Home / Best apps to learn a language / Spanish
Prices and language coverage checked in September 2026.
Spanish has about 520 million people with native command and 635.7 million potential users in all, by the Instituto Cervantes count of October 2025. It is third in the world by native speakers, after Mandarin and Hindi, and one native speaker in ten lives outside the Spanish-speaking countries. Every big app teaches it, so the choice comes down to fit: which Spanish it teaches, how far it goes and what is left once the trial ends.
The input is free and plentiful: Spanish is the second language of the web, on 6.0% of websites against 49.5% for English (W3Techs), and graded video, learner podcasts and public domain books cost nothing. What you pay an app for is an order to learn in, a voice that answers back and feedback, in the Spanish of the place you are heading to.
The US Foreign Service Institute puts Spanish in category I (of I to IV), about 750 class hours for an English speaker to reach professional working proficiency.
Vosotros, the informal plural, is used in most of Spain and not in the Americas, and Duolingo teaches ustedes without it. Babbel, Pimsleur and Memrise sell a Spain course and a Latin American or Mexican one separately, Coffee Break Spanish is built on Spain Spanish, and Dreaming Spanish has guides from Spain and five Latin American countries with a dialect filter. Learn the Spanish of the place you are heading to, and learn to understand the rest.
A 2011 study in the journal Language found that Spanish is spoken as a fast run of syllables that each carry little information, while Mandarin is slower with denser syllables; the information delivered per second differed by only about 4%. To a learner, it means native speech runs past you long after the course dialogues make sense. Close the gap in steps: graded video such as Dreaming Spanish, then learner podcasts, then Radio Ambulante at native speed.
The Spanish apps split on when to talk. Pimsleur, Language Transfer and Speak make you answer out loud from the first lesson. Dreaming Spanish’s roadmap warns that speaking at 300 hours of listening “will invariably result in hard-to-fix non-native pronunciation” and treats about 600 hours as the point where starting is “not a big deal”. That is one method’s view: with a trip or a job coming, speak early; with time to spare and an accent you care about, listen more first.
Duolingo’s Spanish runs to B2 by its own label, and we found no independent test of that claim. Babbel’s Spain course runs to C1 by its labels and its Mexico course to B1, and Mango Languages, free through many US libraries, stops around low intermediate by one review. Past B1 a course becomes the side dish: listening, reading and a tutor do most of the work.
The DELE has a separate exam for each level from A1 to C2 and a certificate that does not expire; at the New York and Chicago centres it costs US$128 to US$210 in 2026. The SIELE is one test scored 0 to 1000 for A1 to C1, valid for five years (€155 for SIELE Global). Spanish nationality asks for the DELE A2 or higher plus the CCSE, a test on the constitution and society. For US students, the AP Spanish Language and Culture exam goes digital in May 2027.
Best for listening
Graded videos in Spanish in four difficulty levels, from Superbeginner to Advanced, with an hours tracker and a published roadmap from 0 to 1,500 hours. It is the largest body of graded Spanish listening we found, now under the name Dreaming, with French added. It teaches no grammar, by design.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Anyone who can give Spanish an hour of listening a day, from the first week.
Best free audio course
Complete Spanish is 90 free audio tracks in which a teacher builds sentences with a student while you pause and answer out loud. It builds Spanish from the patterns it shares with English and makes you say every sentence yourself.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: The first weeks of Spanish, on a walk or a commute, before or beside any other app.
Best free daily course
The Spanish course runs to B2 by Duolingo’s own label and was rebuilt in February 2026; an unofficial tracker counts 991 units and 1,166 short Stories. It teaches Latin American Spanish with ustedes and no vosotros, and it builds a daily habit better than it trains your ear for native speech.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A free daily habit in the first months, especially if you are headed for the Americas or not yet sure.
Best structured course
Babbel sells two separate Spanish courses, Spain and Mexico, and you choose before you start. The Spain course runs to C1 by Babbel’s own labels, past Duolingo’s B2; the Mexico course stops at B1. It is the course with a syllabus we would pick for Spanish, with Busuu as the close alternative.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A1 to B2 learners who want grammar in order and know which Spanish they need.
Best live tutors
Preply lists 15,095 Spanish tutors and lets you filter them by country, so you can book a teacher from Spain, Mexico or Colombia for the Spanish you are learning. Prices start at US$3 a lesson. Below B1, pick a trained teacher who can explain in your language; from B1 on, a weekly tutor fixes the mistakes no app catches.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Anyone from A1 who needs a person to talk to, in the Spanish of the country they chose.
