SpanishPod101 Review: A Linguist’s In-depth Analysis For Learning Pathways And Lexical Chunks (2024)
Considering SpanishPod101 to give your Spanish a boost?
Read this in-depth SpanishPod101 review to take a peek inside and see if the teaching method underpinning the course works to learn Spanish. If you want a glimpse of what their platform looks like, take a look at one of their videos!
We’ll take a close look at what this popular Spanish language learning platform has to offer, its pricing, user experience, and its teaching methodology (especially if it teaches you enough chunks), to help you decide if it’s the right choice for your Spanish learning journey.
SpanishPod101 Review: At a Glance
- Audio and video lessons for different levels and topics
- Rich vocabulary and lexical chunk learning tools with curated lists and flashcards
SpanishPod101 is a website that helps you learn Spanish online with audio and video lessons. The platform is a true goldmine of chunks and comes with almost everything you need to make fast progress in your Spanish studies.
- Massive content library for every level: basically unlimited Spanish input
- Audio and bilingual transcripts (even offline if you use the Android or iPhone app)
- Learning Paths for structured learning
- Chaotic website: it can be hard to know where to start
- Tons of sales emails that don’t deliver much value
Interested in trying it out?
As a linguist, my team and I spend considerable time reviewing platforms, not just superficially, but also to test them against the latest research in linguistics and teaching methodology, including compatibility with Conversation Based Chunking™. To support that work, we do earn a small commission whenever we recommend a language product. Learn more about our language product reviews’ process and policy.
1. What Is SpanishPod101?
SpanishPod101 is an online language learning platform developed by Innovative Language Learning.
It offers a comprehensive suite of resources for learning Spanish, including audio and video lessons, interactive quizzes, vocabulary tools, and cultural insights.
Catering to learners of all levels, SpanishPod101 emphasizes real-life conversations and practical language use, making it a popular choice for those seeking an immersive and effective learning experience.
2. Spanishpod101 Review: Signup And Newsletters
Before we even get into the content, let’s take a look at user experience.
After all, if you’re instantly overwhelmed opening the website or app, you probably won’t stick around for too long anyway.
Signup And Onboarding Experience
Signing up for a SpanishPod101 account is easy: you enter your email address and go through a quick onboarding.
First, they ask if you’d like to receive a daily “Word of the day” email. SpanishPod101 is notorious for sending tons of promo emails, so you can decide for yourself if you want to receive their emails, but at least they’re giving you the choice by asking!
I found the Word of the Day emails quite okay.
After that, you go to your inbox to activate your account and set a password.
At the time of writing this review (April 2024) you’ll be offered a $1 trial right away. SpanishPod101 has free content too, so don’t feel obliged to sign up for it. At the same time, it’s an excellent and cheap way to try out all the content and functionality and see if you like it.
Afterwards, the website takes you through some more onboarding, including indicating your level (that’s a good thing because there’s so much content on the website) and another discount offer (you’ll notice this is a recurring theme on SpanishPod101 website).
Once that’s done, you finally get access to your dashboard!
3. Dashboard And User Experience
One of SpanishPod101’s biggest pro is also its biggest downside – or at least, it used to be.
They’ve created such a huge content library that it became hard to navigate. When you have thousands of excellent Spanish lessons at your fingertips without any clear structure, where do you start?
That’s right – you probably won’t get started at all.
Luckily, they’ve made a big effort to improve navigation and user experience.
The main upgrade they made is the Learning Pathways, which are basically “mini-courses” comprised of lessons from their lesson library.
Depending on your level, SpanishPod101 recommends a pathway for you, but you can also browse and choose all the other available pathways. I browsed through the library and there’s a staggering amount of pathways and lessons for beginner and intermediate students.
There’s a little less content for advanced students, but still more than enough to take new lessons every day.
Pathways like “Absolute Beginner European Spanish for Every Day”, “Level 2 Mexican Spanish: Diagnostic 1”, or “Absolute Beginner Season 1” are great places to start, but you can also find more specific Pathways, like “Academic Life” or even “Mexican Superstitions and Beliefs”.
These pathways turn SpanishPod101 into a true powerhouse with dozens (maybe even hundreds) of “subcourses”. Just log in on the website or app and take your next lesson – you’ll never run out.
Credit where credit is due: this is great work from the team at SpanishPod101.
Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (8/10)
- Signup and onboarding: smooth onboarding flow, but you get a lot of promotional messages that don’t offer much value, especially in the days after signing up
- Ease of use: The platform is intuitive and user-friendly, allowing even the most inexperienced learners to navigate and find lessons with ease.
- Navigation: The well-organized interface lets users access different levels, topics, and lesson types quickly, saving valuable study time.
- Design: SpanishPod101 boasts a visually appealing design that enhances the learning experience and keeps users engaged.
- Availability on different platforms: Accessible on PC, Android, and iOS devices, SpanishPod101 ensures convenience and flexibility for learners on the go.
4. Learn Spanish With The Lesson Contents: Does The Teaching Methodology Work?
SpanishPod101 offers an array of features designed to cater to different learning styles and preferences:
- Audio lessons and video lessons: Engaging audio and video content immerse learners in real-life situations and conversations, providing valuable listening practice.
- Interactive quizzes: Quizzes help learners test their comprehension and reinforce their understanding of vocabulary and grammar concepts.
- Vocabulary tools: Word banks, flashcards, and spaced repetition systems ensure learners retain new vocabulary effectively.
- Cultural insights: SpanishPod101 emphasizes cultural understanding, offering insights into the customs, traditions, and history of the Spanish-speaking world.
- Community support: The platform’s forums and chat features allow learners to connect with fellow students and native Spanish speakers, facilitating conversation practice and networking.
An In-depth Look At The Lessons
An essential aspect of language learning is acquiring lexical chunks — commonly used phrases or word combinations that native speakers use naturally; research has shown that learning with chunks can cut the time required to speak a foreign language confidently in half, compared to traditional words-and-grammar learning.
(If you’d like to learn more about this, read the full Conversation Based Chunking™ post or the book I wrote about the topic, or take a look at Spring Spanish for a learning platform specifically designed to learning chunks)
I also made a walkthrough video about how to use SpanishPod101 and the Conversation Based Chunking TOGETHER! You can check everything out on our dedicated page if you click the button below!
There is a better way to do flashcards, it’s free and you can learn more about it!
We put every course or app we review to the “Conversation Based Chunking™” test: does it contain enough conversations (dialogues), and do they make it easy to identify and learn lexical chunks?
SpanishPod101 shines in this regard:
- Real-life conversations: The SpanishPod101 lessons come with tons of real-life situations and dialogues, which naturally expose you to lexical chunks. Every dialogue comes with audio so you can listen and re-listen. The only downside is that in the video lessons, the teachers speak quite some English instead of focusing on Spanish dialogue. That’s fine for a YouTube video that doesn’t come with extra materials, but in a paid course (where you get a transcript, lesson notes, and more), you want to get as much Spanish as possible.
- Transcript: Every dialogue comes with a transcript, so you can read and listen at the same time (as I mention in my book, this multisensory approach is more effective than only listening or reading).
- Parallel translations: You can click a button above the dialogue to switch between Spanish and English. I recommend you use the “ALL” option so you can see the Spanish transcript and English translation side-by-side because that makes it much easier to identify chunks.
- Flashcards: SpanishPod101 allows you to create and review flashcards within their tool, which is pretty cool. The only problem: you can only create flashcards with words, not chunks. Ideally, you always memorize chunks in the context of a sentence with flashcards, never isolated words. Learning isolated words barely carries over to speaking confidently in conversations, so this is a missed opportunity. To get around this, you can still make your own “cloze cards” in your favorite flashcard app, like the example below: (I recommend you do)
- Lesson Notes: Every lesson comes with extensive lesson notes on grammar, vocabulary, and cultural topics referenced in the dialogue. Excellent for background info.
- Speaking Practice: The final step of Conversation Based Chunking™ is “using the chunks you’ve identified yourself in conversations”.
The easiest option for such practice is tutor sessions, and Spanishpod101 does offer a “chat option” on their Premium Plus plan, which can work. Alternatively, you can also get a tutor (e.g. at Italki – if you use this link you’ll get a $10 coupon for your first classes; that’s usually enough 1 (or 2) classes!) to make even faster progress.
Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (8/10)
- I’m amazed by how much high-quality content you can find in the lessons, and how well it works with Conversation Based Chunking™. This is a true goldmine of chunks and comes with almost everything you need to make fast progress in your Spanish studies.
