If you want to learn Spanish online, SpanishPod is the best solution to learning the Spanish language. SpanishPod is the clear winner of "TopTenREVIEWS Gold Award." Don’t be fooled by their confusing website, SpanishPod, offers relevant and engaging lessons for learning Spanish. In fact, you’ll love the Salsa music playing in the background at the beginning of each of the podcasts. If you plan on learning the Spanish language, SpanishPod offers an exceptionally active forum of dedicated language learners.
SpanishPod clearly offers a unique and refreshing philosophy and as soon as you get to the forums, you’ll know immediately you’ll be having fun there. In fact, you feel like you’re part of the group before you even begin to contribute to the forum. You can learn from other people involved in the forum in addition to learning from the instructors. You’ll love the topics in the forum. Here are some of the examples of topics people comment on: Science Fiction in Spanish, TV and movies in Spanish, books, favorite movie quotes, and that’s just a few. There a number of great resources through SpanishPod:
- Tests - SpanishPod’s tests can be taken at any time; simply click on the test link.
- Dashboard - When you get to the lesson page, this will all be laid out very clearly for you with an easy-to-use dashboard.
- Library of podcasts - And they have tons of lessons that are all housed in their library of podcasts. Just start looking through them and you’ll see quite a few that will interest you. You can take advantage of their podcasts.
- Subscriptions -The site offers some very interesting options you don’t always see on Spanish language websites. To take advantage of their repository of information, you can simply subscribe for one month and you can remain month-to-month for as long as you like.
- Counselors - If you feel as though you aren’t sure what you need, SpanishPod has personal counselors available to advise you on what you need to do to get to the level you want to be in Spanish. And that means that you can also request personalized training. If you have questions that need to be answered immediately you can engage them on the live chat option available on the website.
- Technology - The technology on the website makes the experience very enjoyable and convenient. For example, there is a utility that enables you to make your own set of flashcards. Also, SpanishPod offers their product for iPhones.
SpanishPod Standout Features:
- Vibrant community forum
- 7-day free trial
- Mobile learning options
- Interesting podcasts
The theory behind SpanishPod’s philosophy is: listening, reviewing, practicing, and then reinforcing activities. For each lesson, there is an activity on:
- Dialogue, a conversation in the form of a podcast. The translation of the dialogue is also given.
- Vocabulary, which breaks each of the words down and tells you whether it’s a noun, verb, or adjective.
- Exercises, special learning activities with interactive components.
- Expansion, that offers translated versions of what was just learned.
- Comments, which are really part of the forum, where you’ll see people’s questions and concerns regarding the lesson.
Although there was no actual newsletter, the vibrancy and content of the forum seemed to abate the need for a newsletter being sent out. In fact, since the forum offers the option for notification when a new entry is added, it almost seems as though they have a newsletter option.
Even though SpanishPod doesn’t actually feature stories, the forum does contain groups that discuss books and movies.
As enjoyable as this course is, its major downfall is that fact that SpanishPod offers no way for the learner to have him or herself be heard. There is plenty of opportunity to communicate in Spanish in the forum. However, as much Spanish as the learner may understand, they may not necessarily be understood after having finished the SpanishPod course.
Sadly, as much as students can get out of subscribing to SpanishPod, until something is added that will enable students to be heard by native speakers or to at least record themselves, learners using SpanishPod cannot better their pronunciation. We can only hope that this capability is added soon.
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