Best for reading real books
Lingo7 puts a translation in your own language under every sentence of a Spanish book (49 languages), reads it aloud and drills saved words in 12 kinds of exercise. Its Spanish shelf has 97 public domain books, none below B2 by our estimate; A2 and B1 readers start with the Stories. It is our app, and it has no course.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: B2 readers who want real Spanish books with their own language under the text, A2 and B1 learners starting with the Stories, and anyone with their own EPUBs.
Best for speaking from lesson one
Thirty minute audio lessons in which you answer out loud and words come back at spaced intervals. Pimsleur has a Latin American course (150 lessons in five levels, with reading lessons) and a separate Castilian course, also in five levels.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A trip in two months, a long commute, or anyone who wants to speak before they read.
Best dictionary and verb tables
A Spanish and English dictionary with every verb conjugated in full, grammar guides, lessons and a translator, free with ads. Premium removes the ads and adds vos and vosotros to the conjugation drill. It is a reference with lessons, not a course.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Every level: looking up a word or a verb form, and practising the vosotros or vos forms a course left out.
Best AI speaking practice
You say every line out loud, then use it in a roleplay or a free conversation with an AI tutor, which gets shy beginners talking. Speak does not say which Spanish it teaches; one review found Latin American Spanish with Mexican vocabulary as the default, and little Castilian, Rioplatense or Caribbean.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A1 to B1 learners who freeze when they have to speak, before or between lessons with a tutor.
Best podcast course
A teacher who has lived in Spain teaches a learner on the recording, in English, over four seasons of 40 lessons, and the podcast lessons are free. The base is Spain Spanish, and the course brings in the words used elsewhere in the Spanish-speaking world early on.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Beginners who like a teacher explaining in English, on a commute, especially if they are headed for Spain.
Best for video input
Spanish subtitles and a translation into your language side by side on YouTube, with a dictionary on click, free for the part that matters. Netflix support broke around 30 June 2026 and we could not confirm a fix, so treat it as a YouTube tool; Easy Spanish’s street interviews are a good place to start.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: B1 and up with a laptop, turning Spanish YouTube into listening practice.
Best vocabulary trainer
Free spaced repetition with shared Spanish decks: a Top 5000 deck built on a frequency dictionary, and sentence decks in separate European and Latin American versions. It is the cheapest way to keep the words you meet in videos and books, and it teaches nothing on its own.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Keeping the words you met in videos, books and lessons, at any level.
Language Transfer + Duolingo + Dreaming Spanish
Start Complete Spanish on Language Transfer for the grammar and Duolingo for the daily habit, both free, and watch Dreaming Spanish’s Superbeginner videos from the first week. Headed for Spain? Duolingo has no vosotros, so take Babbel’s Spain course from the start or add Coffee Break Spanish. Pimsleur is the paid choice if you want to speak before you read.
Keep one course going to B1: Duolingo if it has to be free, Babbel for grammar in order. Book a Preply tutor from the country whose Spanish you want once a week, keep Dreaming Spanish at an hour a day, and start reading with Lingo7’s Stories at A2, then graded readers you import; its own shelf starts at B2 by our estimate. Look up every verb form in SpanishDict.
Lingo7 + Language Reactor + Preply
Courses thin out here. Read the shelf’s classics or your own books in Lingo7, watch Spanish YouTube with Language Reactor, listen to Radio Ambulante, and talk about all of it with your tutor. Add Anki for the words you want to keep and, if a DELE or SIELE date is set, a tutor who has taught that exam.
| App | Role | Levels | Coverage for Spanish | Free | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dreaming Spanish | Best for listening | A0 to B2 | Spain and five Latin American countries, with a dialect filter; 4 difficulty levels; no CEFR labels | Free video library | Free library; Premium US$8 a month |
| Language Transfer | Best free audio course | A0 to A2 | Complete Spanish, 90 audio tracks; the course page names no variety | All of it | Free |
| Duolingo | Best free daily course | A0 to B1 | Latin American (ustedes, no vosotros); B2 by Duolingo’s label; 991 units and 1,166 Stories by an unofficial tracker | All lessons, with ads | US$13 to 17 a month, US$7 to 10 a month yearly |
| Babbel | Best structured course | A1 to B2 | Two courses: Spain to C1, Mexico to B1, by Babbel’s labels | Select lessons per level | US$18 a month, US$7.50 to 9 a month yearly |
| Preply | Best live tutors | A1 to C2 | 15,095 Spanish tutors, filter by country (Spain, Mexico, Colombia and more) | None | US$3 to 40+ a lesson, subscription only |
