I was recently asked what the best apps for learning Spanish were, and since I haven’t learned Spanish through apps in a while, I wasn’t sure. So, I dove back into the world of language-learning apps to see if anything had changed.
Continue reading “I tested every Spanish-learning app. Here’s what I found.”
Looking for a new Spanish tv show filled with dramatic teenagers and a series of incredibly unlikely but intriguing events? Elite has you covered.
Netflix released season 1 of Elite in 2018, and although being a Spanish show, it gained popularity around the world. Elite follows 3 scholarship students from a working-class part of town as they begin attending Las Encinas, a rich private high school, for Spain’s most elite. This parallels flashforwards to the main character’s mysterious murder. Throughout the series, viewers are watching the events that led up to the killing along with police interrogations following the murder. This leads a viewer to constantly ponder who was killed, who was the killer, and what was their motive.
Elite has also been recognized for the diversity of its characters and storylines, taking on tough subjects especially for a dramatic teen tv show. There’s an inclusion of a gay storyline between two male characters, and their struggle to be accepted by one boy’s Muslim family. Additionally, one girl struggles with her religious identity when her school requires her not to wear a hijab to school. One main character even deals with the trials of being HIV-positive for the rest of their life.
Elite tries to cover a large variety of themes, from those mentioned above, to class and race struggles. The show has been criticized for often glossing over these themes in order to focus on flashy drama. However, in comparison to other shows of the same genre, it still introduces many issues relevant to young people of this time.
Elite does a good job of developing its characters as well. Many tropes are used at the beginning of the show, but it soon becomes clear that each character has a rich and interesting backstory explaining their actions as the show progresses.
For Spanish-language learners, Elite offers great practice. The show is meant for native Spanish speakers and uses Spain-centric Spanish. Characters give beautiful dialogues, some slow and some fast. For any level of Spanish learner, Elite offers a learning opportunity. Beginners may opt to listen in Spanish but use English subtitles, intermediates may rely on Spanish subtitles, and expert speakers can face a challenge by watching the show completely subtitle-free.
SpanishDict is a super helpful English-Spanish Translator website, specializing in helping English speakers learn Spanish. The app is very comprehenisze with its definitions, offering examples, pronounciation help, a conjugation chart, popular phrases, a thesaurus section, and examples from the web.
The website also has hundreds of articles explaining each type of conjugation, common grammar mistakes, and a range of other issues faced by native English speakers while learning the language. A new section of the website now also offers vocabulary practice.
Unlike Google Translate, SpanishDict can translate words and entire phrases. When translating a word, the site will pull up a dictionary-styled page explaining each definition for the word and when to use each one. This prevents beginner speakers from making mistakes when translating a word such as “fly,” which has very distinct meanings between the noun and verb form. Additionally, when translating entire phrases, SpanishDict gives you the results of Microsoft, SDL, and PROMT. In my experience, SpanishDict has yet to mistranslate any word or phrase I’ve entered, and it’s my go to for looking up a Spanish word I don’t know.
The newest addition to the SpanishDict website offers basic vocabulary exercises. The majority of “flashcards” are grouped by topic, such as ‘animals’ or ‘foods’, but may be useful for an introductory Spanish learner.
To access, go to https://www.spanishdict.com/.
This masterpiece by Roberto Bolaño centers around a group of radical poets and their hungry, crazy, and romantic lives in Mexico City. It’s got lesbians, mystery suicides, schizophrenics, and a lot of jaw-dropping stories. It’s worth to struggle with the Spanish because Bolaño is a masterful wordsmith, but this book will be most enjoyable for advanced Spanish readers.
Radio Ambulante is an award-winning podcast series which tells Latin American stories, covering a range of issues from immigration to bee-keeping. They have thousands of episodes to choose from, allowing listeners to filter by country, topic, and length. Most episodes are both in Spanish and English, which makes Radio Ambulante suitable for both beginners and advanced Spanish students.
With sections ranging from beginner to advanced, this podcast covers a wide variety of topics, most of which center around using Spanish in everyday life. The episodes are mostly 10-15 minutes long and gradually move from using some English to explain ideas to speaking exclusively in Spanish. The hosts do a great job of explaining their ideas and topics for every level learner.
This brand-new Netflix telenovela, already critically and popularly acclaimed, revolves around a powerful family in Mexico City, attempting to preserve its image after the father’s mistress hangs herself from the family’s house, uncovering the family’s dirty secrets. While inhabiting the best tradition of hyperbolic and postmodern Mexican telenovelas, this series offers an original dark comedy twist. The spoken Spanish is clear yet abundant in colloquialisms.
Duolingo: Duolingo’s app is very intuitive, is free, and has short exercises for both grammar and vocabulary for 100-level French. Structured exactly like the website, Duolingo features a ladder-like structure of learning; each lesson introduces new material based on past information. One nice feature to the app is the possibility of “testing out” of lessons, which is helpful if you find yourself bored by the current material.
Memrise: Almost identical to Duolingo’s mini-lesson/game-based platform, Memrise uses incrementally more difficult lessons with easy responses, presenting words or phrases and then asking for repetition. Some minor variations are present, however: Memrise uses short videos of native French speakers to help with listening comprehension. There is also a texting-based portion, where you can practice composing short messages by stringing together suggested words or letters. Memrise is less polished than Duolingo, and each lesson seems to introduce less material overall, with more repetition. This may be useful for learners who have a more difficult time learning new words or phrases. Memrise is free, but has frequent prompts to purchase a subscription. These can be ignored by simply tapping anywhere on the screen (other than the “purchase” button).
Image credit: https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/duolingo-ios-app-new-bot/
https://www.pcmag.com/review/356293/memrise
Algarabía is a Mexico City-based magazine with a distinct quirky and ironic style. They publish pieces on science, language, history, art, and, according to their website, “little explored aspects of cotidianity.” Examples of their articles (which can be found on their website) include “Position Changes in Erotic Art”, “People don’t know how to drink coffee”, and “The Science on Cursing”. Better suited for advanced Spanish learners, articles in this magazine are characterized by playful yet accessible prose. Their series on etymologies is particularly good; sometimes poignant, often hilarious, always informative.