Learn Spanish: 30 Best Spanish Language Resources

Want to learn Spanish quickly and easily? Spanish is the 2nd most commonly spoken language in the world behind Chinese Mandarin. 470 million people speak Spanish across 21 countries in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia.

If you plan to visit countries like Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Panama, Argentina, Spain, Dominican Republic, or any Spanish speaking country, then it is crucial to practice Spanish before your trip.

Also, if you want to compete for better jobs in America, then becoming bilingual can improve your resume and help you land a better position in the future.

Learning a new language can be difficult at first because you are stepping outside your comfort zone. There is also a financial aspect where studying a language at an established school becomes expensive.

You want to learn spanish on your own time, so why not use many of the incredible spanish language courses, apps, software, and resources online?

Many spanish language resources online are free, but some of the best ones will cost you some money. If you are serious about improving your skill in anything, then you need to consider investing money to make progress much faster.

In this article, you will discover the top 30 online Spanish language learning resources that will improve your Spanish speaking and reading skills very quickly.

Best Spanish Language Learning Books

One of the easiest steps to take before learning Spanish is to buy a good Spanish language book for future reference. Books will help your reading proficiency and make it easier to learn Spanish when you have free time on the bus, train, airplane, etc. You can take them with you on your trip and refer to the book whenever you have a translation problem. Here is a list of my recommended books for learning Spanish fast:

1. Easy Spanish Step by Step

Easy Spanish Step by Step teaches you Spanish by giving you a solid grammatical foundation so you learn Spanish like you would in a 4 year university.

From the very beginning, you are introduced to the most essential structures–allowing you to communicate in Spanish almost immediately. Gradually, through a series of interconnected “steps,” you progress in a logical way to more common concepts that govern how Spanish is spoken and written.

You are introduced to hundreds of carefully selected verbs and vocabulary words presented on the basis of how often they are used in everyday Spanish.

Book features

  • A unique “building-block” approach to mastering essential grammar, verbs, and vocabulary
  • Down-to-earth explanations of important rules and concepts
  • 300 verbs and hundreds of key terms introduced on the basis of frequency
  • Exercises to help you test what you’ve learned and measure progress
  • Engaging readings that help you hone your skills in everyday contexts

2. Easy Spanish Phrase Book

Designed as a quick reference tool and an easy-to-use study guide, this inexpensive and up-to-date book offers fast, effective communications.

The perfect companion for tourists and business travelers in Spain and Latin America, it features words, phrases, and sentences that cover everything from asking directions to making reservations to ordering dinner.

Over 700 conveniently organized expressions include terms for modern telecommunications as well as phrases related to transportation, shopping, services, medical and emergency situations, and other common circumstances. A phonetic pronunciation accompanies each phrase.

Book Features

  • #1 ranked Amazon best seller
  • Great for students and travelers
  • Over 700 expressions included
  • Small enough to carry in your pocket

3. Lonely Planet Latin American Spanish Phrasebook & Dictionary

Lonely Planet Latin American Spanish Phrasebook & Dictionary is your handy passport to culturally enriching travels with the most relevant and useful Latin American Spanish phrases and vocabulary for all your travel needs.

Mingle with locals at a colourful Latin American mercado, spend a night out dancing to live music, or enjoy a meal in an out-of-the-way restaurant; all with your trusted travel companion.

With language tools in your back pocket, you can truly get to the heart of wherever you go, so begin your journey now!

Book Features

  • Great for travelers
  • Full-color throughout
  • User-friendly layout organized by travel scenario categories
  • Survival phrases inside front cover for at-a-glance on-the-fly cues
  • 3,500 two way Spanish to English dictionary
  • Small enough to fit in your pocket

4. Merriam-Webster’s Pocket Spanish-English Dictionary

In this compact guide to essential Spanish and English vocabulary, over 40,000 entries include English pronunciations given in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

Book features

  • The most comprehensive Spanish to English dictionary available on the market
  • Over 40,000 Spanish to English translations
  • Great for learning Graduate school level Spanish
  • Includes sections on the conjugation of Spanish regular and irregular English verbs, and Spanish and English numbers.
  • Small enough to fit in your pocket

Best Spanish Language Learning Podcasts

Podcasts are a really cool way to learn a new language. You can listen to native speakers speak in Spanish on the go whether you are on the bus, at the gym, or relaxing at home. Most podcasts publish content in short lessons so you can practice little by little until you become more proficient at listening comprehension.

