Notes from textbook ¿Qué tal? An Introductory Course

This is the companion book to Ollendorff's New method of Learning to Read, Write, and Speak. Both books are out of copyright and thus can be freely downloaded in .pdf from Google Books. This book might be even more useful for those already familiar with the grammar but who want to brush up with good sample sentences.

A great firefox addon that allows you to simply highlight a word and a small hover window will appear and the word will be looked up in either google or yahoo for a translation. Incredibly useful. I have tried several others but this one is my favorite. One weakness is that it doesn't do phrases only single words.

The award-winning Spanish course aimed at beginners through to intermediate learners providing weekly 20-minute lessons covering the basics of Spanish. This is an ideal course for anyone who wants to go further than learning phrases off by heart, and will allow listeners to develop their confidence in the language.

Editor's Note: this is one of the podcasts I most often recommend to beginner and intermediate students. The series starts off at a very basic level but by the end (80 episodes) offers a much higher level. Also note that although the extra materials are fee-based, all the podcasts themselves are free.

Destinos is a video instructional series in Spanish for college and high school classrooms and adult learners consisting of 52 half-hour video programs divided into two parts. Destinos teaches speaking, listening, and comprehension skills in Spanish. This telenovela, or Spanish soap opera, immerses students in everyday situations with native speakers and introduces the cultures, accents, and dialects of Mexico, Spain, Argentina, and Puerto Rico. Understanding of Spanish and appreciation of many Hispanic cultures increase as students become absorbed in the mysterious and entertaining story. Closed captioning in Spanish can be used as a teaching and literacy resource.

WordReference ofrece el Diccionario de la lengua española © 2005 Espasa Calpe.
* Más de 50.000 entradas.
* Más de 150.000 definiciones y ejemplos de uso.
* Más de 7.000 notas gramaticales.
* Más de 5.000 voces y acepciones del español de América.

The best selling newspaper in Spain. Some of the best writers publish their articles in El Pais. Good International Section and well designed. Only in Spanish. If you sign up to their RSS feed beware that they post a LOT of articles each day.

Un podcast en lengua española para todos aquellos que quieran revisar en profundidad todo lo relacionado con el español que han aprendido, que saben y hablan, pero que está pendiente de algunas actualizaciones.

Este podcast se dirige, pues, a aquellos hablantes de español que quieren perfeccionar su español hablado y escrito, a los quieren estructurar mejor sus conocimientos gramaticales del español, a los que necesitan ganar fluidez y agilidad mediante una escucha más exhaustiva y a aquellos que deseen ampliar considerablemente tanto su vocabulario como el uso de expresiones coloquiales.

Para alcanzar estos objetivos, creemos que la escucha de situaciones sugeridas, diálogos, explicaciones y ejemplos, pueden ser la mejor manera de lograrlo.

Professor Fred F. Jehle developed these Spanish language course materials over many years for a variety of classes, but primarily for an intermediate college-level course called S210 Second-Year Spanish Composition. There are numerous components to this collection of materials:

1. Grammatical explanations, consisting of a series of approximately 36 lessons on aspects of Spanish language. I conduct my classes primarily in Spanish, but these presentations are written in English, with examples given in Spanish with English translations; many students at the intermediate level have serious problems understanding aspects of language written in a foreign language, and a few simply balk at such a prospect. These explanations are heavily weighted in favor of the most challenging aspect of Spanish for English speakers: verb forms and uses. Most of these explanations are accompanied by practice exercises, answers and assignments.

2. Other pages have been included as well, often as a result of student suggestions. Some involve tricks or mnemonic devices for remembering aspects of the language. When students offer such gems I give credit to them in the individual page; to any teachers or books from which the students might have learned

Freely available, electronic format language courses developed by the Foreign Service Institute. These courses were developed by the United States government and are in the public domain.

tú llámalo como quieras... el caso es que se trata de ese vocabulario, esas expresiones tan especiales que son típicas de cada país de habla hispana y que convierten el español neutro e insípido en algo pintoresco y vivo, algo que nos da un poco de la esencia de cada pueblo de habla hispana: un idioma con SABORRR.

Un grupo de buenos amigos y una servidora nos hemos planteado el problema y hemos empezado a compilar listas de vocablos o frases usadas en diferentes países de América latina, y por supuesto, en España.

This site is composed of amatuer video filmed in several countries, namely Argentina, Ecuador, México, Nicaragua and Spain. What's great about this is someone grabbed a camcorder and hit the streets recording real life conversations as they conduct their day to day business in the streets.

You'll see footage of someone ordering ice cream, talking to cab drivers, buying medicine at a pharmacy, and a whole lot more, this is the real deal. Nothing fake, nothing scripted. They also provide transcripts in both English and Spanish. And the videos are downloadable. [Hat tip to My Spanish Notes]

Language translation site Nice Translator uses Google Translate's results but wraps them in a more dynamic front end that offers multiple translations as-you-type.

