The Best Free Online Tools to Help Your Spanish-Speaking Friends with Their English
Updated March, 2017
If you don’t make Mexican friends as an expat, you will never really understand what a difference it makes in your quality of life. Having Mexican friends determines the framework of your entire social support structure.
You can choose either to hang out with other frequently-bewildered expats, or enjoy a healthy mix of expats and people who always know precisely what’s going on. It’s up to you.
It's up to you because you don’t have to be fluent to make Mexican friends, owing to the usual graciousness of the Mexican people. Even when I lock up on the language completely, the conversation finds a way to resolve itself. Anyone, regardless of age, can become fluent enough to be social.
You do have to be friendly and, after getting to know them a bit, reciprocate their kindness, just like making friends anywhere. I am constantly on the look-out for those opportunities. My friends here have been extraordinarily good to me.
If you think you have a budget problem, look at it this way, the money Mexicans can save you by telling you what you should pay for things and services will pay itself many times over for the investment of a few tickets or a dinner out.
While those gestures, like an event or a meal are a great start, other gestures that cost next to nothing are equally appreciated.
One idea is providing a meeting place in your home. Mexicans will always generously contribute food and beverages but they often lack a place to gather as a group when a restaurant or bar isn't appropriate or too expensive. North Americans often have more spacious, less cluttered living spaces that are perfect for a book club or a holiday gathering.
Another great thing to contribute is help with English practice. In Mexico, many people you meet are trying to improve their English. The children of all of my Mexican friends are studying English, which enhances their employment opportunities and likelihood of getting into some schools. Offer to take some time to help them.
The adults themselves are interested in learning English because it’s an activity they can share with their children and like me, they find learning a second language empowering.
If they are taking formal English classes in Mexico, you will be amazed how terrible their resources usually are. One of the nice things you can do for anyone learning English is to have at your disposal a list of free online tools (especially phone apps) to help them.
Here are some language learning sites that I researched and cover in my book the
“ Interactive Guide to Learning Spanish Free Online,” that also have tools to learn English. Share the list with the friends you’ve made who are learning English, or keep it for when you do make friends who need fresh tools.
Mansioningles.com - Recommended by one of my language exchange partners in Valencia, Spain, is comprehensive enough that he says it's all he uses (and his English is quite good).
Digital Dialects - great for beginners, the site uses games to teach basic vocabulary in 80 languages.
Duolingo - The most popular online tool for beginner Spanish students is also available for those learning English. The bite-sized lessons use lots of repetition. Gaming elements keep up the pressure to learn. You can compete with friends, too making it a little like having a study partner.
LingQ - A terrific free program with lessons from beginner to advanced, usually in the form of a story to read, with a vocabulary lookup feature. You simply highlight the word to get the meaning.
Lyrics Training - teaches English through music and lyrics to popular songs. The song video is broken up with subtitles in English to follow along. Song artists include Adele, Green Day, Evanescence, Maroon Five and The Chainsmokers and Halsey.
Quizlet - One of my go-to’s when I have 15 minutes to kill for vocabulary, students post lists of vocabulary words or terms of the language they are learning. The program enables you to manipulate the list into flashcard games and other tests-made-fun.
Readlang - Readlang’s best feature is its library. Students learning English can select stories in at their level. The program allows 10 free word-look ups per lesson.
Edufone English Podcasts - Wonderful little five minute audio lessons formatted with an English Speaker and a native Spanish speaker narrating a scene from everyday life. For example, “Maria gets Married.” A paragraph of the story is narrated in English, then Spanish. Totally unique on line, you begin to understand how to practice the language without word for word translation. The diction of the speakers is very helpful for pronunciation.
BUSUU - BUSUU has both language lessons and online language exchange. This site will help English learners with their writing, as the site emphasizes language exchange. They can find language partners, write in the second language, get corrected by native speakers and correct others’ writing for points. Also has mobile app.
Verbs Online - is a verb conjugation trainer; the drills you hate but “kinda of gotta do.” They can pick their favorites to practice (or their least favorite since that’s the one you invariably need to practice the most) verb tense and hammer away at it.
My Language Exchange, Conversation Exchange and Language for Exchange are all sites to facilitate finding native speakers to practice with. Generally you speak half the time in one language and half in the other. Once a person is at beginner intermediate level, exchange partners are an absolute non-negotiable for anyone really seeking to be conversant unless they have daily access to native speakers.
Study Blue - another flashcard tool, much like Quizlet with crowd-sourced study guides, flashcards and notes.
Memrise - The Memrise community of students submits language lesson plans to share. Most of the lesson plans concentrate of vocabulary. Phone app available too. It’s a more visual site for the YouTube crowd.
Linguee - Is a phrase look-up tool that comes in very handy for speaking and writing.
Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be near as many free tools for English as for Spanish. If they use all of them however, they will have the chance to practice most skills and they will be able to complement the tools they do have accordingly.
Just a little imagination and resourcefulness will repay itself many times over in making friends of all ages in Mexico as an expat.
If you have your own methods of making native friends as an expat, I’d love you to share them!
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Kerry Baker is a partner with Ventanas Mexico and author of the "Interactive Guide to Learning Spanish Free Online." Go to any expat forum and you will see people advising you to get started on your Spanish before moving to Mexico. Use this tool to learn pain-free with unique lesson plans every day.