5. SpanishPod101

One of the largest Spanish podcasts producers in the world. They publish a ton of Spanish speaking resources for free, although you must pay for a premium subscription. Over 500,000,000 Spanish lessons have been delivered since launch.

Program Features

  • Free to sign up
  • Over 1620 audio and video lessons
  • Detailed PDF notes after each lessons
  • Taught by knowledgeable and energetic teachers
  • Take your Spanish to the next level with Premium content and benefits

6. Coffee Break Spanish

Another great resources similar to SpanishPod101 is Coffee Break Spanish by Radio Lingua. It features 4 seasons of free lessons along with paid premium content to help you learn Spanish in small daily doses from professional Spanish teachers. You can purchase 80 Spanish lessons for around 184 dollars.

Program Features

  • Learn Spanish in small easy to understand doses
  • Offers 4 free practice lessons
  • Purchase each Spanish lesson for around 2 dollars each
  • Audio and video lessons in an easy to learn format

7. Showtime Spanish

If you’ve followed the Coffee Break Spanish course, you’re ready to put your Spanish to use in real situations, and with Show Time Spanish you’ll continue to learn in the same relaxed way, increasing your range of expression, mastering the grammar, and developing your confidence so that you can use the language when you need to.

Podcast Features

  • 56 audio episodes
  • Available for download on iTunes
  • Helps you improve your conversational Spanish skills

8. Finally Learn Spanish

If you’ve attended at least one Spanish course, and you need experience listening to and speaking the language, then ‘Finally Learn Spanish’ has the right podcasts for you.

Their great dialogs teach you new vocabulary in context, and our excellent learning tips guarantee that you’ll make progress in your Spanish studies.

Their dialogs are presented by experienced teachers. If you are an intermediate Spanish speaker, tune in to the Learning English podcasts since most of the podcast is in Spanish. Courses include software that you can download onto your cell phone to practice your vocabulary on the go.

Podcast Features

  • 38 audio episodes
  • Available for download on iTunes

9. Notes in Spanish

Notes in Spanish is designed to help you learn Spanish speaking skills you will never find in a classroom or textbook. They provide authentic listening practice via completely natural conversations and interviews, covering interesting news, Spanish culture, current affairs, and travel.

You can access 3 different levels for free: Inspired beginners, Intermediate, and Advanced level. If you want real life Spanish conversations with extensive English translations, then you can consider purchasing the Gold level package for 50 dollars.

Program Features

  • Free real life Spanish conversations with English translations
  • Easy to listen podcasts
  • Valuable worksheets to help you practice your skills
  • Run by 2 native Spanish speakers living in Spain

10. Spanish Obsessed

Spanish Obsessed is a Spanish language podcast run by Rob and Liz, a couple living in London, England. They offer over 50 free Spanish audio lessons and a sample of their premium content if you create an account.

With your free account, you can download their Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced Spanish courses as well as the Spanish from Scratch course.

If you want access to all their content, you get all of their podcasts and access to their Pronunciation and Vocabulary course for only a one time fee of 60 dollars.

Podcast Features

  • 50 free audio lessons
  • Easy to learn Spanish courses

Free Online Spanish Language Audio Lessons

Not every Spanish language lesson comes in podcast format. Here are a few programs you can study without subscribing to iTunes or using an app:

11. 123 Teach Me Spanish

123 Teach Me Spanish is an online audio resource for learning Spanish using games. Their free Spanish lessons online and Spanish for Beginners will give you the ability to make contacts while traveling abroad. Close to home, you will be able to strike up a conversation with a Spanish-speaking neighbor or customer. There are hundreds of lessons to choose from and you can really improve your Spanish speaking skills without spending a dime.

Program Features

  • Free online Spanish audio lessons
  • Learn in a game like format
  • Includes quizzes and lessons for kids

12. No Comprendo Spanish for Beginners

This online Spanish for beginners course is designed so you can learn by yourself. In the first lessons the grammar is explained in English. You will also find some words translated in these lessons.

If you find a word you don’t understand, just copy it to the dictionary and click “search”. The translation will appear immediately.

The course is very visual and contains a lot of interactive exercises. As when you learn any language, you will improve your level if you also go to Spanish lessons with a teacher and talk to other people at the same time as doing this online Spanish for beginners course.

