What is the best iphone app for learning Spanish?
March 9, 2022 7:55 AM Subscribe
Currently taking Spanish classes, and looking for an app to supplement my learning. Would also appreciate any other advice, resources, or strategies you have for learning a second language as an adult.
My goal is to improve my Spanish considerably by November. To that end, I'm taking weekly classes at a language school in my area. However, I'm hoping to progress quickly, and am willing to put in the time.
I've been using Duolingo for years, but it doesn't seem to help a whole lot — and I've heard others say the same thing. I guess Duolingo is okay as sort of a flashcard app for learning vocab, but it's pretty bad for actually teaching you the language. And so I'm curious if there are any better apps out there.
I would also appreciate any other advice, resources, or strategies you may have for learning a second language. I'm an adult in my late 30s, and I'm really tired of hearing about how "it's best to learn a second language when you're young." I want to prove that conventional wisdom wrong!
I live in NYC, in case that's relevant.
Thank you for looking at this!
My goal is to improve my Spanish considerably by November. To that end, I'm taking weekly classes at a language school in my area. However, I'm hoping to progress quickly, and am willing to put in the time.
I've been using Duolingo for years, but it doesn't seem to help a whole lot — and I've heard others say the same thing. I guess Duolingo is okay as sort of a flashcard app for learning vocab, but it's pretty bad for actually teaching you the language. And so I'm curious if there are any better apps out there.
I would also appreciate any other advice, resources, or strategies you may have for learning a second language. I'm an adult in my late 30s, and I'm really tired of hearing about how "it's best to learn a second language when you're young." I want to prove that conventional wisdom wrong!
I live in NYC, in case that's relevant.
Thank you for looking at this!
Best answer: Time for one of my perennial AskMe recomendations - have a watch of Ten Things Polyglots Do Differently and perhaps also The ultimate cure for the undisciplined learner - a system!.
They're two talks from The Polyglot Gathering by Lýdia Machová, who learns a new language every two years and currently speaks nine of them. The second starts out sounding like it's going to be the same as the first, but stick with it because it then diverges and she shows you how to create an achievable system and schedule that will help you to move forward at a pace that is motivating.
The long and the short of it, is to do as many different things as possible, not just take lessons, and do them little and often. So listen to podcasts in your target language (even ones that are too difficult for you to really understand are useful); watch TV; find someone to converse with; learn vocabulary; drill grammar; read books - kids' books if need be, but IME actually books for Spanish speakers written by proper writers, not the books written for learners of Spanish as a second language, which tend to be pretty dull and badly-written in terms of things like storytelling and characters. The aim is not to recognise every word but to at least have an idea what's happening in the story.
A lot of people rave about italki, which is an app for finding people to practice speaking with, some are professional tutors, other just enthusiastic amateurs, prices vary accordingly.
A couple of other useful things: The thread where I last gave this answer is similar, might have some recommendations.
In another recent learning languages thread, someone recommended Language Transfer, which is a totally free audio course, in a similar vein to the Michel Thomas courses; I've now done some of the Spanish ones and think it's excellent - takes a very different approach from a lot of courses and you find yourself covering a lot of ground very quickly.
posted by penguin pie at 8:31 AM on March 9, 2022 [8 favorites]
They're two talks from The Polyglot Gathering by Lýdia Machová, who learns a new language every two years and currently speaks nine of them. The second starts out sounding like it's going to be the same as the first, but stick with it because it then diverges and she shows you how to create an achievable system and schedule that will help you to move forward at a pace that is motivating.
The long and the short of it, is to do as many different things as possible, not just take lessons, and do them little and often. So listen to podcasts in your target language (even ones that are too difficult for you to really understand are useful); watch TV; find someone to converse with; learn vocabulary; drill grammar; read books - kids' books if need be, but IME actually books for Spanish speakers written by proper writers, not the books written for learners of Spanish as a second language, which tend to be pretty dull and badly-written in terms of things like storytelling and characters. The aim is not to recognise every word but to at least have an idea what's happening in the story.
A lot of people rave about italki, which is an app for finding people to practice speaking with, some are professional tutors, other just enthusiastic amateurs, prices vary accordingly.
A couple of other useful things: The thread where I last gave this answer is similar, might have some recommendations.
In another recent learning languages thread, someone recommended Language Transfer, which is a totally free audio course, in a similar vein to the Michel Thomas courses; I've now done some of the Spanish ones and think it's excellent - takes a very different approach from a lot of courses and you find yourself covering a lot of ground very quickly.
posted by penguin pie at 8:31 AM on March 9, 2022 [8 favorites]
I liked the Mango languages app as it was more explicit about grammar and usage rules than Duolingo and the interface was better overall. It's free through NYPL.
Spanishland School was also recommended way back in another thread and I still listen to their podcasts. I took the classes online and did the conversation classes for about a year and it was helpful but beyond that it got a little repetitive so I stopped. The conversation classes can be hit or miss depending on who else is in your session that day, so I'd recommend doing one-on-one sessions with the tutor if you can.
One of my favorite strategies to reinforce my Spanish in the absence of others to speak it with is to watch Netflix with captions in Latin American Spanish. You'll learn a lot of common slang and general phrases and plenty of new vocabulary, depending on what you're watching. I use this for content originally in both English and Spanish. I also have many coworkers who are native speakers from many different countries so I make an effort to speak to them in Spanish or write emails/IMs in Spanish and I asked them to correct me if I make any egregious errors.
posted by Fuego at 8:32 AM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Spanishland School was also recommended way back in another thread and I still listen to their podcasts. I took the classes online and did the conversation classes for about a year and it was helpful but beyond that it got a little repetitive so I stopped. The conversation classes can be hit or miss depending on who else is in your session that day, so I'd recommend doing one-on-one sessions with the tutor if you can.
