The Best Spanish Language Apps!
This is going to be the first of several articles discussing all the tips, tricks, and resources I have for learning Spanish. Some things you will be able to modify it for learning other languages, and some of this advice you won't. Perhaps, I can write an article at a later time about tips for learning languages in general as opposed to just learning Spanish. But since Spanish is my main focus right now in my life, I am going to share what I know in relation to learning Spanish. This article is going to focus on all the different apps that are out there at your disposal. Some apps in my opinion are better than others. I'm going to give you all the apps that I find the most useful, and I'm going to give you a few extras that I think are, nevertheless, still pretty decent, but maybe not my favorite.
SpanishDict is one of my favorite Spanish language apps out there. Here I have given the link to the website, but they also have an app that is available on the App Store for Apple and Google Play for Androids. As of right now, I believe the app is only available in the US. It may be available in other English Speaking countries, but I can attest to the fact that is not available to me living here in Mexico, which I think is a shame. I love this app, and it works so much better than all the other translation apps, dictionary apps, and other apps for conjugation of verbs. It is just an all around great app to use.
SpanishDict also has an Intagram account, a Twitter account, and they are also on Facebook. I follow them on all three social media sites to receive their "word of the day" in Spanish. They make it extremely easy to follow them and use their extensive database of Spanish vocabulary.
What I enjoy about SpanishDict is their extensive knowledge of different Spanish words that are used in different Spanish speaking countries. Other apps can be rather vague sometimes, but SpanishDict will tell where certain words are used. It will tell you if a word is predominantly used in Spain, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, or it will give you a more generalized area such as Latin America, if the word is used more extensively than just one country.
2. Duolingo
Duolingo is in my opinion, one of the best language learning apps for what it does. Sure, it has its shortcomings, but all in all, it does more than almost any other language learning app out there. And I'll tell you why a little bit later. But perhaps the best reason that Duolingo is so great is that it is almost entirely free. Yes, Duolingo does have a paid feature to it, but from all the reviews I've read about it, it's not worth the extra money. In my opinion, you're much better off just sticking with the free version, which is actually a lot! Sometimes the vocabulary that you learn with Duolingo can be questionable at first. Perhaps you won't learn some of the words that you would might like to learn as a beginner, but all in all, it's not horrible. So, you have to look past sentences like, "The bear eats an apple." But after staying with Duolingo, some of the strange sentences you learn begin to make sense later on.
Duolingo isn't going to teach you to speak a language fluently. And depending on how you use it, it may not even get you to being conversational in the language. When using the app, I want to encourage you not to get too caught up in being too competitive with others. Sure, it may seem luring to want to get all your gold crowns, to maintain your streak, or to be at the top of your leaderboard. If you are the super competitive type, then maybe that is what you need to keep you motivated. But in my opinion, it isn't the best strategy for effective learning.
First of all, I would encourage you to treat Duolingo like a class. I recommend buying a notebook to take notes while you are using the app, because you are going to want to write down vocabulary and particular sentences that you should practice. Duolingo is somewhat lacking when it comes to learning grammar, but that is okay. Grammar shouldn't be priority one at the beginning level anyway. All the language classes you have taken in High School or university that have focused on grammar in the beginning levels are mistaken in my opinion. Grammar is something good to learn at the intermediate level, but not so much at the beginning level. For instance, when you first learned how to speak, you didn't learn grammar first. No, you learned that later when you were old enough to go to school. Actually, you learned how to speak by imitation and immersion.
So, if you take your time and write plenty of notes while using Duolingo, you'll fare a lot better than others. Also, it's going to take you a long time to get all the way through Duolingo. Maybe 6 months if you are going through it pretty fast, but honestly, it should take you a year if you are doing it right, or maybe longer. This of course does not apply to those who are super fast learners or who have already learned another language or two. Those with prior language learning will naturally learn a little faster than those who haven't.
Last of all, I come back to why Duolingo is so much better than other apps. It's because Duolingo has a rather large community where you can ask questions, and someone who speaks that language will eventually answer your question. But Duolingo's community has been around for quite a long time, so chances are, someone has already asked your question, and someone has already answered it. You can learn so much in its community. Native speakers and language learners alike give so much good advice as to the best books to buy, the best websites to use for news, social media in your target language, sites for radio, television, and all sorts of other helpful information. Also, Duolingo's community can be a good place to find pen pals to write. Although Duolingo, may only get you to a B1 intermediate level on the CEFR scale, its community can help you continue your language learning even further.
