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Vocabulary
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Vocabulary

Visualization, etymology, word-association...every unconventional trick in the world to help you memorize and recall alien-sounding words in the Spanish language and boost your vocabulary effortlessly and painlessly.
Photo credit: peanutian licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

Street Spanish
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Street Spanish

Spanish is a language as diverse as its speakers and there’s more to it than just American vs. European. Learn the various dialectical differences between the innumerable versions of Spanish right off the streets.
Photo credit: Garry Knight licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

Immersion
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Immersion

Immerse yourself into an ocean of Spanish right where you live with these notes discussing several innovative ways of weaving the language around you. Building an immersive environment at home is ridiculously easy.
Photo credit: prayitno licensed CC BY 2.0

Deconstruction

Deconstruction

Learn Spanish by performing autopsies on simple Spanish sentences with us. These sentences range from colloquial expressions to well-known sayings, giving you subtle insights into the Hispanic culture as you learn.
Photo credit: Steve A Johnson licensed CC BY 2.0

Music
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Music

They say, music is the best healer. It’s the best teacher too! Find out how listening to Latino music can boost your rate of Spanish acquisition and also offer you a rich window to the tappy rhythms of Hispanosphere.
Photo credit: Doug Letterman licensed CC BY 2.0

Movies and Shows
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Movies and Shows

More Spanish can be absorbed from movies and television than from textbooks and dictionaries. Read all about entertainment as an input source and discover not only what to watch for maximum juice, but also what to!
Photo credit: r2hox licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

Tips and Tricks

Tips and Tricks

Loads of unconventional, radical, and otherwise unexplored tips and tricks to help you get results out of your Spanish learning programs. Also learn about how to stay motivated and entertained throughout the process.
Photo credit: woodleywonderworks licensed CC BY 2.0

Resources
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Resources

Absolutely unbiased reviews and practical information on dozens of extremely useful, and mostly free, Spanish learning resources available on the Internet and elsewhere to complement your existing learning programs.
Photo credit: Basilio Briceño licensed CC BY 2.0

Did You Know!

  • Everyone knows that Spanish and Castillian are synonymous. What not many know, however, is that all countries from Central America, except for El Salvador, use the term, “Español” to refer to this language whereas all the countries from South America, except for Colombia, use the term, “Castellano.” In Spain, the latter is also often used to distinguish the north-central standard from other dialects, such as Andalucian.
  • Modern Spanish, Mexican in particular, has quite a few words coming from English and replacing their standard Spanish counterparts in regular speech. Some examples include words like “chequear” (to check) and “clique” (click). What you perhaps didn’t know is that “carro” the Latin American word for “car” is not one of them! Instead, it comes from the Gaulish word, “karros,” (“cart”) and is older than the Peninsular “coche”!
  • Spanish is the language of choice when it comes to learning a second language across Europe and Americas. With almost half a billion native speakers across 44 countries over 5 continents, it is the second most spoken language on Earth. What you didn’t know perhaps is that there are already more native speakers of Spanish than of English worldwide! By 2060, 50% of Americans are expected to be native Spanish speakers!
  • With 228 million supporters, Real Madrid is the most popular and the richest football club in the world; FC Barcelona, on the other hand, has the biggest privately-owned stadium in the world! Though from the same country, the two clubs share a bitter rivalry that goes back to Franco’s days. While Barcelona represented opposition to the dictatorship, Madrid was seen as a symbol of nationalism and favored by the regime!
  • Despite FC Barcelona’s notably anti-nationalist views during the Franco-regime, the stance has largely reversed in more modern times with the club president, Joan Laporta, a self-proclaimed nationalist mandating all foreign players on the team to learn Catalan! Though largely similar, Catalan and Spanish are different languages. Barca fans are typically known as “culés,” the Catalan for ass. The Spanish word is “culo.”
  • Being a Romance language like Italian, Portuguese, French, and Romanian, Spanish owes much of its existence to Latin. However, what you didn’t know is that after Latin, the language that has the greatest influence on Spanish is far from European – Arabic! Spain is studded with cities and towns having Arabic names. The name, Madrid, for example, comes from the Arabic, “magerit,” which means “the place of many streams”!
  • It’s well-known that Mexico has the largest population of Spanish speakers in the world, way more than even Spain. What you didn’t know is that Mexico City is the oldest city in North America, that the Zapotecs of Mexico developed the first writing system in the Americas, that the National University of Mexico is the oldest university in North America, and that North America’s first printing press was used in Mexico!