| Lingo7 | Best for reading real books | A2 to C1 | 97 public domain books, by our estimate 23 at B2 and 74 at C1; Stories in two versions, adapted for A1 to A2 and original for B1 to B2; your own books in 7 formats (EPUB, PDF, FB2, DOCX, TXT, Markdown, HTML); native audio in a Spain or Mexican accent; translation into 49 languages | First page of each book | US$5 a month, US$2.50 a month yearly |
| Pimsleur | Best for speaking from lesson one | A0 to A2 | Latin American (150 lessons, 5 levels) and Castilian (5 levels) as separate courses; no CEFR claim from the vendor | 7 day trial | US$20 a month, US$11 to 14 a month yearly |
| SpanishDict | Best dictionary and verb tables | A1 to C1 | Both varieties; vos and vosotros drills in Premium; no levelled course | Dictionary and verb tables, with ads | Free; Premium US$5 a month yearly |
| Speak | Best AI speaking practice | A1 to B1 | Latin American default with Mexican vocabulary, per one review; beginner to intermediate | 7 day trial | US$18 a month, US$7 a month yearly |
| Coffee Break Spanish | Best podcast course | A0 to A2 | Spain Spanish with Latin American alternatives; 4 seasons of 40 lessons | The podcast lessons | Free podcast; US$269 a season |
| Language Reactor | Best for video input | B1 to C2 | Any Spanish YouTube video with subtitles; Netflix broke around 30 June 2026, no fix confirmed | Most of it | US$6 a month, US$3.33 a month yearly |
| Anki | Best vocabulary trainer | A1 to C1 | Shared decks for Spain and Latin American Spanish, Top 5000 frequency decks; the variety depends on the deck | All of it (iOS US$24.99) | Free; iOS US$24.99 once |
Prices are US store or vendor prices as of September 2026, yearly plans shown as the monthly equivalent. The same app often costs less on its own site than in the App Store, and more in Europe than in the US.
Free on this site: public domain Spanish books you can open in the app, and short Spanish texts at A1, A2 and B1 with a translation.
We have no affiliate deals with any app named here, and none of the links pay us. Prices and coverage come from the vendor’s own help or pricing pages or its US store listing, checked in September 2026, and every other figure names its source in the text; the judgement calls lean on independent reviews, and on the one star reviews for the parts a landing page never shows, like what happens on renewal. Where a vendor’s pages contradict each other, the card says so.
Refund rules, the traps to avoid and the same apps compared by level for every language are on the best apps to learn a language page.
For a start, yes, and it is free: the Spanish course runs to B2 by Duolingo’s own label, with 1,166 short Stories by an unofficial count. On its own it is not enough: on a phone the free plan’s Energy runs out after about 2 or 3 lessons a day, by users’ reports (the desktop web version has no cap), it teaches no vosotros, and we found no independent test of the B2 label. Add Dreaming Spanish or a podcast for listening, and a tutor once you can put a few sentences together.
Either works. Learn the Spanish of the place where you will use it, and learn to understand the rest. The differences an app should tell you about: vosotros, the informal plural, is used in most of Spain but not in the Americas, the Canary Islands or western Andalusia, where ustedes covers every plural; saying z, and c before e or i, like s (seseo) is general in Latin America and fully accepted as correct; and vos takes the place of tú in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay and is used beside it in almost all of Central America. Duolingo teaches no vosotros, Babbel (Spain or Mexico) and Pimsleur (Castilian or Latin American) sell two courses, and Dreaming Spanish has guides from both sides.
The DELE, from the Instituto Cervantes, has a separate exam for each level from A1 to C2, and the certificate does not expire; the New York and Chicago centres charge US$128 (A1) to US$210 (C2) in 2026. The SIELE is one test scored 0 to 1000 across A1 to C1, taken at a centre or remotely, with results within 21 days and a certificate valid for five years; SIELE Global costs €155. Take the DELE for a certificate that lasts and the SIELE for a quick result. Spanish nationality asks for the DELE A2 or higher plus the CCSE (€85), a test on the Spanish constitution and society. No app on this list is an exam course; a tutor who has taught the exam is.
Reading grows your vocabulary from about A2, but it will not teach you to speak, and before B1 it is slow on its own. Dreaming Spanish’s roadmap suggests holding back on most reading until about 600 hours of listening if you care about your accent. That is one method’s view; with a translation under each sentence and the audio on, reading can start at A2. Lingo7, our app, does that with Spanish books, reads them aloud in a Spain or Mexican accent and drills the words you save in 12 kinds of exercise, for US$5 a month or US$30 a year. Its Spanish shelf starts at B2 by our estimate, so begin with its Stories or a graded reader.
Much of the way, yes. Language Transfer’s Complete Spanish (90 audio tracks), Duolingo’s course, Dreaming Spanish’s free videos and the Coffee Break Spanish podcast cost nothing, SpanishDict’s dictionary and verb tables are free with ads, and many US public libraries give free access to Mango Languages. What free rarely gives you is a person who corrects you: add a tutor (Preply from US$3 a lesson) or a language exchange once you can talk.
Read your first page free, in Spanish.