Learn Spanish On Youtube: Our Ultimate Guide With Tips & Tricks
With more that 2 billion users, YouTube is an amazing platform to consume video content.
Pero no todo se trata de videos chistosos de gatos y de chismes de celebridades. (But not everything is about funny cat videos and celebrity gossip.)
YouTube is in fact a great tool for those who, like you, want to learn Spanish.
Our own Spring Spanish channel will tell you all the secrets you need to make the best out of the time that you spend on YouTUbe to learn Spanish.
1. Suscribirte a nuestro canal (Subscribe to our channel)
Lo primero que tienes que hacer es suscribirte a este canal. (The first thing you have to do is subscribe to this channel.)
And other Spanish teaching channels of your liking. You want to make sure YouTube knows you want to see this kind of content, so it can recommend you more of it.
Aquí en Spring Spanish, ya hemos hecho videos con recomendaciones de canales de YouTube. (Here at Spring Spanish, we have already made videos with recommendations for YouTube channels.)
Muchos de los canales de YouTube para aprender español ofrecen cursos gratis. (Many of the YouTube channels to learn Spanish offer free courses.)
Hay de mucho tipos. (There are many kinds.)
Here at Spring Spanish, we have one on Spanish for traveling, and one for beginners.
Other channels offer different styles. ¡La idea es que te guste! (The idea is that you like it!) And remember to actually do the activities suggested in the Spanish lessons you take.
2. Otro tipo de canales (Other types of channels)
But there are other type of channels that can also help you a lot.) If your Spanish is advanced and you already understand lots of it.
For example:
- Canales de noticias en español (News channels in Spanish): You can benefit from their narration in “proper” and clear Spanish.
- Canales de tutoriales (Tutorial channels): On specific subjects that you like. Pueden ser canales de cocina, de maquillaje, de proyectos “hágalo usted mismo.” (It could be channels about cooking, make up, DIY projects.) Lo que sea que disfrutes ver. (Whatever you enjoy watching.)
- Canales populares en países hispanoparlantes. (Popular channels in Spanish-speaking countries.) Like Luisito Comunica o Badabun, where you can hear a lot of informal Spanish.
- Canales de noticias satíricas. (Satirical news channels.) To stay in the now with the street and internet culture of your Spanish speaking community. En México, por ejemplo, es muy popular y muy gracioso “El Deforma”. (In Mexico, for example “El Deforma” is very popular and very funny.)
Super special tip:
No tengan miedo de usar la sección de comentarios a su favor. (Don’t be afraid to use the comment section in your favor.)
La sección de comentarios es poderosa. (The comment section is powerful.)
Just put yourself out there and comment in Spanish. You’ll be surprised of how many people would actually take the time to correct you!
Let’s try something. Leave a comment in Spanish and let’s wait for the corrections!
3. El poder del karaoke: learn Spanish on YouTube with karaoke
One of my favorite ways to learn a language is through songs.
Checa el video que María Fernanda hizo sobre el tema aquí. (Check out the video Maria Fernanda made on the subject here.)
The great thing about YouTube is that it offers endless options for songs to sing along to.
Let’s do one together. Let’s do a slow song
Antología de Shakira. Primero busco la letra en Google. Hago esto porque no siempre está la letra en la descripción del video de YouTube. (Antology by Shakira. First I search the lyrics on Google. I do this because not all the times the lyrics are in the description of the YouTube video.)
Después, escribo en la barra de búsqueda de YouTube: (Then, I type in the search bar on YouTube:) Antología de Shakira CON LETRA (Antology by Shakira WITH LYRIC ).
Con letra, a chunk that means “with lyrics”.
See how in Spanish it’s a singular, “letra” and in English it’s lyricS, a plural. Concepts don’t always translate smoothly.
De español a inglés y viceversa. (From Spanish to English and vice versa.)
That’s why our experts in language acquisition use chunks. Combinaciones de palabras que los hablantes nativos de un idioma usan todo el tiempo. (Word combinations that native speakers of a language use all the time.)
Get your free copy with tons of useful Spanish chunks in the link in the description.
✔️ Cheat Sheet with 54 essential Spanish Chunks you’ll hear and use yourself in ANY Spanish conversation (and example sentences). Taken from our YouTube Teacher’s most popular videos!
✔️ 2 Bonus Cheat Sheets with Travel Chunks and Dating/Relationship Chunks
✔️ A Spanish Chunking Tutorial showing you the 1 technique that’ll help you make 100% of the Spanish from our videos roll off the tongue in just 5 minutes a day (you’re probably only using 50% of our lessons’ potential right now…)
4. Transfórmalo en español (Transform it into Spanish)
Hay canales muy populares como Veritasium, que amo, que ya tienen su versión en español. (There are very popular channels like Veritasium, which I love, that already have a Spanish version.)
So, you can rewatch your favorite content in Spanish. Since you already watched it, you know what’s about and now you just listen to the way it “is said” in Spanish.
For all those other channels who don’t have a Spanish version, there’s the tool called Language Reactor which can help you so much trying to learn Spanish with YouTube (and it works for Netflix as well): It has a catalogue of YouTube content made in Spanish.
Para que selecciones lo que más te llame la atención. (So you can select the one that gets your attention the most.)
They have a Chrome plugin which allows you to have subtitles in two languages at the same time.
También se puede dar click a una palabra que no sepas y te la traduce de inmediato. (It’s also possible to click on a word you don’t know and you get a translation of it right away.
Esto te puede ahorrar mucho tiempo. (This can save you a lot of time.)
