Course description

Always wished you could speak Spanish, or got stuck after "hola" and "gracias"? This course takes you from the alphabet to real conversations, step by step, so you can get by on holiday, chat with Spanish speakers and keep learning with confidence.

It's a full course, not a phrasebook. There are 10 sections and 52 step-by-step written lessons, and every lesson ends with practical tasks you say out loud or write. Every section has a practice pack of word lists, verb tables, practice exercises with answers and flashcards you can import into a flashcard app. Throughout the course you follow a garden centre supervisor from Carlisle as she learns Spanish from scratch before visiting her daughter in Seville.

What you'll learn

• Sounds: the alphabet, vowels, consonants, stress and written accents, with a pronunciation guide for every new word.
• Talking about yourself: introductions, nationality, work, family and describing people.
• Everyday life: present-tense verbs, questions, numbers, dates and telling the time.
• Getting around: directions, transport, tickets and the difference between ser and estar.
• Food, shopping and hotels: cafés, restaurants, markets, clothes shops, check-in and the chemist.
• Plans and the past: daily routine, free time, the weather, making plans and three past tenses.
• Real-world Spanish: messages, phone calls, being polite, Latin American differences and etiquette.

Two final projects

You'll introduce yourself and your life in Spanish, then plan a trip and talk your way through it, from the station to the restaurant.

Who this course is for

• Complete beginners and anyone restarting after school Spanish.
• Holidaymakers who want to do more than point and smile.
• People with family, friends or property in Spain.
• Anyone planning to move to or work in a Spanish-speaking country.

How the course works

Read each lesson, say the Spanish out loud, then do the Try it tasks and check them against the answers in the practice pack. The course teaches Spanish as spoken in Spain and explains the main Latin American differences. It aims at roughly CEFR level A1 and into A2, and gives no formal qualification. You keep lifetime access, so you can come back whenever you need a refresher.

What will i learn?

• Pronounce Spanish clearly and read words aloud with the right stress
• Introduce yourself and talk about your family, work and daily life
• Use the present tense of regular, irregular and stem-changing verbs
• Ask for directions, buy tickets and get around a Spanish town
• Order food and drink, shop, check into a hotel and get help
• Make plans, send messages and talk about the weather and free time
• Talk about the past with the preterite, imperfect and present perfect
• Understand polite forms, Latin American differences and everyday etiquette

Frequently asked question