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 am still keeping my eye out for a free learn-Spanish program or website that is anywhere near the quality of Fluenz Spanish, Rocket Spanish, or Pimsleur . (Those links take you to my reviews on this website.) So far, no luck, but I will keep looking. But I have found several ways to learn Spanish online free, which you could use as add-ons to whatever program you work with. Since I’m already at home enough with the language, I just use these and pop some of the words and phrases into my flashcard software.
Here are some that I have subscribed to via RSS:
- Spanish NewsBites (the small RSS symbol is down the page, on the left)
- Spanish on About.com (also a small RSS symbol, at the bottom right of the page)
- Learn Spanish Rapidly (yep, that’s where you are right now, and my RSS symbol is on the top left)
I subscribe to several more but you get the idea. If you have signed up for my free ebook on how to learn Spanish and my Tuesday morning email newsletters, if you find you like RSS better than the newsletters, you can just unsubscribe from my newsletter using the link at the bottom of each issue.
How to Get Going with RSS
[1] Go to a blog you like and look for the RSS symbol. It’s most commonly orange but can be any color. Here it is on the top right corner of this blog
And sometimes there is no image, just the words RSS Feed or even just RSS.
[2] Click on the symbol or the words next to it.. Then you may see something like this:
or you might see a page with something like this as part of it:
In any case, whatever form it takes, you are asked what RSS reader you want to use. I’ve used the Bloglines and the MyYahoo ones in the past, but lately I’m happy with the Google Reader.
[3] So choose whatever reader you want to use. If you use gmail as I do, you already have a Google account. If you don’t use any of the online Google services that require an account, I imagine you would be taken to a page to sign up. So let’s say that you have done that or have a gmail account. Then after you click on “Subscribe Now” you may be asked if you want to put the RSS feed on your Google homepage or Google Reader.
[4] Click on Google Reader and you will be taken to your own Google Reader page. Here is what the top of mine looks like right now:
I know you can’t see it all that clearly at this size, but I just want to point out that on the left you will see a list of blogs you have signed up for. I have organized mine so that all the learn Spanish blogs are together under the heading Spanish. There is the number (15) after the word Spanish, and that indicates that 15 new blog posts have gone online since the last time I caught up in the reader.
[5] Using the Reader: On the right, you see that some of the article titles in the list are bold. That’s because I haven’t read them yet. Just after the title you can read the first few lines of the article. Then if you are interested, you can either click on the title to read the rest of the article in the Reader or you can click on the tiny arrow on the far right of the line and the whole article will open in a new tab or window.
Some websites have their RSS feeds set up so you can only read part of the article in the Reader and need to click on that tiny arrow to see it all.
If you liked this article, please post a comment below! I could do one on Twitter for sure and maybe some of the other ways that people connect, like the learn Spanish groups on Facebook. But now, it’s time to go try out a new piece of slang on a Mexican friend!
