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Español Spanish
Peninsular Spanish, formal usted where a stranger is involved.
No card. $19.95 a month afterwards, for Spanish alone.
Hear it
Three lines from the Spanish set
Not samples written for this page — these are blocks from the shipped content, exactly as you would drill them.
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Soy desarrollador de software.I'm a software developer.
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Perdone, ¿lo tienen en otra talla?Excuse me, do you have it in another size?
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¿Podría repetirlo, por favor? Se oye mal.Could you repeat that, please? The line is bad.Se oye mal — "it is heard badly" — an impersonal se, which Spanish reaches for constantly. Blaming the line is the graceful way to ask twice.
Audio uses your browser's built-in voices. If nothing plays, no Spanish voice is installed on this device — the app says so plainly rather than failing quietly.
What is inside
14 islands
Each is a topic you can hold up on your own for thirty seconds. Build few, drill them past the point of thinking.
- My work Mi trabajo The second question anyone asks. Have all of it ready cold.
- Why I study Spanish Por qué estudio español Fires the moment anyone compliments your Spanish. It always comes.
- My family Mi familia Rewrite this one first. Wrong details here are worse than none.
- Ordering a meal En el restaurante Transactional, frequent, unforgiving of hesitation. Drill to reflex.
- Where I live Dónde vivo Pairs with the work island — somebody always asks where you came from.
- What I do outside work Mis aficiones The island that keeps a conversation going once the basics are done.
- Getting around Moverse por la ciudad You need this while tired and carrying luggage. Overlearn it.
- Shopping De compras Short, frequent exchanges where hesitating costs you the queue.
- Weather and small talk Charla The filler that keeps a silence from becoming awkward.
- Making plans Quedar con alguien The moment a conversation could become a second meeting.
- When something goes wrong Cuando algo sale mal The island you will need under stress, which is when improvising fails.
- Opinions and preferences Mi opinión What turns an interview into a conversation.
- On the phone Por teléfono Nothing to fall back on — no gestures, no lip reading. Rehearse the opening until it is automatic.
- Officialdom Los trámites Everyone who moves somewhere meets this early. Fixed vocabulary, and a real cost to fumbling it.
Under pressure
6 staged conversations
Drills tell you which island is coming. These do not — somebody speaks first, and you work out which of your islands answers them.
- Meeting someone at a party A friend's flat in Madrid. The man by the kitchen turns and starts talking. Three of your islands answer everything he is about to ask — the only question is whether you reach the right one in time. 4 beats
- Dinner for two A full restaurant at half past nine. The waiter is moving fast and will not slow down. Every beat is a sentence you already have — this is a speed test, not a comprehension one. 5 beats
- Small talk on the train Two and a half hours to Seville and the woman opposite has decided to talk. She uses usted throughout, as a stranger a generation older would — your answers are first person either way, so the island still fits. 5 beats
- Making the connection Eleven minutes before your train and the boards are no help. The man at the window is helpful but quick, and every fumbled question costs a minute you do not have. 4 beats
- Buying something that fits A department store on a Saturday. The assistant reaches you within seconds, so the "just looking" line has to be ready before you have decided anything. 4 beats
- Something went wrong Customer service on a Monday with a queue behind you. Complaining in a second language is where politeness and clarity pull against each other — these blocks do both. 4 beats
How Spanish is graded
Graded word by word, with a near-miss tier for accents.
Written accents and the tilde on ñ are near misses — the word was right. Everything else is compared as written, so the difference between formal and familiar is a real difference and not a rounding error.
Every drill grades what you actually produced, word by word or character by character, and shows you the exact unit you dropped. The number is there so the scheduler knows what to bring back; the marking is there so you can see what to fix.
Seven days of Spanish, free
No card, nothing to cancel. If the drilling works, it is $19.95 a month for Spanish — and your islands stay yours either way.
Open Spanish