Clicking the image takes you to the page that has the most information, but it is for the Spanish 1 and 2 set. To see the other sets once at Amazon, scroll down to "What Do Customers Ultimately Buy..."
I’ve just been looking around My Happy Planet and it seems like a potentially useful tool for learning to write Spanish via language exchange. I wouldn’t recommend such an approach for a total beginner, but for anyone who already knows some Spanish, this could be a nice add-on to a course or other more organized way of learning Spanish.
Here is how they describe their site: Click to read more >>>
I read someone’s opinion someplace online that the website Livemocha was like Rosetta Stone, only better. So I decided to check out Livemocha, specially since it has a large free part.
Now Rosetta Stone doesn’t suit my learning style, plus theoretically I think it’s not the best approach to learning languages… here’s my Rosetta Stone review. So with a bias against the program, off I went to poke around Livemocha.
It was evident right away that this was far more than just a bunch of lessons. It’s a very social, interactive place. I believe that there are quite a few of these interactive language places around the net, but this is the only one I have tried so far.
I went to Livemocha just before I got a nice new desktop computer with great sound capabilities, and unfortunately my old laptop wasn’t up to all the multimedia aspects of Livemocha. Its sound card didn’t work well enough for me to use the pronunciation feature, but still I did do one of the lessons. It was rather like Rosetta Stone, in using images and words. So if you are considering Rosetta Stone, you might try this first.
Here is what Livemocha says you can do there:
- Enroll in Courses: With our fun and holistic online language courses you’ll develop all the skills and confidence to begin conversing with native speakers.
- Make Friends: The Livemocha community is full of friendly, like-minded, and motivated language learners looking to practice their skills. Don’t be shy – introduce yourself and start practicing!
- Receive Tips from Native Speakers: Have your speaking and writing submissions reviewed and scored by native speakers. They will rate their proficiency, give you tips for improvement, and help you meet your language-learning goals.
- Stay Motivated: Learning a new language is tough! Track your weekly goals, earn points for completing exercises, and compare your progress with that of your friends for some friendly competition.
If an online language-learning community, for Spanish and many other languages, sounds like fun, take a look at Livemocha.
I’m always advocating that you listen to as much Spanish as possible… It’s one of the five keys in my free ebook on learning Spanish. (Don’t have the ebook yet? Get it from the order form on the right side of any page of this site.) So I’m happy today to direct your attention to an award-winning website from Spain where you can listen and listen. Click to read more >>>
Destinos is a telenovela, or Spanish soap opera, with a difference. It’s probably not as corny as most that I have seen on Mexican television because it was created to teach speaking, listening, and comprehension skills in Spanish. Produced by WGBH, the public broadcasting station in Boston, in 1992, it can be watched for free online or purchased as DVDs. You can also download some supplementary materials to your computer at no charge.
Here is how the program is described on its website.
Online Spanish classes come in many forms. I’ve just been having a lot of fun exploring the Spanish Proficiency Exercises at the University of Texas at Austin. You listen to short videos made by people from many parts of the Spanish-speaking world. They are available for beginners all the way through to the most advanced level, called superior.
Each exercise has five parts:
RSS doesn’t stand for Really Super Spanish, though it’s always a good idea to have that as your goal. RSS is an internet term, usually described as a shortcut for Really Simple Syndication. But this is a blog on learning Spanish, so why am I talking about RSS?
By using RSS and an online reader – I’ll be demonstrating with Google Reader, my favorite – you can keep up to date way more easily with your favorite online blogs, for learning Spanish or for whatever else interests you. In this article, first I will try to entice you into wanting to use RSS and then I’ll tell you how.
I was happy to receive an email from Paralee Whitmire, who had come across my website and wanted to let me know about the lessons for learning Spanish and English that she has created at Spanishdict.com/learn. So I just went and took a look. In a nutshell, the website has a bunch of useful tools including her lessons.
If you can follow some Spanish, when spoken clearly and reasonably slowly, take a look at a site I just found recently, Spanish News Bites. I’ve got it bookmarked for regular surfing. If you want to learn Spanish online free, this should be on your list of regular stops. And if you are working with a program such as Rocket Spanish, Fluenz Spanish, Rosetta Stone, or any of the others, this is a good supplement.
On this site, you can read and listen at the same time. They do short news articles in Spanish, with words in bold, like this from a recent article there:
Crisis, desempleo, estancamiento… El vocabulario económico más temido llena los medios y las conversaciones en español. Junto a Francia, Reino Unido o Alemania, España ya está al borde de la recesión. ¿Y Latinoamérica? ¿Aguantará?
On the site, the words that are bolded show their meanings in English if you roll your cursor over them.
You can also listen to the article being read aloud in Spanish. Click to read more >>>
