Spanish language resources – Language Links Database

Spanish – also called Castilian is a Romance language that originated in Castile, a region of Spain. Approximately 414 million people speak Spanish as a native language, making it second only to Mandarin in terms of its number of native speakers worldwide. There are more than 500 million Spanish speakers as a first or second language, and 20 million students of Spanish as a foreign language. Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, and it is used as an official language by the European Union, Mercosur, and the Pacific Alliance.

More information: Wikipedia

Native speakers: 470 million (2010)

Official language in: 20 countries


Spanish Grammar and Pronunciation



  • Wikiversity - Elementary course
  • Wikiversity - Intermediate Spanish course
  • WikiBooks - Course for beginners
  • MiT - OpenCourseWare for Spanish I
  • MiT - OpenCourseWare for Spanish II
  • MiT - OpenCourseWare for Spanish III
  • MiT - OpenCourseWare for Spanish IV
  • FSI Language Courses - The website contains following courses (each with separate textbook (pdf) and audio (mp3)): Spanish Programmatic, Spanish Basic, Spanish FAST, Suplemento para Secretarias, Testing Kit – French and Spanish, Headstart for Latin America, Headstart for Puerto Rico, Headstart for Spain
  • Learn101.org - All the lessons contain audio and are all offered for free. We will learn the alphabet together. We will also review some simple grammar rules, practice common phrases, and we will have fun memorizing many important vocabulary lists.
  • MyLanguages - Courses about adjectives, adverbs, articles, gender (feminine, masculine…), negation, nouns, numbers, phrases, plural, prepositions, pronouns, questions, verbs, vocabulary, exercises
  • ILanguages - This site is designed to teach you and help you learn Spanish for free through vocabulary, phrases, grammar and flashcards (vocabulary trainer)
  • Hello-World - Lessons for children. More than 700 FREE Spanish games and activities.
  • Gloss.dliflc.edu - Over 370 lessons
  • University of Texas - The University of Texas at Austin offers a vast index of free Spanish resources for beginner, intermediate, advanced, and superior levels. Every lesson has videos, grammar, vocabulary, phrases, and podcasts. The beginner material contains 15 tasks. Each includes an interview so that you can listen to native speakers of Spanish. For more advanced students, the material focuses on role plays. This course includes a comprehensive grammar index with an emphasis on expression, grammar tips, and pronouns. All the resources are completely free. 
  • BBC - BBC lessons and courses, grammar, vocabulary and games
  • Practicingspanish.com - Medical Spanish for Healthcare Providers
  • Learner.org Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish. A video instructional series in Spanish for college and high school classrooms and adult learners; 52 half-hour video programs divided into two parts (Part I programs 1-26, Part II programs 27-52), audiocassettes, music CD, video and audio scripts, and coordinated books.
  • Poliglo.com Poliglo‘s courses to learn languages are structured using 1000 words to learn. Each course has four levels, and each level has 250 words, the first section is “250 words” the second section is “500 words”, the third section is “750 words” and the fourth and last section is “1000 words”.
  • Lingolex.com - Vocabulary lists and grammar
  • Conjuguemos.com - Think of Conjuguemos as an online workbook for your Spanish language students. The site stores a large amount of practice activities, with more exercises added during the year by our users. Teachers can also create their own activities.
  • Open.edu - 20 hours of introductory Spanish course material
  • Studyspanish.com - Free tutorials – Spanish Pronunciation, Grammar, Vocabulary, Verbs, Travel Helper, Daily Word, Cultural Notes, Idioms
  • Miriadax.net - A lot of language courses. You must pay after completing the course in order to receive a certificate, however completing a course is free.
  • Elblogdegramatica.blogspot.de - Grammar reference in Spanish
  • Brighthubeducation.com - Over 200 (mostly short) study guides and learning tips compiled here by teachers, professors and native speakers of the Spanish language
  • Notesinspanish.com - Podcast and lessons for learners of all levels
  • 123teachme.com - Free courses, games, verb conjugation and lessons for kids, videos and tons of other resources for learners of all levels
  • Spanish.speak7.com - Here you can find a 100% free guide to quickly learn Spanish. We only included what could be very useful to the learner who wants to speak in a short time, while still touching many areas as possible.
  • Learnalanguage.com - Tons of free interactive lessons and games
  • Uiowa.edu - Spanish Phonetics Guide (and dialects guide)
  • Personal.colby.edu - Grammar and different study modules
  • Miscositas.com - Resources for teaching and learning Spanish
  • Ielanguages.com - Spanish Tutorials Index: Basic Phrases, Vocabulary and Grammar
  • Tomisimo.org - Grammar reference, dictionary, verb conjugator, community and more
  • Spanish.about.com - Study guides and articles
  • Columbia.edu - “We present a facility for the interactive drilling in Spanish Grammar.”
  • Bowdoin.edu - A concise outline of essential grammar structures based on John Turner’s All the Spanish Grammar You Really Need to Know
  • Learnpracticalspanishonline.com - A collection of free online lessons with sections for Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced learners
  • Elearnspanishlanguage.com - This website includes free resources for students, teachers, and lovers of the Spanish language
  • Trinity.edu - Interactive grammar exercises
  • Espanol-ingles.com.mx - This site includes all kinds of free content, with free grammar tutorials, worksheets, phrases, games and a dictionary
  • Freelanguagetutorials.com - We have online lessons, vocabulary lists, useful phrases, a glossary, as well as free printable worksheets, all listed below. Our materials are perfect for those learning basic or intermediate Spanish.
  • Orbilat.com - We have online lessons, vocabulary lists, useful phrases, a glossary, as well as free printable worksheets, all listed below. Our materials are perfect for those learning basic or intermediate Spanish.
  • Spanishuno.com - The Classroom contains dozens of grammar lessons. Each lesson includes explanations in English, voice files and links to Gym, where you can practice the topics studied in the lesson.
  • Businessspanish.com - Free Business Lessons
  • Linguanaut - Free Spanish lessons online, from Phrases, Alphabet, Numbers, Adjectives, Prepositions, Verbs, Vocabulary used in Spain. Most of the lessons contain expressions used for the everyday life conversations, through them you can learn how to say specific sentences, so they might come handy if you memorize them.
  • Spanish.cl - Grammar and vocabulary
  • Mld.ursinus.edu - This site presents a series of language exercises for the purpose of facilitating the learning and teaching of Spanish in the Internet environment (this site does not exist anymore).
  • Todo-claro.com - Train your Spanish with our interactive online exercises (also in German)
  • Spanicity.com - Vocabulary and grammar lessons with audio
  • Languageguide.org - Grammar and thematic vocabulary
  • Goethe-verlag.com - 200 language tests
  • Spanishprograms.com - Resource Guide for Students
  • Expanish.com - Our free worksheets are designed to help you improve you Spanish skills through various learning techniques, applying what you have learned in class and guiding you in your future studies.
  • Spanishunlimited.com - The website offers you the free lessons online, with video lessons and interesting information that will help you to improve your Spanish
  • Onlinefreespanish.com - This site was created to offer free lessons for both children and parents, whether for educational purposes, or just for fun. We have different lessons for each age, and everything is designed to make learning fun.
    There are plenty of interactive activities for you to engage in, and offer basic introductory Spanish skills. With all of the games, lessons, tips, and resources, you’ll be speaking Spanish in no time!  
  • Verbix - Online verb conjugator
  • Spanishtown.ca - The website is full of free Spanish language learning materials for all levels and all ages
  • Mansionspanish.com - Fully integrated course has a practical focus and includes a wide range of interactive exercises for you to do online. Grammar is introduced gradually and in context, and explanations, examples and exercises are provided as needed.
  • Fluentu.com - 150+ beginner expressions, questions and sentences to master Spanish conversation.
  • SQA Easy/Middle/Hard - Find past papers and marking instructions for your revision. You can search by topic and or refine by subject and level. To add the matching marking instructions simply tick the box.


