On my never-ending quest to help my family and I learn Spanish, I wanted to dive into how to learn Spanish while driving and discover what resources are available. What I found is very beneficial and will help you and your family learn Spanish while driving or commuting. After I conducted my research, I wrote a helpful blog post to share my findings.
Below we discuss different ways to learn Spanish while driving, such as audiobooks, CDs (cassette disks), music, podcasts, and more. Continue reading to discover these resources for yourself!
How to Learn Spanish While Driving
People spend a lot of time driving or commuting, especially in the United States. Studies and surveys find that the average daily commute in the U.S. is approximately 35 minutes. That’s over 200 hours per year. If you live in the larger U.S. metro areas, like Washington D.C. or New York City, the average daily commute is typically higher.
So what do you and your family do with your time when you are driving or commuting? There is certainly a lot of time for us to kill in the car. If you’re a busy parent that works and takes care of your kids like me, then you don’t have much free time outside of work and parenting. However, one of the few downtimes I have is when I take my daughter to school or drive to work. This is the perfect time to learn Spanish!
By taking advantage of the downtime and putting it to good use, we have over 200 hours per year that we can learn Spanish by listening to audiobooks, podcasts, and the radio. Listening is not as beneficial for learning a new language as active-learning, but it still helps you to learn new vocabulary and phrases. By putting in the time to listen to different Spanish learning resources, your Spanish will improve. Never underestimate the power of consistency and repetition.
Over time, you will learn those Spanish songs or start to better understand those new Spanish phrases. And with over 200 hours per year, that is a lot of learning taking place!
I have researched all the ways that you and your family can learn Spanish while driving. Here are the resources available to you!
Resources for How to Learn Spanish While Driving
First and foremost, please be careful while driving and commuting! Safe driving is the most important thing. Therefore, don’t watch any videos or take your eyes off the road while driving. The safest methods to learn Spanish while driving are to listen to audio or chat with the other people in the car. Once again, safe driving is the most important thing.
Here are the ways that you can listen to and/or chat while you drive.
Audiobooks
A lot of people listen to audiobooks while they drive to take away the monotony of their long car trips. Why not try listening to audiobooks in Spanish during those drives? If you and your family already know the story in English, then you can try to follow along to the story in another language on an audiobook.
There are several audiobooks available for you to listen to while you drive. If you are lucky, you can check out some audiobooks from your local library for free! Lots of audiobooks are available at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. Take some time to review what is available for you and your family, and then dive-in.
For example, here is a link to Audible Latino where you can find all of the Audible audiobooks available in Spanish. Some of the categories available on Audible Latino are Romance, Science Fiction, History, and Biographies to name a few. Audible Latino also has a section just for kids that you can check out here. They have numerous audiobooks available in Spanish ranging from Harry Potter to Clifford the Big Red Dog.
If you want other options besides Audible and your local library, here are links to LoyalBooks and LibroMovil where you can also purchase Spanish audiobooks for download. These websites are not as easy to navigate as Audible, but they provide other options in case you do not want to sign up for the Audible subscription package.
Podcasts
Next up are the podcasts that you and your family can listen to on your drives.
SpanishPod101
SpanishPod101 is one of the most comprehensive Spanish podcasts and websites available today. It is my choice for the best Spanish podcasts on the market!
One of the main reasons I like this product so much is because they have SO MANY lessons and other learning tools available to you. The website boasts that it has over 1,800 audio and video lessons from native Spanish speakers from all over the world. There are also multiple lists, PDFs, flashcards, and other resources at your fingertips.
Further, I also like that the website customizes the content for you. You sign-up for a 7-day free trial period with full access to the website. They ask you to specify your fluency level as Absolute Beginner, Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced so they can tailor the experience. Once your 7-day free trial is finished, you can enroll in the Basic Plan, Premium Plan, or Premium Plus Plan at varying amounts. The better the plan, the more access you get.
So, sign-up with SpanishPod101 and check out the podcast episodes you can download for free. It will be worth your time and effort. Furthermore, here are the links to the app in the Apple Store and on Google Play.