One of my favorite strategies to reinforce my Spanish in the absence of others to speak it with is to watch Netflix with captions in Latin American Spanish. You'll learn a lot of common slang and general phrases and plenty of new vocabulary, depending on what you're watching. I use this for content originally in both English and Spanish. I also have many coworkers who are native speakers from many different countries so I make an effort to speak to them in Spanish or write emails/IMs in Spanish and I asked them to correct me if I make any egregious errors.
posted by Fuego at 8:32 AM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
It's not an app, but radio/podcasts have been useful for me. El Dollop is very fast DF Spanish based on US things, but funny as hell. Radio ambulante is far more serious and also good.
posted by eotvos at 8:46 AM on March 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by eotvos at 8:46 AM on March 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
I've used Duolingo for years, and last year I started reading the Harry Potter books in Spanish. I'm on the fifth one now. I guess it depends what your goal is - mine has always been primarily that I want to read Spanish, not speak it - but it's been amazingly helpful in expanding my vocabulary and getting used to sentence structure. The story is familiar and I have a copy of the English book to refer to when I get stuck. You might try audiobooks for a similar experience if you're more interested in listening and/or speaking.
posted by something something at 8:56 AM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by something something at 8:56 AM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
I like the 24h rolling news on RTVE.es , I think other channels need a VPN but not the news one. I am econonimising but had generally great experiences with italki.com both with community tutors and professional tutors - I guess it's wrong to pick favourites but I got on really well with one in Bogota, Colombia who was interesting to talk to and also the currency exchange back at the time made it a bargain (I would have chosen her anyway due to our mutual interest in Japan - she had taught there and didn't mind that I asked questions about Japan more than about Colombia). If you would say your level is low-intermediate you might like the Blanca To Go podcast.
I'm sure others could recommend some great films in Spanish for those using DVD's as well as Netflix - things like The Motorcycle Diaries, Whisky, The Secret In Their Eyes, I'm sure one of the big movies sites must have a recommended list or if you want to stick to Netflix or Amazon Prime there must be articles about the best ones in Spanish on both those platforms.
posted by AuroraSky at 10:04 AM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm sure others could recommend some great films in Spanish for those using DVD's as well as Netflix - things like The Motorcycle Diaries, Whisky, The Secret In Their Eyes, I'm sure one of the big movies sites must have a recommended list or if you want to stick to Netflix or Amazon Prime there must be articles about the best ones in Spanish on both those platforms.
posted by AuroraSky at 10:04 AM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I like the Lupa app a lot. It takes episodes of the podcast Radio Ambulante, which is basically a Latino This American Life and adds in lots of features to support learners in using episodes as a learning tool. Not free but doesn't cost too much and exposes you to lots of accents, slang and Spanish that's not too dumbed down for learners.
Learning language with Netflix is also useful, it allows you to display two sets of subtitles at once on Netflix and You Tube.
posted by geegollygosh at 10:20 AM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
Learning language with Netflix is also useful, it allows you to display two sets of subtitles at once on Netflix and You Tube.
posted by geegollygosh at 10:20 AM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
I started the pandemic unable to speak Spanish despite having studied it for three years in university, then I started taking two lessons a week on italki and now I’m functionally fluent — able to chat about almost anything, though of course I still make a ton of mistakes.
I highly recommend finding a way to frequently speak one-on-one in Spanish. A lot of the things I’d otherwise recommend are already mentioned in this thread (podcasts, subtitled tv) — not sure if anyone mentioned reading Spanish language newspapers? I find that helpful because it’s a relatively predictable reading target when you’re reading international news (eg La Jornada or El Universal on the war in Ukraine).
Check out the learnspanish subreddit for resources too.
Good luck! I leaned two languages as an adult, you can totally do this thing.
posted by hungrytiger at 12:44 PM on March 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
I highly recommend finding a way to frequently speak one-on-one in Spanish. A lot of the things I’d otherwise recommend are already mentioned in this thread (podcasts, subtitled tv) — not sure if anyone mentioned reading Spanish language newspapers? I find that helpful because it’s a relatively predictable reading target when you’re reading international news (eg La Jornada or El Universal on the war in Ukraine).
Check out the learnspanish subreddit for resources too.
Good luck! I leaned two languages as an adult, you can totally do this thing.
posted by hungrytiger at 12:44 PM on March 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm refreshing my very out of date high school Spanish with DuoLingo and a workbook. DuoLingo has podcasts you can subscribe through whatever app you want. And I've been listening to the "Simple Stories in Spanish" podcast as well. PM if you want to have conversations sometimes.
posted by kathrynm at 3:32 PM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by kathrynm at 3:32 PM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thank you all for the help and suggestions! One thing I've started doing is using a flashcard app for reviewing specific things. For example, it's really helped me with memorizing the various forms of ser and estar. I wound up going with Anki, which is really feature-rich, although has a bit of a learning curve.
One thing it lets you do is create "filtered" decks from your main deck, in case you want to cram on a specific subset of your cards. I wound up creating two filtered decks, "to be" and "not to be", which I found humorous, but only because I have a terrible sense of humor.
posted by panama joe at 9:11 AM on March 15, 2022
One thing it lets you do is create "filtered" decks from your main deck, in case you want to cram on a specific subset of your cards. I wound up creating two filtered decks, "to be" and "not to be", which I found humorous, but only because I have a terrible sense of humor.
posted by panama joe at 9:11 AM on March 15, 2022
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