This collection of links is geared more towards intermediate and advanced learners, but I've included a small section for beginners! One of my pet peeves within the online language learning community is seeing the same recommendations over and over, so my recommendations here are not meant to be exhaustive and cover all tastes but rather based on things I've personally enjoyed.
My history with Spanish is very long: I grew up learning/speaking it in the US and later decided to major in Latin American Studies and Spanish during undergrad. I'm currently a PhD student in Spanish and Portuguese and teach beginner and intermediate-level Spanish courses to college students. Spanish is currently the language I speak at home but as you can imagine I am constantly learning something new - language learning never quite stops.
Helpful tools
This is a little toolbox for anyone doing a lot of reading/writing in Spanish. These tend to be prescriptivist resources, but are helpful nonetheless.
- Diccionario de la lengua española
- Diccionario de americanismos
- Diccionario panhispánico de dudas
- Fundéu, Fundación del Español Urgente. Fundéu tends to cover topics that have recently come up in the world, whereas the DLE takes its sweet time to incorporate new uses.
- For English-Spanish lookups, WordReference is the most thorough. Their forums are also excellent for different specific usages - if I can't find something anywhere else, I can usually count on the WordReference forums to have something.
- Many countries have their own specialized dictionaries of regionalisms and/or corpuses if you're looking for a specific dialect. Check with the country's academia de la lengua to see if such a resource exists. For example, Puerto Rico has the Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico and Mexico has the Diccionario breve de mexicanismos.
On the Spanish language
- Linguriosa on YouTube presents linguistics topics (usually linked to the Spanish language but not exclusively) in a pretty accessible way.
- Francisco Moreno Fernández, La maravillosa historia del español, Instituto Cervantes
These are resources I often recommend to my students! I learned as a child so I truthfully don't have a lot of resources I've personally used, but my students have given me good feedback about these ones.
- Dreaming Spanish is a great resource for finding listening content appropriate for your level even if you aren't following their method to the letter.
- studyspanish.com has lots of good grammar explanations.
- While spanishdict.com isn't really the best dictionary (it's passable, but doesn't beat WordReference), I think its extra content - vocab lists, grammar explanations, and quizzes - are helpful as well.
- If you don't currently use Anki for vocab review, take a look! It's definitely beneficial at beginner levels.
Short story recs
Ideas for your first book
My faves
Reading online
- Newspapers
- El País.
- La Nación.
- Revista Anfibia
- Trópico Absoluto
- Todas
Podcasts
- La Brega (Puerto Rico). A podcast (available in both Spanish and English!) about the history of Puerto Rico, through specific moments in history. Season 2 is about music and how they connect to broader social themes. I recommend this to anyone interested in PR. Listen in order, out of order, or start with my favorite episode about "El gran varón".
- Ni Me Ladilles (Venezuela). A comedy podcast mostly based around what's happening in pop culture. It's mostly just Santiago and Eugenia talking about whatever the theme is and seeing where it takes them. There are episodes where they really don't talk all that much about the theme, it's more like a conversation.
- La Gayinera (Mexico). Similar to Ni Me Ladilles in that it's just two friends talking about a relevant pop culture topic, but the episodes are more on topic.
- If farándula is your thing, check out Chente Ydrach and Molusco (Puerto Rico). They aren't particularly... intellectual podcasts but they have lots of interview and chat about pop culture, especially reggaetón culture. Where were you when Chente and Jovani Vázquez had beef?
- You can listen to the radio in any country at radio.garden - if you go to PR, check out la X and Salsoul!
YouTube
- Luna Martínez reads out embarrassing stories that her fans send her and I just love her way of doing it. She also does makeup content but I don't really watch that.
- Karimero does Pokémon content, but actually good lol. I really like his video style.
Films
- I love love love Pedro Almodóvar's films, but my faves are La piel que habito (2011, Spain), Todo sobre mi madre (1999, Spain), and Los amantes pasajeros (2013, Spain). His aesthetics are impeccable.
- Los olvidados (1950, Mexico) and Viridiana (1961, Spain), both directed by Luis Buñuel.
- Tesis (1996, Spain, dir. Alejandro Amenábar). One of my favorite horror films ever!
- Arrebato (1979, Spain, dir. Iván Zulueta)
- La pecera (2023, Puerto Rico, dir. Glorimar Marrero Sánchez). A recent fave but so so so good. It made me think a lot about Astrida Neimanis' book Bodies of Water and the ways we are constantly connected to water.
TV
I'm truthfully not a big TV person, but here are a few recs.
- Los Briceño (Netflix). A Colombian telenovela about truckers and girl power.
- Catfish México (Hulu). It's MTV's Catfish, but in Mexico. I believe there's a Colombian version as well.
- La casa de las flores (Netflix). I know everyone recommends it, but it is just such a wild ride. I've even taught it in class before.
- Caso Cerrado. ¡HE DICHO!
- I didn't actually watch it myself but honestly the buzz around Maripily (#huracánboricua) and La casa de los famosos was so entertaining. Give it a go and tell me what you think, it's Telemundo's version of Celebrity Big Brother.
Music
Check out my iPod for more album recs!
- PJ Sin Suela (Puerto Rico). Check out Es La Hora.
- Nathy Peluso (Argentina). Check out her cover of Daddy Yankee's La Despedida
- LOUTA (Argentina). Check out NO TE COMAS LA PELI.
- Tainy (Puerto Rico). Check out DEJA VU.
- Arca (Venezuela). Check out Mequetrefe.
- RaiNao (Puerto Rico). Check out Tentretiene.
On Puerto Rican Spanish
- Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española
- Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico
- Dialecto Boricua. She's a lot more active on her Instagram page.
- Maria Elisa Díaz Rivera, Refranes más usados en Puerto Rico, Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico
- Ana Lydia Vega, "Pulseando con el difícil". This is about English in Puerto Rico and the island's colinial status rather than Spanish, but still a good read.
DELE resources
I took the DELE C2 in 2022 and passed (P1: 31.41, P2: 28.33, P3: 33.33)! Here are the resources I used. They should be helpful for all levels.
- a por el DELE (website, YouTube channel). I paid for her C2 coure and it was incredibly helpful. It also includes a group call before each convocatoria where you can ask Mar questions. Even if you don't buy the course, her YouTube channel is FULL of helpful tips.
- El Cronómetro C2, from editorial Edinumen. My boyfriend gifted me this book to practice before the exam, and it was very helpful getting to know the structure. Definitely recommend! I focused first on the first part of the exam and started prepping the writing portion about a month before the exam.
- Preparación al DELE C2, from editorial Edelsa. This edition is (as of the time of writing) available on Libgen. The version I used had a lot of writing in it already, but what I loved about this book was the vocabulary supplements they provide for the 6 thematic areas of the exam.
- el plan curricular del Instituto Cervantes. This is a list of vocabulary and grammar topics sorted by level and thematic areas. It's great if you know what some of your weak spots are.
- Aside from these DELE-specific resources, I did a lot of reading both of fiction (for the vocab boost) and non-fiction (for my job but also to study formal writing in general).
- And if you'll let me be a hater for a second, let me deinfluence you: I did not find Spanishclasseslive's C2 course remotely helpful. I had bought it before the a por el DELE course and was so dissatisfied with it because it felt very surface level.