hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr3165.txt

Episode: 3165
Title: HPR3165: Spanish Tools Continued
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3165/hpr3165.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 18:05:57

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3165 for Friday 18 September 2020. Today's show is entitled
Spanish Tools Continued. It is hosted by Ahuka and is about 14 minutes long
and carries a clean flag. The summer is
part of how I am using a variety of tools to learn Spanish.
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Hello, this is Ahuka. Welcome to Hacker Public Radio and the second of my three-part mini-series
on what I'm doing with learning Spanish. And when I'm going to pick up this time
are YouTube channels and podcasts that you might want to take a look at.
And again, as I mentioned last time, there are similar resources available for all kinds of languages.
And I have my reasons for picking Spanish. You can pick whichever one you are interested in.
But I got a brother-in-law who's family is from Peru. So it's kind of in the family, if you know what I mean.
YouTube channels. The first one I'm going to mention is actually a review site
called All Language Resources. So this might be a place if you were interested in learning a language
and it isn't Spanish. So my podcast isn't going to help.
This could be a site that you want to check out. They've got a YouTube channel.
And I put the channel address in the show notes. They also have a blog.
And they cover many languages, not just Spanish. So they actually have blogs for each language.
So it's like all review sites, it is people's personal opinions.
So you might want to take a little time to figure out how reliable they are.
I'd try a few of the free resources they recommend and see if you also like them before I'd spend money on a paid site just because it came recommended.
Now, the first YouTube channel I want to mention is called K-Ora-S.
Spanish for beginners. And the channel address on YouTube is in the show notes.
This is a television program. And it looks like a kind of a community cable sort of thing.
It was produced by the AIB Network, which appears to be based in Georgia in the United States.
It is presented as a classroom style series of lessons with the instructor, Dr. Danny Evans writing on a whiteboard as he presents the material.
Now, I find this to be a very valuable addition to the other tools I use because it provides the more systematic background to the grammar of Spanish that is not as easily grasped from smartphone apps.
Lessons run 15 to 20 minutes each. I try to do one every day.
Of course, as a YouTube channel, I can repeat a lesson and I frequently do.
You know, watch the same lesson two, three days in a row sometimes just to get it all to sink in.
And then, usually at the end of each lesson, there's a brief bit of culture information as well.
And then, the other one that I want to mention from YouTube is something called culture, alley, Spanish.
And again, the channel addresses in the show notes. And it's a YouTube channel that offers free language instruction in several languages, Spanish being one of them.
Now, the language courses are offered in a PowerPoint style as a series of slides with a voiceover. They're well done.
And like the KORS channel, I just mentioned, also is a systematic look at grammar, which supplements the more flash-cord-oriented approaches of many of the smartphone apps.
Lessons are 15 to 20 minutes long and there is a little bit of culture at the end.
Now, with both of these channels, one of the things that I have found helpful to do is I have a box of three by five index cards.
And I'm sort of making my own flash cards as I go with some of the information they have.
Now, the key is daily practice.
So, my approach is to set aside some time every day to work on my Spanish.
My daily schedule for this starts with the smartphone apps I mentioned in the previous posts.
That'll take me, say, 15, 20 minutes to whip through those.
And I will start with those because they nag me.
Then I go to the YouTube channels and that's going to give me 30 to 40 minutes if I hit both KORS and Culture Alley.
On some days, that might be all I do if it ends up being about an hour.
But if I'm not pressed for time, I'll hit a few of the websites I mentioned in my previous posts.
Now, I'm finding I look forward to my daily session.
And that after about three to four weeks of work, it is starting to sink in.
If I keep it up for a few years, I should be able to survive that trip to Mexico that I'm looking forward to.
And then podcasts.
Now, I listened to a lot of podcasts in general.
So, it was natural for me to add Spanish language podcasts.
But they're not a part of my daily cycle.
The way I listen to podcasts is things like driving in my car or working around the house.
You know, if you're going to be washing dishes or mowing the lawn, why not listen to podcasts?
Well, you do these things so the time is more productive.
I also like to walk for exercise and listening to podcasts while doing that just makes sense.
So, while these are not in my daily routine exactly, they're a nice supplement.
Now, a note on getting these podcasts, they don't all have RSS feeds.
I got a lot of these through iTunes.
When I happen to have iTunes installed on my one Windows machine.
So, first one.
Coffee Break Spanish.
Website and the show notes.
Reviews from Fluent U. All Language Resources and Spanish Land School.
Now, this is one you will hear mentioned by a lot of reviewers and they all praise it.
It's a good one.
Short episodes of 15 to 20 minutes are conversational.
And you get to hear words and phrases and repeat them.