6 Alien-Sounding Spanish Verbs In An Instant


Etymology is an incredibly wonderful tool when it comes to acquiring new words. Dig deep enough into the history of any language and words that seemed utterly alien and unrelated until now suddenly start to appear familiar. This works best when the language in question shares genetics with your native tongue. Fortunately, Spanish and English share a stronger ancestral bond than many acknowledge, which makes learning new words easier than it seems. Let’s see how etymological mapping can help us learn some of the most commonly used Spanish verbs that, on face value, seem to have little semblance with their English meanings.
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Easy Trick To Learn The Spanish For Your Clothes


You could be out on vacation shopping for some items of clothing in a Spanish-speaking country or perhaps you just want to flaunt your Spanish to a bunch of native speakers. No matter what your motivation, learning to name what you wear everyday in Spanish is a cool skill to have. And, if you know the right way to learn, it should take you no more than a few minutes to conquer them all and reproduce them “on the fly” without having to fiddle with mental translations. If cramming up words after words is your forte, we’d recommend saving that skill for something harder as this one calls for hardly any efforts on your part!
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What Makes Audiria The Best Podcast For Spanish Learners?


There’s no contesting the immensely important role immersion plays in any rapid Spanish acquisition program. The more Spanish input we get inundated with, the better our chances of eventually being able to produce it. This idea has been carefully explored and evaluated time and again both here and elsewhere. But there are just too many sources of input out there to quickly overwhelm the layman and that’s where we step in, helping you cherry-pick the best for you. Audiria is one such free Spanish learning resource we’d strongly recommend to you, but not without the unbiased scrutiny it’s being subjected to in this review.
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Colombian Spanish – Street Speech From Shakira’s Homeland


While the jury is still out on which Spanish is The Absolute, an overwhelming number of both native and non-native speakers hold the Colombian flavor in high regard. This ambiguous claim might, and often does, spawn a heated debate amongst Spanish speakers for every nationality has reasons to take their Spanish as “standard” Spanish. Nevertheless, if you have set your heart on the Colombian variant, it won’t hurt to learn about some of its most defining features and nuances. The Spanish spoken in Colombia differs from the others in more ways than a few and this article discusses some of the most salient ones of all.
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The 4 Keywords Of Argentinean Spanish Other Than Che


The Argentineans could practically go on for hours at a stretch with anyone who’d care to listen! And, naturally, this overdose of spoken Spanish is bound to spawn an entire jargon of local slang and idiosyncrasies that could catch even a master of Spanish off-guard. Even someone who can’t say, “My name is Bill,” in Spanish would know that che is what the Argentineans live and breathe. What many don’t know, however, is that Argentinean life doesn’t start and end with just che. A dialect of Spanish as rich as Argentinean ought to do much better than that; here, we explore 4 words from Argentina that you just can’t do without.
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32 Spanish Verbs In Your Kitchen In Under 10 Minutes


However eccentric one’s tastes, the allure of good food can hardly be denied. How about adding a little gastronomical twist to our mundane Spanish learning regimen then? Even if you don’t particularly enjoy cooking, the ability to talk about the goings on in your kitchen in fluent Spanish will go a long way winning you the heart of that Latina who is famous for her yummy mole! This article is going to help you learn and remember for ever, some of the most frequently used Spanish verbs related to cooking with a special focus on clearing the air on two very similar sounding verbs (and thus quite confusing), cocer and cocinar.
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