Program Features

  • 8 easy lessons that cover a wide range of topics from Sport to Films
  • Made for the complete Spanish beginner

13. Loecsen

Loecsen is a free online language learning that teaches you Spanish using pictures and audio. You can learn a lot of new words quickly and download the lessons via mp3 and PDF. It also offers interactive quizzes to test your language comprehension.

Program Features

  • Audio and visual Spanish lessons
  • Downloadable mp3 and PDF lessons
  • Autoplays

Learn Spanish with Free Youtube Lessons

Youtube is a great way to practice and learn Spanish. Here is a list of recommended Youtube channels to subscribe to:

14. Professor Jan Spanish

Professor Jan has around 50,000 subscribers and teaches Spanish in a conversational easy to learn format. He also speaks Portuguese as well, which is useful if you plan to visit Brazil in the future.

Most Popular Videos

15. SpanishDict

SpanishDict is a very popular Youtube channel with over 73,000 subscribers and 8 million views. They provide high quality Spanish speaking tutorials in a professional, classroom like format.

Most Popular Videos

16. SpanishPod101

SpanishPod101 is the Youtube channel of the SpanishPod101 website. It is very popular with around 80,000 subscribers and over 4 million subscribers.

Most Popular Videos

17. Spanish Sessions

Spanish Sessions is a Youtube channel where you can listen to one on one conversations in Spanish. Pilar, the founder of the TILDE Madrid Spanish school also offers Spanish lessons via Skype. Your first Skype lesson is free.

Most Popular Videos

18. Master Spanish

Master Spanish is a youtube series of 40 Spanish lessons for beginners with very basic lessons online. It is very good for the first time learner to visually see the spellings.

Most Popular Videos

19. Culture Alley Spanish Lessons

Culture Alley provides a Youtube playlist of 27 video lessons including basic greetings, dates and numbers, and more everyday useful terms.

Most Popular Videos

Best Spanish Language Apps

If you own a smartphone, you can start learning Spanish today. There are many Spanish language learning apps available for iPhone and Android. Here is a list of my favorite ones:

20. DuoLingo

Duolingo is probably the most popular and highly rated mobile app in the world. Duolingo Spanish is split up into units that have a certain theme (e.g. education, work, medicine), and it’s designed so that each unit goes up in difficulty. Units are generally divided into two types: tenses and others (e.g. nouns, adjectives, adverbs, question words, pronouns, etc.).

It’s very unique in the fact that it’s not grammar intensive – as a matter of fact, apart from about 10 of the most commonly used tenses, you won’t see any grammar lessons throughout the app.

Overall, Duolingo really manages to teach Spanish in a simple way by honing in on the 1500 most important words that are most commonly used in daily situations.

21. Rosetta Stone

Rosetta Stone is undoubtedly the most famous learning methodology and sits as the oldest language learning app.

Rosetta Stone is designed very differently than most language apps that are on the marketplace today. Instead of learning Spanish through English, it is designed for us to learn Spanish through Spanish.

On top of its learning component, it also has a platform where you can schedule lessons with a live tutor every other lesson. So if you enjoy practicing Spanish by talking to native speakers, this might be a great bonus feature.

22. FluentU

FluentU is one of the most unique apps among this list. FluentU takes real-world videos like music videos, commercials, news, and inspiring talks and turns them into language learning experiences.

In contrast to other apps that take a scripted approach, FluentU uses a natural approach that helps you ease into the Spanish language and culture over time. You’ll learn Spanish as it’s spoken in real life.

23. Memrise

Memrise is a very unique language learning app. Unlike other apps, its sole purpose is to help you memorize Spanish words, hence the name “Memrise”. And in my opinion, it’s also one of the most creative iOS Spanish apps for learning Spanish words around.

24. OpenLanguage

Open Language has a really professional feel to the platform that sets it apart from many of the other apps. Among language learning apps that have a more “serious” feel, it’s probably one of the best Spanish apps for Android and iOS alike.

25. MosaLingua

Mosalingua is a platform that is designed to teach Spanish using several efficient methodologies, such as SRS (which helps calculate review dates based on how difficult you find words as you learn them), focusing on 20% of the most important vocabulary, as well as engraining words into long term memory.

