The best free online resources for learning Spanish

Learning Spanish is fun. Spanish is a fiesta. Spanish are the lyrics of many a passionate song and Spanish are the names of many a mouthwatering dish. Spanish is (relatively) easy, energetic, has great music and food: in short, one of the coolest languages to study, and there is plenty of learning material available because so many people study it (looking at you, United States). Here are some of my most used resources.

How to learn Spanish for free online?

Language Transfer
This is a really great YouTube channel and app offering audio for learning a growing number of languages. It uses its own ‘Thinking Method’, which teaches you a language through providing you with a logical way to remember grammar and vocabulary. It focuses on understanding the language instead of merely showing what it looks like. You for example don’t just memorize a new word, but get to derive it from words you already know: this works especially well with English and Latin languages, which have a lot of words in common (thanks to William the Conquerer).

Extra Spanish
I confess that I really enjoyed this comedy series on YouTube about a group of adolescents and their problems – silly but very educational! It is produced especially for people learning the language: the level of the dialogues increases with every episode (all subtitled) and thus perfectly functions as a support to regular grammar and vocabulary lessons.

Frequency dictionary
Looking at the most frequently used words in a language is a very efficient ways of learning vocabulary. This list is particularly nice because it features example sentences for every word – and because it’s available for free in PDF.

Learning with Oliver
If you make an account on this website, you can opt for an absolutely great daily or weekly newsletter with new words and example sentences at your level.

Coffee Break Spanish
The best Spanish podcast I know of, with lots of episodes for beginners, intermediate and advanced learners.

Readlang
Reading in another language is effective for learning (for example El País, El Mundo and BBC Mundo) but not much fun if you have to look up every other word. This application called Readlang is a great free addition to your browser that gives a translation simply by clicking on a word. Even better: it saves those words (and the sentence in which they appear) for later review as flashcards.

SpanishDict
Apart from a dictionary and verb conjugator, this page offers an extensive overview of Spanish grammar with for every topic the possibility to test yourself. Really nice is also their word of the day email newsletter.

Transparent Spanish
The Transparent Language blog has a series of articles for different languages, including Spanish. Their content is very useful.

El Castellano
For my fellow etymology enthusiasts: this website about the Spanish language, castellano in Spanish, has an etymology dictionary and a newsletter called Palabra del Día. The latter will send you twice a week the etymology of a Spanish word, and as a bonus a Latin quote and an answer to a grammar question.

Do you know of more useful resources? Please share in the comments!