I think the name of this podcast is saying that the episodes are short enough that you can do one on your coffee break if that is a custom where you live.
The host, Mark, is a Scottish man who is also the founder and CEO of the Coffee Break series.
Seasons are setting levels that go from beginner, season one, to more advanced, season four.
Now, advanced is all relative, of course, so it probably is more accurate to say it gets to maybe high intermediate, but whatever.
This is also available through the Google Play Store and they have a YouTube channel.
Then, the Duolingo Podcast.
I mentioned Duolingo as an app that is on my smartphone.
They do have a podcast as well and I've got reviews from all language resources, mashable, and thought company.
The Duolingo Podcast is a bit different from the others.
It presents stories narrated by native speakers in different countries, so it's in Spanish.
They do speak more slowly than most native speakers, so that helps.
And there is an English narrator who intercuts some material that kind of helps explain what is going on.
The idea is that you may pick up some words and phrases in the Spanish narration.
Then, the English part helps you stay on track and confirm what you heard.
They are putting out one episode a week of around 25 minutes.
The first one, for example, is narrated by a reporter in Mexico about his favorite football star and how he met and became friends with him.
Next one, from a zero to a hero.
This is one of Babel's podcasts. They have several.
I've got reviews from pod paradise, chartable, and bolder Spanish.
So this is a very introductory level Spanish podcast with a student, Katrina, who is Scottish, and her teacher, Hector, who is Spanish.
Very beginner-oriented. I recommend this for anyone starting out who does not know any Spanish, which is where I started from.
Babel also has a higher level podcast for when I get to that level.
Also, while I have purchased a subscription to Babel, the podcast is in fact free, and I think it serves as marketing for their product.
Spanish pod 101 gets mentioned again.
I've got reviews for this podcast from fluent in three months, all language resources, and actual fluency.
Now, when you read the reviews, you'll see the very common view here, which is that the content is good, but the marketing is annoying.
I think that's a fair assessment.
As I said previously, I get more out of accessing this content directly on the website than as a podcast, because I can download the transcripts and read along as I listen to the audio.
Now, next one, notes in Spanish.
Again, website link in the show notes and reviews from fluent you, coffee shop, Spanish, and Merlot.
Or is that maybe that's Merlot? I don't know.
This is actually three separate collections. They did a series for beginners, another for intermediate, another for advanced.
It's presented by a husband and wife team, where the husband is British, and the wife Marina is from Madrid, which I believe makes very madrilenia.
The focus is on peninsula Spanish, the Spanish of Spain, in other words, and culture, and it works well as a podcast.
They'll also cover some of the more colloquial stuff that you might not get in a formal Spanish lesson.
Colloquial for Spain. Colloquial for Mexico would probably be very different.
Finally, I'm going to mention the news in slow Spanish, which pretty much is exactly what it says on the tin.
I'm going to mention this because I see it praised in so many places.
I've got reviews here from Mosa Linguas, Spanish land school, and coffee shop Spanish.
Now, it is really aimed at the intermediate or above students, so I'm not quite ready for it.
I did note that they have two different series for intermediate, one that focuses on Spain and the other on Latin America.
I'm definitely going to be getting this when I'm ready for it.
But the idea is they, you know, five to seven minute podcast every day, where they speak slowly and give you the news,
and just listen to it, you start picking it up.
So, as I said last time, the first thing I want to repeat is that I am not claiming that these are the best tools available,
because you are guaranteed to learn with them your money back.
As a former teacher, I know that the student matters more than the instruction.
I aim to put in one hour every day using these tools, and I know that if I keep showing up, I will make progress.
Secondly, as I have mentioned, many of these places have a podcast, a website, a YouTube channel, and so on.
If you want to learn a language, find the tools that work for you.
One of the things we know from the study of how people learn, you know, and I was a professor at a college of education, so I know a little of this stuff.
We know that different people learn in different ways, so you pick what works for you.
I watch a lot of YouTube, as you may know, if you followed my episodes on Hacker Public Radio,
and I listen to a bunch of podcasts, as you know.
I always have my smartphone handy, and I've got a web browser open in front of me, pretty much 24 or 7, so I have picked tools that work for me.
A lot of these tools are available for free, but I find the ones that I pay for tend to push me a bit harder.
You decide what works for you.
Finally, there are lots of languages, and at least for all of the major ones, there are similar sites, often from the same companies I mentioned here.
I have seen other European languages, Japanese, Mandarin, Chinese, and so on.
I had my reasons for picking Spanish, but I think it's a good idea to learn another language in general.
It gives you a sense of different cultures and how people think about things around the world.
So, this is Hoka for Hacker Public Radio, signing off, and again encouraging everyone to support FreeSoftware. Bye-bye.
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