My Journey into Spanish

Learning Spanish: As a beginner, I’ve been primarily using Duolingo and occasionally Dots for a change in pace. I’m eventually planning to transition more to Babbel, and when I’m more comfortable with vocabulary and basic grammar, I’m planning to go to Pimsleur (will also look more into Memrise and Teuida as well.)

Pros and Cons of Popular Language Programs

Duolingo
Good for beginners, fun game-approach, not great on grammar.

Drops
Lots of vocabulary, fun to use, nil on grammar or conversation.

Babbel
Structured, with grammar and conversation, good balance, not as much fun as Duo or Drops.

Memrise
Love the videos of native speakers. Weak on grammar.

Teuida
Initially only for Korean and Japanese, the Teuida App now includes conversation-focused Spanish with native speaker videos, emphasizes pronunciation and fluency.

Pimsleur
Audio-based learning with spaced repetition, great for speaking and listening fluency.

Helpful Resources

The Wiktionary is a ‘Go To’ for grammar and detailed explanations. Here is a link on a favorite topic, conjugation!
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/hablar#Conjugation

Conjugato, slick iPhone app to help you master Spanish verbs
https://qotoqot.com/conjugato/

Lawless Spanish, comprehensive website, Spanish 101, grammar, newsletter (need to explore more.)
https://www.lawlessspanish.com

Language Reactor is a iOS App and browser extension that works with Netflix, enables speech recognition and AI-translation. iPad version works with Orion browser.
https://www.languagereactor.com/

Trancy, good for active listening and vocabulary building, with YouTube and Netflix support.
https://www.trancy.org/

FluentAI is a Chrome (or Brave)/Firefox extension with AI-driven video subtitle translations, explanations and pronunciation guides. Works with various streaming services.
https://fluentai.pro

Lingopie is TV-based site with subtitles, grammar, punctuation and more.
https://lingopie.com/

That’s it for now. I’ll update this post as my journey in Spanish progresses. Please feel free to comment if you have a helpful suggestion on learning to speak Spanish!