demonstrating all of the above, it’s about a minute and a half).
I hope that was helpful, if you have any questions please leave them below. Also…
If you’re learning Spanish…
I wrote a book about how to learn Spanish from popular media (movies, TV shows, music, etc.) that you can get on Amazon in Kindle or paperback format. If that interests you and especially if you’d like to support my work, I’d really appreciate if you could check it out here on Amazon, it’s called The Telenovela Method.
Please consider subscribing to my emails (sidebar on the right) or at least push notifications for when I put up new blog posts. My social media accounts are on the slidey thing on the left (I’m active on YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok, Pintrest, Facebook, and Twitter).
Cheers,
Andrew