3. AnkiDroid
AnkiDroid is a flashcard app for those who use an Android. Unfortunately, it isn't available for iPhone users. But there is a different app for iPhone users called Anki. I can't tell you if it is as good as the Android version. That's something you'll have to find out for yourself. But the Android version, AnkiDroid is a great app for creating flashcards. If you're looking to get some extra practice in, the vocabulary you write down from Duolingo can be used to make flashcards with this app. I use it, and I love this app. I create all kinds of categories with this app such as medical terminology, items around the house, nations, verbs, adverbs and adjectives, and nouns. I love it. It's very simple and easy to use. The app is about as straight-forward as you can get. There isn't much to explain here, except that it is a great tool to use for language learning.
News in Slow Spanish is another really great app. Although I listed the actual website in the link, they do have an app, which I have used in the past. You do have to pay to use the majority of their content. They do allow partial access to their content on a free basis, but it is very limited. But my goodness, is this some great content. Yes, this is more on the intermediate level, but I heavily recommend this as a language learning tool. Because let's face it, you need to start exposing yourself to spoken Spanish right away. You don't need to wait until you think you are good enough, because chances are, you are never going to get to a place where you feel that you are good enough. So, it's best that you start doing it right away.
News in Slow Spanish slows down the language to a pace that is easy to follow for newbies. An honestly, Spanish is like the second fastest spoken language in the world when it comes to information density per syllable. Spanish isn't a language that is information dense per syllable like Chinese is. This is why Spanish is spoken so much faster than Chinese. Most languages express roughly the same amount of information per second, but some languages are spoken much faster than others in order to do so. Hence, Spanish is spoken incredibly fast, and this is a great tool to use to help slow down the language where you can better understand it.
5. HelloTalk
HelloTalk is a great app for speaking with native speakers in your target language. The basis of the app is to pair you up with people who speak the language you want to learn. So, for instance, if you want to learn Spanish, and a Spanish speaker wants to learn English, this app helps you find people you can do this with. You can either choose to text, if you are more comfortable with that, or you can use the mobile part of the app, and you can actually speak with them like you would over the phone.
The text portion of the app allows you to make corrections with the other person's text. This is a useful feature with the app, as it helps in the language learning process. Another great feature of HelloTalk is that there are groups. I have been invited to participate in several groups where people mostly talk in an agreed language. I was part of a Spanish/English group for a long time. We often would take turns discussing different topics. We would pick one night where everybody spoke in Spanish, and then we would pick another night where everybody spoke in English.
I can't say enough great things about this app. I highly recommend it. It's an essential tool for language learning, because you need to speak with native speakers in order to progress. And this app lets you do just that and more.
6. The Others
Here are a few other good apps, but they are not my favorites.
I can recommend Memrise, which is a good app. I have used it some in the past, but I prefer to use the free Duolingo app. Free is always good. Not to mention, Duolingo has a well established community, which is rare for most apps. However, Memrise does do a little bit better job in teaching in my opinion. I feel like it is a little more natural in its teaching, and the vocabulary isn't quite as strange or awkward as Duolingo's vocabulary. If you don't care about having to pay for an account, then Memrise might be a better option for you, but like I said, Duolingo is free, and it has a well established community.
Tandem is another great app that is similar to HelloTalk. I have used both apps in the past, and I have enjoyed both apps quite a bit. I tend to find that Tandem doesn't have quite as many people on it as compared to HelloTalk, so if you're looking for a much wider selection of people that are more likely to respond to you, then HelloTalk is a better option. I also tend to find that the age demographic for each app is a little different. Tandem tends to attract people who are a little bit older, between the ages of mid 20's all the way to 50's. HelloTalk, on the other hand has a lot more people, so the ranges of ages are greater there. I do tend to find a lot more teenagers and people in their 20's and 30's there. There are older people on HelloTalk too, but I just tend to find more younger people there.
Eventually, when you meet people on HelloTalk , Tandem, and Duolingo and you become friends with them, you're probably going to want to switch over to WhatsApp. It's just a better app for texting and calling people from all around the world. It's not very popular in the US, but outside of the US, it is extremely popular. Most people outside of the US use it to send messages instead of using the messaging apps on their phones. I'm not kidding here! It's the truth!.
News Apps in Spanish
With all these listed below, the links to the actual websites are listed, but they also have apps too.
CNN en Español. -- The Spanish with this news app is easier to read for me. I find the Spanish to be simpler and easier to read. So, I recommend this app over all the others for this reason.
Telemundo. -- The Spanish in this app is more difficult to read. But I still like to read news in this app. It challenges me, and it forces me to improve my Spanish. So, if you have at least an intermediate level of Spanish, I can recommend using this to challenge your Spanish, which it will do.
BBC Mundo. -- Just an all around good Spanish language news app. This app has Spanish from all around the Spanish speaking world. So, sometimes you will find Mexican Spanish, which is pretty standard, or you may find Argentinian Spanish, which I find to be a little archaic and awkward for me. But I still think that is a good thing.
