Spanish español
For English speakers. 4 lessons · 3 references · about 46 min of reading, plus as much practice as you like.
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Lessons
4 in orderRead them in order; each one has a drill you can come back to.
Lesson 1Spanish 1: Sounds & SpellingSpanish spells almost exactly what it says. Learn five vowels, a handful of surprising consonants and one stress rule, and you can read any word aloud and know where the accent mark goes.Lesson 2Spanish 2: The Present TenseA Spanish verb carries its subject in its ending. Learn the three regular families, the several ways to say “you”, and drill the forms with a trainer that brings back what you miss.Lesson 3Spanish 3: Irregular Verbs, Ser & EstarThe most common Spanish verbs are irregular, but in a few repeating ways. Learn the families, the core verbs as blocks, and the difference between the two verbs for “to be”.Lesson 4Spanish 4: Your First 150 WordsA deck of 150 common words that schedules its own reviews: two cards per word, a sentence on each, and a saved schedule that carries across the Spanish pieces.
Reference
3 toolsKeep these open while you learn: words by level, every verb, and how to say things.
Words by LevelSpanish: Words by Level693 Spanish words from A1 to B1, by topic, each with an example and a play button. Search them, filter them, and turn any list into flashcards that come back on a schedule.Verb TablesSpanish: Verb Tables137 Spanish verbs in every tense you need up to B1, irregular forms in red, a play button on each form, and a typing drill for any verb that will not stick.How to Say ItSpanish: How to Say It147 Spanish phrases for the first situations you meet, with notes on formality; 30 sentence patterns by level; and a one-page survival sheet to print.
Where to go next
Outside the library: the resources from Spanish 4: Your First 150 Words.
- 🌐 Listening from scratch. Language Transfer’s Complete Spanish: a free audio course of short lessons, funded by optional donations, built around working the language out yourself.
- 🌐 Comprehensible input. Dreaming Spanish offers videos pitched for beginners, with visual support and slow speech. It has a free tier and a paid one; check the current limits.
- 🌐 The authority on the language. The Real Academia Española’s Diccionario de la lengua española, which also lists the full conjugation of each verb.
- 📘 A grammar to keep. John Butt, Carmen Benjamin and Antonia Moreira Rodríguez, A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish (Routledge, 6th edition, 2019): a reference, not a course; look things up when a sentence puzzles you.
- 📘 A frequency dictionary. Mark Davies and Kathy Hayward Davies, A Frequency Dictionary of Spanish: Core Vocabulary for Learners (Routledge, 2nd edition, 2018), the most frequent words with example sentences.
- 📘 Graded readers. Short books for A1 and A2 learners, from publishers such as SGEL and Difusión, once you finish the deck. This path adds its own graded texts in its third stage.
- 🗣 A person. A paid tutor or a language-exchange partner, one session a week, as soon as you can say twenty sentences. No app replaces talking to someone.