I found the fact that it focuses on 3,000 most common words and phrases to be attractive – after all, the golden ratio really holds in many situations; you really only need about 20% of the language to get through 80% of daily situations.

26. SpeakEasy

If you’re looking for something more practical to take with you on the go, Speak Easy might be something for you.

A true mobile app available only for mobile platforms, Speak Easy is essentially a travel friendly phrasebook to take with you. Most phrasebooks you’ve bought probably had something like “ke as dee-cho” as a pronunciation aid for “Qué has dicho?”. But Speak Easy actually offers native recordings for most phrases and words, so you’ll be able to copy these native recordings easily.

Best Spanish Language Learning Courses

Taking a Spanish course is a great way to build a solid foundation of reading, writing; and speaking skills. Here is a list of the best Spanish speaking courses available.

27. DuoLingo

Duolingo has 69 million English speakers learning Spanish on its platform, making it arguably the biggest Spanish learning community in the world. You learn in an interactive way playing games and taking quizzes at the end to test what you learned.

Course Features

  • Free to signup
  • Over 69 million active members
  • Most popular Spanish course in the world
  • Interact with other students
  • Learn Spanish using gamification

28. StudySpanish

StudySPanish offers over 1,000 free online Spanish lessons along with different levels for beginners, intermediate and advanced speakers.

Course Features

  • Over 1,00 free Spanish courses
  • Easy to learn format
  • Taught by native Spanish speakers in a professional setting

29. SpanishMOOC

SpanishMOOC offers free online Spanish courses over the course of 4 weeks. Each course is self paced and you can complete it at your own pace. They offer a Spanish Basic 1, 2, and 3 course so you can improve your Spanish whether you are a complete beginner or have prior Spanish speaking skills.

Course Features

  • Spanish courses are free
  • 3 different Spanish courses for beginners, intermediate and advanced speakers
  • Taught using special adaptive learning techniques

Best Learn Spanish Language Software

Want complete immersion in a language before your trip or big meeting? Most Fortune 500 companies turn to Learn Spanish software programs to improve your Spanish skills in a very short period of time.

These software programs give you a broad understanding of the language and help your accent sound like a native speaker. Most of the programs cost money, but it is a small investment in your Spanish speaking education.

30. Rosetta Stone Spanish

Rosetta Stone is the most popular Spanish software in the world and is my go to program when I want to learn a language first. You learn through immersion, meaning you will only hear Spanish throughout the entire course.

Without offering your native language for translation, Rosetta Stone encourages you to learn more actively than other methods, which means you’ll be more successful.

Their advanced system presents material at the right intervals to optimize your individual learning. The curriculum is sequenced to introduce new skills in a way that stimulates your brain’s natural language learning ability. Advanced speech recognition technology analyzes every syllable, whenever you speak.

Course Features

  • Access for up to 5 family members
  • Learn at your own pace because the course never expires
  • Earbuds with microphone included in box
  • Access to the mobile app and live training for 3 months

Know about a Spanish Language Resource? Share it in the Comments

I have shared 30 awesome Spanish language books, courses, apps, websites, and lessons to help you improve your Spanish skills for your upcoming trip, vacation, meeting or date.

Do you know about a good Spanish language tool that I missed? If so, please share it in the comments section below. I will take a look at it and add it to the list if it is a high quality resource.

Now, you can start learning Spanish quickly and easily. Let me know if this post helped you!

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8 Comments

  1. Do you know why Culture Alley shut down it’s dedktop site? They offered over 70 lessons compared to the 28 on Youtube. I learned the most about grammar from this site than any other and wanted to continue. One day I could no longer sign in and there was no notification that the website for Spanish was no longer available.

  2. Cool post! Has anyone noticed that the picture is missing accents in some words? Finding books to learn Spanish is more or less easy. I have “Spanish for Dummies”, “A Good Spanish Book”, “Practice Makes Perfect”, etc. The difficult thing is to choose the best novels to learn Spanish. I am reading “Abcalia: El viaje de los sueños” these days. It’s a great one but I have no idea what to read after this one…

  3. Awesome article. I am an expat in Spain and the best book to learn Spanish for me is ‘A Good Spanish Book!’ No doubt about that. The best TV programs to improve your listening competence is ‘TVE Internacional’. Now I am looking for some website to have conversations with natives from Spain, and articles like these are awesome.