- Ignore the video lessons with too much English content, and the flashcard feature needs some work so I suggest you keep using an external flashcard app for now, but other than that, this is an impressive lesson library.
5. SpanishPod101 Cost: What Is Included In The Premium For Spanish Learners?
As mentioned before, SpanishPod101 offers a range of pricing options to accommodate various budgets and learning goals.
- Free subscription: You can get started for free with limited access to lessons and resources. It’s enough to sample the platform before committing to a paid subscription (also, you get a 7-day free premium subscription when you sign up for a free account)
- Paid subscriptions: With multiple tiers available, paid subscriptions unlock additional features and benefits, such as expanded lesson access, personalized learning pathways, and one-on-one coaching.
They offer lots of different plans (up to 24-month subscriptions) with big discounts for the longer-term plans, so pre-paying for a longer subscription could save you quite some money in the long term. - Discounts: SpanishPod101 regularly offers discounts and promotions, so chances are, you’ll come across one when you sign up right now. If you want to get a discount and want to support my work on this website, you can always use the coupon EFFCON when signing up for a paid plan to save 25% off any plan.
- Refund: SpanishPod101 offers a 60-day refund policy. That’s pretty generous and gives you plenty of time to test out all the features.
It’s not easy to find all the subscription plans SpanishPod101 offers, so we compiled it into one table for you. Take a look!
| Plan | Duration | Monthly Price | Total Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | 12 months | $5.00 | $60.00 |
| 6 months | $6.00 | $36.00 | |
| 1 month | $8.00 | $8.00 | |
| Premium | 12 months | $15.00 | $180.00 |
| 6 months | $20.00 | $120.00 | |
| 1 month | $25.00 | $25.00 | |
| Premium Plus | 12 months | $26.33 | $316.00 |
| 6 months | $36.67 | $220.00 | |
| 1 month | $47.00 | $47.00 |
Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (10/10)
- SpanishPod101 is a very affordable platform.
- You’ll have difficulty finding a more affordable platform with this amount of high-quality lessons.
- The generous 60-day refund policy gives you enough time to play around with the lessons risk-free.
6. User Reviews And Effectiveness: Is SpanishPod101 Worth It?
Let’s see what other people say about its effectiveness and if they agree with our verdict.
User reviews from app stores, Reddit, Quora, and other websites overwhelmingly praise SpanishPod101 for its engaging content and effective teaching methods. Many users report significant improvements in their Spanish skills after using the platform, attributing their success to the comprehensive lessons and focus on real-life conversations.
Our own experience with SpanishPod101 aligns with these positive reviews. The platform’s well-rounded approach to language learning, emphasis on practical language use, massive database of lessons full of lexical chunks make it a valuable resource for anyone looking to improve their Spanish skills.
Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (10/10)
7. The Final Verdict: Combine SpanishPod101 Lessons With Conversation Based Chunking
With the introduction of Learning Pathways, SpanishPod101 managed to turn its one downside (overwhelming, unstructured lesson library) into a massive selling point.
It has turned into a Spanish learning powerhouse with enough content, chunks, and guidance to help you learn Spanish, no matter your level.
Combine it with Conversation Based Chunking™ methodology, make your own flashcards, find a tutor to practice all the Spanish chunks you learn, and you’ll make massive progress fast.
I made a dedicated page for you about how to use SpanishPod101 and Conversation Based Chunking TOGETHER! You can try it out now if you click the button below!
My advice? Give it a try.
They let you sample all the content first so you can see if you like it anyway. And if you decide you want to continue use the coupon code EFFCON to get 25% off any subscription option:
Effortless Conversations takes pride in providing well-researched, reliable, and unbiased language product reviews, based on the Conversation Based Chunking™ methodology. Our team’s extensive experience in language teaching and learning, combined with our Linguist Code of Ethics, ensures that the reviews you read on our website come from a place of genuine expertise and care for your language learning success.
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SpanishPod101
Read this SpanishPod101 review! Discover how you can learn Spanish with ease: the program offers Spanish learning with chunks, grammar and quizzes.
8.7
FAQ: Which dialect of Spanish does SpanishPod101 teach?
SpanishPod101 has a massive content library with teachers and lessons from all over the Spanish-speaking world. There are Learning Pathways specifically for European Spanish, Mexican Spanish, and many other dialects. In short: SpanishPod101 teaches all dialects of Spanish.
