11 Best Free Spanish Language Learning Websites

Do you want to teach yourself Spanish? Good news! There are tons of free Spanish language learning websites out there. This post summarizes what you need to know about the best ones we’ve found. 

As you already know, online learning methods and tools are incredibly easy to access—all you need is an internet connection, the desire to learn, and a little bit of know-how. Self-directed digital learning is adaptable to your unique needs and interests as a language learner!

Table of Contents

• Homeschool Spanish Academy
• Spanish Language and Culture
• Speaking Latino
• University of Texas
• Duolingo
• SpanishDict
• Forvo
• Memrise
• Amauta
• Lengalia
• Cervantes

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General Spanish Language Learning Websites

Check out these websites to take you from beginner to master. They are suitable for students of all levels. Choose a few that you like best and add a bit of daily discipline. These sites can provide you with plenty of reading, listening, and watching material, as well as exercises, practices, tips, and techniques to significantly further your journey toward fluency. 

Keep in mind that the number one factor of student success depends on you as a student. Student motivation is a key factor in learning anything, including Spanish.

1. Homeschool Spanish Academy

With more than 600,000 monthly readers, our Spanish learning blog is really popular for a very good reason! Our staff of expert writers consists of professional language teachers, native Spanish speakers, and bilingual Spanish-language graduates who wake up every morning excited to provide you with the best Spanish content on the web.

You’ll find 100+ different Spanish vocabulary themes for kids and adults, more than 50 detailed grammar lessons, and plenty of well-researched cultural pieces on Spanish and Latin American society.

Want to check out our top 3 posts in our top 4 categories? (They open in a new tab so you can pull them up and keep reading.)

If not, jump to the rest of the list ➡️

Here you go!

Beginner Spanish Grammar

1. Preterite vs Imperfect: A Beginner’s Guide to the Spanish Past Tense
2. Estar Conjugation: Free Spanish Lesson, Quiz, and PDF
3. Ser Conjugation: Free Spanish Lesson, Quiz, and PDF

Beginner Spanish Vocabulary

1. Te Quiero vs Te Amo: Don’t Say the Wrong ‘I Love You’
2. 1,000 Most Common Spanish Words for Beginners
3. 50 Useful Transition Words for Spanish Speech and Writing

Free Spanish Resources

1. 20 Best Apps to Learn Spanish on Your Own in 2022
2. 20 Free Spanish Books, Novels, and Stories in PDF and Printables
3. Take a Class! Top 10 Free Spanish Language Courses

Hispanic Culture and Society

1. 13 Famous Hispanic Women in History Who Made an Enormous Impact
2. Respectful Ways to Offer Condolences in Spanish
3. 10 Most Famous Spanish Songs Within the Last 10 Years

Here at Homeschool Spanish Academy, we provide a unique Spanish learning program that connects students with certified Spanish instructors in Antigua, Guatemala, via Google Meet. We offer live, interactive, 1-on-1 classes to people of all ages—preschool, elementary, middle school, high school, and adults. We combine personal classes at your convenience with an expert-approved, top-rated curriculum to provide a complete learning experience.

Learn more about how it works. 

Our powerful combination of conversation and curriculum guarantees that you’ll gain fluency fast—in fact, you’ll start speaking Spanish in your very first class. During each lesson, you’ll cover all four areas of language acquisition: reading, writing, listening, speaking. Give it a shot and see how you like it by taking a free trial class.

How to Sign Up for Your Free Class

Spanish Language Learning Websites, Continued:

2. Spanish Language and Culture

The Spanish Language and Culture website features study topics based on cultural figures and current issues in Latin America and Spain. After you choose an activity, you can jump into doing activities based on the text or song from the lesson. As you progress in your language learning, you’ll start to discover more unique and advanced vocabulary words, Spanish slang, sayings, and idioms. This website helps you expand your vocabulary in an enjoyable and effective manner.