Spanish Vocabulary



  • FreeRice.com - Vocabulary quiz. For each answer you get right, the website donates 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. PLEASE support this noble cause!
  • Wikivoyage - Extensive Phrasebook
  • TravLang - Vocabulary for travelers
  • Quia.com - Thousands of vocabulary and language learning games and quizzes
  • Pinterest - Hundreds of beautiful posters and pictures with thematic vocabulary
  • Quiz-tree.com - Fun games that are sure to improve your knowledge of the most useful Spanish verbs, both regular and irregular
  • Digital Dialects - Vocabulary learning games
  • Field Support - Language survival kits for Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela
  • Loecsen - Basic words and useful phrases you will need for your trip (with pdf and audio)
  • SurfaceLanguages - Learn phrases – these cover a wide variety of  topics, including the numbers, days, greetings and the months. Listen to and copy the native speech, and learn with flashcards.
  • Uebersetzung.at - Over 160 tongue twisters
  • MasterAnyLanguage - Flashcards for learners of all levels
  • Cram.com - Lessons and tens of thousands of flashcards
  • Quizlet.com - Lessons and tens of thousands of flashcards
  • InternetPolyglot - Vocabulary learning games
  • Espagnol.spanish.free.fr - Thematic vocabulary (on the left)
  • Wiktionary - A 207-word frequency list
  • Dicts.info - picture dictionary – picture dictionary with more than 2000 illustrations organized into topics
    vocabulary – database containing about 2000 most important meanings organized into topics
    flashcards – a simple game allowing you to learn vocabulary
    vocabulary trainer – a simple game allowing you to train your knowledge of vocabulary
    learn vocabulary – an application which allows you to learn Spanish vocabulary
    phrases – phrasebook of about 200 most frequently used phrases organized into topics
    grammar – an overview of the grammar basics
    examples – database of example sentences in Spanish