Type your phrase into Nice Translator, which auto-detects what language you're inputting, and watch as it lists multiple translations, in real-time, as you type. Google Translate's page isn't as nice-looking or dynamic as Nice Translator, since it requires you to choose both the original and translation language and manually refresh the page. [Lifehacker Annotation]

The superiority of Ollendorff's method of teaching languages is now universally acknowledged, both in the United States and in Europe. Divested of the ab-stractedness of grammar, it contains, however, all its elements; but it develops them so gradually, and in so simple a manner, as to render them intelligible to the most ordinary capacity. The difficulties are met singly, thoroughly analyzed, and made familiar by dint of a varied and interesting repetition. It is, therefore, hardly possible to go through this book with any degree of application, without becoming thoroughly conversant with the colloquial, idiomatic, and classic use of the Spanish language. Consequently, persons transacting business in the countries of which the Spanish is the vernacular tongue, will find this work to be their best guide in learning to speak it with propriety. For the benefit of persons grammatically acquainted with the English, or other languages, a Synopsis of the Spanish has been annexed as an Appendix, containing tables of the regular conjugations of the verbs, copious lists of the irregular verbs, general rules of etymology, syntax, etc., by means of which they may learn all the peculiarities of the Spanish, and make themselves perfect master

Popling describes itself as "a website + desktop app for people who want to learn, but lack motivation." Every few minutes as you work in other apps on your PC or Mac (you choose how often) Popling displays a question in a small window. Ignore it and it goes away...click it to see the full flash card. It's learning, with no motivation required!

Radio Beta is a web-based radio station aggregator/player. The site allows you to search radio stations by Geography and/or Genre and/or Band and/or Language and/or Tags. Once you find an interesting station, you can play it directly on the site with an embedded player. Every listing includes the country, language, genre, city, the broadcast frequency and a link back to the source of the audio stream. You can also bookmark and add stations to your playlist. As for Spanish language stations, my search found 780 stations.

Spanish NewsBites is a free language-learning website designed to help you learn Spanish at the same time as you learn about what's happening TODAY throughout Spain and Latin America.

So just what is the Spanish NewsBites recipe?

Three to four times a week, we choose a news story from Spain or Latin America and adapt it for language learners. Often, it's the kind of story you won't easily find anywhere in English.

Then we add mouse rollover translation into English of key vocabulary.

Then we prepare an audio transcript of the text for you to follow. This can be done straight from your browser, or it can be downloaded as an MP3 file.

Then we add a PDF file of the text and glossary, so you can print it out and take it away with you.

Then we add links which we think will give a little further context and generally enhance your reading.

Then we add an online self-correction exercise.

The news stories are classified into categories by theme or by Spanish level - beginner, intermediate or advanced. So you can choose what you read according to your interests or your level.

With this Spanish Verb Conjugator you can enter the Spanish verb in the infinitive form of the verb, or in any of the 17 Spanish verb tenses and have the conjugator return the fully conjugated verb.

I have a link to another verb conjugator, but I just found this one and based on initial use it seems even better as it includes some basic information about the verb (including definition and common usage) along with some sample sentences.

When I first tried to say "become" in Spanish I quickly realized it isn't nearly as straightforward as in English. Below are the six possible expressions that can be used and a basic explanation of when they should be used based on a course I took at Escuela de Español "Cooperación" in Antigua, Guatemala. Any inaccuracies or mistakes are solely mine. You should probably just use what I have written here as a starting point for a discussion with your own Spanish instructor.
Ponerse...read more

Subs.to is a simple subtitle search engine. Plug in the name of the movie or television show—make sure to include the season and episode number!—and the language you'd like to read the subtitles in and Subs.to will return the subtitles in SRT or SUB format.

For most media players all you need to do is place the subtitle file in the same folder as the actual movie file—i.e. movie123.avi and movie123.srt—and the player will use the file without any interaction from you. A quick Google query of "yourmediaplayer subtitles" should clear up any issues you run into. [Lifehacker Annotation]

Spanish Proficiency Exercises is a compilation of brief video clips in which native speakers of Spanish from various locations throughout Latin America and Spain demonstrate various language tasks. The objective of the exercises is to provide students of Spanish with the necessary tools to be able to talk about the same topics in Spanish. In order to do, this Spanish Proficiency Exercises contains five major components. First, there is a simplified video clip. This simplified version is scripted, the native speakers talks slower, and he or she uses simpler words and less slang. Second, there are video clips of native speakers who also perform the proficiency tasks. These clips are not scripted. What the native speakers say is what they really said. Some may talk fast, others talk slow, and some have specific regional dialects.

Third, to help perform the same task, we provide a Spanish/English glossary of vocabulary words that students may need in order to talk about the topic. Fourth, we also provide sample sentences that one may want to use in order to talk about the topic. Finally, we offer a brief, mini-grammar explanation on some grammar principle that is related to the proficiency topic. After reviewing the simplfied vers

The WordReference Dictionaries are free online translation dictionaries. Supporting the translation dictionaries, we also have the Internet's premier language forums. If you have a question about language usage, first search the hundreds of thousands of previous questions. If you still are not sure, then you can ask the question yourself. Native speakers from around the world will be happy to assist you. You may soon find that you are able to help others as well.

WordReference has a number of tools that allow people easier access to the dictionaries. They include plug-ins, modules and "gadgets" for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google.

Only Yabla language immersion sites give you authentic television, music videos, drama, interviews, travel, and Yabla exclusive shoots from throughout the world. Our unique player technology is designed with language learners in mind: Slow Play, Integrated Dictionaries, Listening Game, Dual Language Subtitles, and more.