helpful spanish resources and advice

january 20th, 2022

Resources I currently use:
For the dictionaries, translators, and sentence example sites, I typically always have them open in different tabs in one desktop browser window. Either that or I have a folder with them all bookmarked and open them as a separate window while actively studying.

For reading, I've started to read novels. I also sometimes read online news articles, lifestyle articles, or articles similar to listicles. I prefer to read native content because I don't want to internalize what might be inaccurate translations (although, my first novel outside of the books mentioned below was translated from English).

If you do want to look for books that may have a Spanish version, worldcat.org is a good resource.

I read my books using a Kindle. It has a translation feature and at least one if not multiple Spanish dictionaries that you can use to define a word and the definitions come with examples. Most of my personal devices and frequently used websites are in Spanish so the examples are in Spanish as well, which leads to even more input. I'm a big fan of physical books but the translation and dictionary feature have been a huge advantage of using a Kindle. Although, with physical books it is nice to circle a word you don't know and be able to use it in various ways to track your progress.

For music, I primarily use Spotify and if I like one song I try to listen to the "song radio" for that song as well as more of the artist's music.

For song lyric translation
  • Lyrics Translate
  • Skiley
    • Great for Spotify in general but some songs don’t have all lyrics due to commercial use issues with Musixmatch, Genius, or general availability as lyrics are provided by users.

One-off resources that I sometimes reference:
Resources I used to use that were very helpful along my language learning journey:
Other resources that I have not used much but I've heard are useful or randomly found:
I have a routine at the moment that consists of
  • watching multiple videos, one video multiple times, or Netflix,
  • reading,
  • contributing to HelloTalk,
  • using Anki,
  • and writing out conjugations or using Conjugato for irregular verbs in the indicative, subjunctive, and imperative moods and their tenses that have been a challenge for me with vosotros as well since I've been neglecting it.
I'm focused more on input than output at the moment.

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buena suerte.

Tags: #spanish