 

Spanish Reading Materials




Spanish Dictionaries



 

Spanish Listening and Video Resources



PODCASTS / AUDIOBOOKS



  • Audiria.com - Audiria is an online tool which freely supports your learning of Spanish, offering podcasts to increase your knowledge of the language
  • LibriVox - Over 150 free public domain audiobooks read by volunteers from around the world
  • One Minute Spanish – In this podcast you’ll be learning just enough Spanish to get by on a holiday or business trip to Spain. Each lesson includes just over a minute of language-learning content, so there’s no excuse not to learn! Remember, even a few phrases of a language can help you make friends and enjoy travel more, 16 lessons.
  • Coffee Break Spanish– aimed at total beginners, 158 lessons
  • Show Time Spanish – podcast is for intermediate and advanced learners, 53 lessons
  • Insta Spanish Lessons – interactive podcast contains listening comprehension exercises and grammar lessons for students of all levels, 11 lessons
  • Spanish A+ – Our great dialogs teach you new vocabulary in context, and our excellent learning tips guarantee that you’ll make progress in your Spanish studies., 38 lessons
  • ITunes Learn to Speak Spanish, 44 lessons
  • Notes in Spanish Intermediate - This is the genuine Spanish you will never find in a text book or classroom, 46 lessons
  • Spanishpodcast.org - Each “episodes” tells a story, with most later episodes building upon the plot from earlier episodes. Free transcript included
  • Learn Spanish the Rojas Way - These podcasts are for the Intermediate and Advanced Spanish Speaker who would like to sharpen their Spanish skills. The fine points of the language will be presented and explored through a variety of topics to include; music, history, culture, literature and food, 78 lessons
  • Newsinslowspanish.com - In our course we emphasize all aspects of language learning from listening comprehension, rapid vocabulary expansion, exposure to Spanish grammar and common idiomatic expressions, to pronunciation practice and interactive grammar exercises.
    In our program we discuss the Weekly News, Spanish grammar, and Spanish expressions, and much more at a slow pace so that you can understand almost every word and sentence.
  • Veintemundos.com - Free online audio “magazine”. Text articles from intermediate – advanced with audio in Latin American or Spain dialects.
  • ITunes Spanish I by Arkansas – This self-paced course is a good introduction for those who have never studied it before, or a good supplemental program for students who may be struggling in their school class, or a good refresher course for people who would like to brush up on Spanish after years of not having studied it, 28 lessons.
  • ITunes Spanish II by Arkansas – In this course, students will learn to talk about the past and will learn several other fundamental grammatical principles to further their ability to communicate in Spanish, 4 lessons
  • ITunes Spanish III by Arkansas –  4 lessons
  • Spanishobsessed.com - Podcasts for learners of all levels
  • 5 Minute Spanish – These concise videos cut straight to the point in explaining introductory Spanish grammar concepts
  • Cnr.berkeley.edu - Audio lessons that cover several subject areas
  • Forvo - About 70000 words pronounced by native speakers


TV / VIDEO / MOVIES



  • BBC - Immersive video series to help you learn simple Spanish
  • YouTube - Hundreds of Spanish TV shows
  • Learner.org - Travel the world with lawyer Raquel Rodríguez as she solves a mystery for a dying man. Watch the complete Destinos series, practice your Spanish, and find new resources for learning and teaching.
  • YouTube LightSpeed Spanish – Huge number of videos – from basic lessons, vocabulary to grammar lessons and interviews with native speakers
  • YouTube Butterfly Spanish – Learn and improve your vocabulary, phrases, grammar, pronunciation and tips with these useful lessons. Mostly for beginners.
  • YouTube Professor Jason Spanish – videos for learners of all levels which are presented in a slightly more formal way
  • YouTube - A list of YT video lessons
  • Wwitv.com - A list of about 40 TV stations from Spain (with description)
  • Wwitv.com - A list of about 16 TV stations from Mexico (with description)
  • Wwitv.com - A list of 9 TV stations from Colombia (with description)
  • Wwitv.com - A list of 9 TV stations from Chile (with description)
  • Wwitv.com - A list of 9 TV stations from Venezuela (with description)
  • Reddit - Over 130 movies (with links and subtitles)
  • Lib.berkeley.edu - Huge list of Spanish movies with descriptions (but without links)


RADIO



  • Rad.io - Over 1000 stations from Spanish speaking countries


MUSIC



If you want to help with expanding this list of resources, please send me your suggestions here.