3. Speaking Latino

Speaking Latino is an excellent resource site centered on authentic Spanish learning. Organized by country, this site has a plethora of tools for learning both general vocabulary and slang from a wide variety of regions. It features articles, books, videos, websites, podcasts, and more from 13 countries including Mexico, Spain, Peru, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Chile, Cuba and Colombia.

4. University of Texas

This page is full of links to activities organized by task, organized by level. UT’s Spanish Proficiency Exercises include videos, grammar, vocabulary, phrases and a podcast for each activity. The tasks are either descriptive or grammar-based. There are also functional language tasks, such as how to book a reservation or file a complaint. Although the website layout is plain and text-only, the material is high-quality and well structured.

5. Duolingo

Duolingo is a popular language-learning website that offers engaging reading, writing, and speaking lessons for all types of learners. The lessons are brief and simple, and you advance to the next level once you are done, like in a game. On Duolingo, you have to set goals and commit to a certain amount of time per day to practice (between 5 and 20 minutes). If you don’t meet your daily goal, your tally resets to zero.

Levels are grouped by topic and progressively get more difficult. Unlock levels to receive Lingots (Duolingo’s online currency) to spend in the virtual store. 

Duolingo is well researched has proven effective for many. On average, 34 hours of Duolingo is equal to one semester of a college-level course. With its game-like lessons and the system of earning rewards, Duolingo can keep you motivated and hungry to learn more.

6. SpanishDict

SpanishDict provides free online dictionaries, translation, and language learning tools, as well as a discussion forum for site users to ask each other questions regarding the Spanish language.

SpanishDict’s translator provides highly accurate information and includes three different sources for each translation, audio to hear how the word sounds, dictionary definitions, all word usages, and example sentences.

The site also pulls up conjugation tables with all the tenses for any verb under the sun. In addition, you’ll find examples of common sayings using the verb and a video (on the tab bar under the verb) that briefly demonstrates how to say the word and how it sounds in a sentence.

SpanishDict also features free, user-friendly Spanish grammar lessons organized by topic.  Practice quizzes at the end of each lesson enable you to test your new knowledge and determine if you mastered the skill or need more practice and reinforcement.

7. Forvo

Forvo offers users the ability to listen to words pronounced by native speakers. Search for any word in Spanish by typing it into the search bar. You can then choose what type of native speaker you would like to hear pronounce the word based on their name, gender, and country of origin.

If you are learning Spanish on your own and don’t hear a lot of Spanish spoken around you, this is an ideal resource for you. Forvo allows you to hear how words are pronounced in the dialect that suits your needs. You can tailor your learning to where you are traveling to or the Spanish dialect you want to learn. You can also download the speakers’ voices as audio files and practice your pronunciation repeatedly at your own pace.

8. Memrise

This is a marvelous website for those starting out learning Spanish. It provides a base of vocabulary words to use as you move onto grammar concepts. Repeatedly hearing, seeing, and writing the vocabulary words makes them become solid concepts in your mind that can later be applied to forming sentences and holding your own in conversations.

Memrise encourages you to connect your memories and life experiences to learning Spanish. Using various tests, the site creates a tailored “workout” for your brain. According to Memrise’s research-based theory, the more your brain works to recall a memory, the more likely you will remember it long term.

Memrise uses memory cards called “mems” created by site users to associate with the new vocabulary you are learning. If none of the mems available for your vocabulary suit your fancy, you can always create your own. The audio files feature native speakers with different dialects. All the courses integrate both old and new vocabulary so that you can commit them to long-term memory.

The website is good at repeating vocabulary that you already learned into its new courses so you don’t forget everything once you have moved on. And it incorporates different types of learning (visual, written, and audio) to appeal to all learning styles.

Test Your Spanish Skills

What is your current level of Spanish? If you’re just starting out with learning basic vocabulary, verb forms, and sentence structure, you’re a beginner. Maybe you have mastered basic exchanges but feel lost when it comes to more complex discussions? If so, you’re at an intermediate level. Perhaps you’re a conjugation champ and only rarely struggle for the right word. This means you’re at a more advanced level.

