Spanish Audio Lessons

• Great for building a Spanish foundation on which to build.
• Lots of listening and repeating of Spanish phrases.
• Perfect for beginners or intermediate students who want to become more fluent.

Spanish audio lessons and courses have been around for a long time. Some focus on grammar and tenses, others more on phrases, but what they all have in common is the listening and repeating method, building the language up slowly by introducing word and phrases with clarity and repetition.

The method is quite simple but very effective; by repeating words and phrases in a variety of ways you will be able to remember different meanings, and the go on to use the structure learned to expand your vocabulary and ability to form sentences.

We are going to list our favorite Spanish audio lessons, with links so that you can easily try them out before buying them.

Learn Spanish with these audio lessons, courses and CDs

→ Learning Spanish Like Crazy – Highly Recommended – For Beginners

This Spanish audio course is very popular and focuses on real Latin American Spanish. There are 30 lessons at an average of 30 minutes for each lesson. The website often promotes other products as bonus material and the whole course is very good value. It is perfect for beginners, although level two does go into some of the more complex Spanish structures. LSLC offers some free lessons, so you can try before you buy.

If you have gone through the basics and want an some intermediate Spanish audio, click the link below:

→ LSLC – Level Two For Intermediate Learners (those who want to take their Spanish learning to the next level)

→ Pimsleur Method

The Pimsleur method is a very popular method that is based on four ideas: anticipation (translating phrases), repetition, core vocabulary and learning through listening (not teaching grammar specifically). It has four levels and by the end of the four levels students have a great foundation on which to build their Spanish learning. Levels one to three have 30 lessons each being around 30 minutes in length. The lessons build very slowly and to an absolute beginner this is very important. Someone who has progressed a level or two in Spanish would probably want to use a different audio course.

All in all the course is very good and builds things very organically, never using grammatical terms, but instead going through the rules and exceptions in a relaxed and thought out way. There is a lot of focus on pronouncing the words correctly, with words broken into syllable sounds and constant reminders to make sure that the students pronunciation is the same as the native speaker’s.

Spanish with Michel Thomas

Michel Thomas has produced many different language courses and is highly respected by the language community. His Spanish audio lessons comes in three different stages: Beginners, Spanish Language Builder and Advanced. At the start of the audio CDs, Michel advises against taking notes and relies on natural repetition, with great emphasis given to the correct pronunciation. In the beginners and advanced section there are two students in the lesson with him. He goes through the topics and asks the students to translate phrases from English into Spanish.

The course gives you the building blocks of the language and doesn’t give a lot of vocabulary or verbs but instead repeats the main verbs. He manages to link different tenses together and makes things very memorable in some very clever ways. The pace is quite slow at times (this is not the case in the language builder) but if you were to complete the course and follow his instructions, then you will have a great foundation in Spanish grammar.

Notes in Spanish

Very friendly and well thought out conversations between Marina and Ben. The audio series is split up into different levels and is free to download. Just downloading the audio it is more of a podcast than a course for intermediate and advanced learners. To take the course and download the extra material costs around $70 (for each level) but it is of a very high quality.

The beginners course isn’t for those who have just started but is perfect for those who have completed a basic course (like the ones above) and want to learn some real conversation that is used in Spain. The intermediate and advanced levels are extremely useful and will definitely help you learn conversational Spanish. You can tell that this course has been created by two people who have noticed a gap in the market and have produced something that really works. It is the perfect complement to a traditional course, an audio course or Spanish learning software.

Just looking for some Spanish phrases for your travels?

Earworms Learning – Rapid Spanish

With relaxing music in the background, some very useful phrases and a great method to help you remember what is presented, this is the best Spanish audio course for those who want to some Spanish for their vacation or holiday. It’s also good for those who are learning Spanish long term. Two volumes are available and come with a coursebook that really complements the audio (with phonetics next to the phrases).

Who are Spanish audio lessons for?

The majority are geared towards the beginner, but many also have advanced courses (what they term as advanced isn’t a true advanced level). The following audio courses give a very good foundation of Spanish grammar and vocabulary through phrase building. We also have listed some audio courses for those who just want some basic Spanish for their travels.

Which Spanish audio course is best for me?

Choosing the best Spanish audio lessons is not an easy task. As noted, some of the courses offer free lessons so that you can try the methods used before purchasing. The courses listed above all have their strengths and weaknesses and after reading through the reviews and trying some of the courses, there should be a stand out course for you.

Free Spanish Audio Lessons Online

The aforementioned audio lessons are all structured and come with a small price tag. There are no doubt some of you looking for some free audio lessons. Notes in Spanish (see above) and SpanishPod101 offer free audio lessons (the transcript and activities are extra).

Would you prefer something a little more involved? Take a look at some Spanish learning software.