Web 2.0 SpanishPod

SpanishPod is advertised as "Go through 183 free Spanish lessons and read 5050 Spanish conversations. Learn conversational skills and connect with other students." Technically, this is true for 7 days then it is $49 a month, I saw this on the site but will not sign-up for additional paying subscription. They also have a teaser on iTunes, this is mentioned in the audio. However, I will tell you about what I have found.


SpanishPod, it is a very informal approach to learning Spanish. I selected this because I took Spanish in high school and would like to relearn it and brush up on my skills to be able to understand Spanish speakers and converse with them.

The lessons are setup by topic of conversation e.g. how much does it cost, what bus do you need. This is good for an adult learner or traveler needed a few topics quickly. The lessons are then broken down with sections of dialogue, vocabulary, expansion, and exercises. The lessons are just audio no video but this is because they are setup for iPods. I like the layout of this section it has all of the dialogue that the lesson uses. The vocabulary section breaks out the words and the expansion gives the verbs and conjugations them. Finally the exercises lets you practice what you learned.

I like the overall style of this but the first into lesson I heard almost made me not listen to more. Also, even though this was original made for iPod the fact that this is a still image on my screen for 13 minutes is annoying to me. I guess if I was listening to it on my iPod it might work but I need to have the printed material and hear it to learn a language.

I would not subscribe to this because instead I would use our premium resources of Mango Languages available our website (Columbus Metropolitan Library site) with your library card.