If you’re not sure about your level, online placement tests will be useful to you.

Many of the sites mentioned in this post arrange their learning activities by level, so it’s good to know what yours is at this point.

That way, you can practice with appropriate activities tailored to your level.

Keep in mind that online testing isn’t perfect. It tends to be more focused on reading comprehension and writing ability, rather than speaking and listening. The majority of online testing sites are in European Spanish, as opposed to Latin American Spanish.

In general, both websites and diagnostic tests are more readily available for lower levels than for upper levels.

Check your level using one or more of the following sites:

Websites with Spanish Placement Tests

9. Amauta

Amauta is a Latin American Spanish school based in Peru and Argentina. Its website offers purely grammatical level tests with exams for beginning through intermediate levels. Although its design is a bit antiquated, scroll down to the bottom for links to learning exercises for all levels (including advanced) with games, vocabulary, and more, as well as information on Latin American recipes, cinema, music, and literature.

10. Lengalia

Lengalia is an online European Spanish course website with a placement test that incorporates reading, listening and grammar comprehension. It takes about 30 minutes to complete the test, and spans from beginner to advanced. Even if you’ve only studied Latin American Spanish, you should be able to pass European Spanish tests, too. 

11. Cervantes

Cervantes is a school based in Malaga, Spain with rigorous online testing. The modern testing format focuses primarily on grammar. Start at the first out of five levels to see how far you get, from beginner (A1) to advanced (C1). 

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Download Your Free Spanish eBook!

Homeschool Spanish Academy’s free eBook is called Weird & Wacky Spanish Stories for Beginners and it’s full of funny, weird, and interesting stories. What’s more, it’s got great pictures and English-Spanish parellel text! It’s best suited for A2 level and above, but it’s also perfect for A1 learners who wish to improve their fluency through reading. It’s fun for kids and adults!

Join one of the 40,000 classes that we teach each month and you can experience results like these

“This is the best way for your kid to learn Spanish. It’s one-on-one, taught by native Spanish speakers, and uses a curriculum.”

– Sharon K, Parent of 3

“It’s a great way to learn Spanish, from native Spanish speakers in a 1-on-1 environment. It’s been fairly easy to schedule classes around my daughter’s other classes. The best value for us has been ordering multiple classes at a time. All the instructors have been great!”

– Cindy D, Parent of 3

“HSA offers very affordable, quality, one on one classes with a native speaker. My son has greatly benefited from taking classes. We have seen his confidence increase as well as his pronunciation improve, because he learns from a native Spanish speaker. HSA has quick, personal customer service. Our family has been very pleased with our experience so far!”

– Erica P. Parent of 1

Want more free Spanish resources? Check these out!

• 10 Simple Spanish Words Your Preschooler Can Learn This Week
• The 7 Most Common Mistakes Homeschool Parents Make When Teaching Spanish
• From Zero to Fluent? What Realistic Progress Looks Like in 1 Year of Spanish
• Beginner Spanish for High Schoolers: How to Start from Scratch and Succeed
• Why Teens Get Bored with Spanish (And How to Keep Them Engaged at the Intermediate Level)
• 5 Signs Your Homeschooler Is Ready for Intermediate Spanish
• Your Child Speaks Some Spanish, Now What? A Roadmap from ‘Just Sentences’ to Real Fluency
• From Fluent to Native-Like: 5 Ways to Refine Your Child’s Spanish Accent and Intonation

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Michelle Margaret Fajkus

Editor & Writer at Homeschool Spanish Academy

Michelle Margaret Fajkus is a bilingual writer and longtime yoga teacher. A former advertising copywriter turned bilingual elementary school teacher, she is now a freelance writer, editor and translator. A native Texan, Michelle has Mexican roots and learned Spanish in middle and high school. She has become more fluent thanks to living as an expat in Guatemala. She lives with her family on beautiful Lake Atitlan.

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