Coffee Break Spanish
Coffee Break Spanish podcast is absolutely delightful! I have enjoyed this podcast for many years. It is hosted by Mark and Kara who have a Scottish accent that puts a little extra twist on learning. Mark is fluent in Spanish and teaches Kara (and you) how to speak Spanish along the way.
There are over 200 episodes that are 15 to 20 minutes each. Mark teaches Kara by asking her questions, sometimes she makes mistakes, and then Mark provides corrections and explanations in his feedback to her. You are easily able to listen and follow along. I highly recommend it.
Here are links to the Coffee Break website, Apple Store app, and Google Play app.
Audiria
This is a podcast created by two brothers from Málaga, Spain. In their spare time, they have created a free website containing hundreds of videos and audio files. Also, when you get home from your drive or commute, you can check out the exercises that accompany each lesson.
There are numerous episodes (over 800 and counting) that you can download and listen to. You can listen to them in order or listen to them by different subjects. Some of the subjects are Beginners, Movies, Spain, Humour, Art, and Don Quixote.
You can access the episodes in the Audiria website and in the Apple Store.
News in Slow Spanish
This podcast provides thousands of episodes that you can listen to on things such as politics, science, technology, and the news. It also contains lessons where they provide learning opportunities at Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced levels.
Gain access to News in Slow Spanish by clicking on the following links for the website, Apple Store, and Google Play.
Audio Programs (CDs, Courses/Apps, Downloadable MP3s, etc.)
This group of resources is a collection of CDs (cassette disks), apps available on courses, and downloadable MP3s. These audio programs are very helpful in learning Spanish and provide you with great options and flexibility.
LanguageTransfer.org is a completely free resource for language learners. The website offers audio courses for French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, and English for Spanish speakers. The Complete Spanish offers 90 lessons totaling over 14.5 hours of free content from real-life learning experiences. I included a link to the website above, and here are the links to the Apple Store and Soundcloud.
Babbel is a subscription-based language learning app that has been around since 2007 that currently offers 14 languages, including Spanish. The app was developed by German educators and linguists. There are beginner, intermediate and grammar courses, vocabulary essons, as well as courses with tongue-twisters, idioms, and sayings. You access the language learning app by visiting the Apple Store or Google Play.
Rocket Languages is another language learning company that offers 13 languages, including Spanish. You must pay for the material, but members get lifetime access to the content they purchase that can also be downloaded for use offline. The courses have a variety of reading, writing, listening, speaking and culture. Other tools include voice recognition, flashcards, and personalized lists. Download the app from Apple or Google.
The last bit of audio programs I want to focus on are CDs (cassette disks) for your car. If your car isn’t too fancy yet, then hopefully it will have a CD player for you. Here is a list of some of the best CDs you can purchase to play in your car while you drive.
- Learn in Your Car: Spanish, Level 1; Level 2; Level 3 or the Complete Course Package (containing all 3 levels). This product is designed to teach you Spanish in your car, or anywhere else, without a textbook. Level 1 starts off easy and then it gradually builds until you get to Level 3.
- Living Language Spanish, Complete Edition is designed to take you from beginner to advanced level in one complete package. The package contains 9 audio CDs and gives you access to other audio files that you can download from their website.
- Pimsleur Spanish is a popular conversational course that you can listen to in your car. It has 8 hours of audio-only language learning with real-life spoken practice sessions. Each lesson is 30 minutes of spoken language practice, with an introductory conversation, and new vocabulary and structures.
- Spanish For Dummies Audio Set comes from one of my favorite collections. The audio set contains 3 hours of lessons on three CDs. The product should allow you to handle greetings and introductions, ask questions and understand answers, build your vocabulary, talk about numbers, time, and the calendar, ask for directions, and get help at a hotel, the bank, or a store.
- Spanish In 10 Minutes A Day is an audio set that also includes a workbook, software, labels, flashcards, two guides, and a glossary. The program is designed to give you many opportunities to practice in a variety of ways.
Radio
If courses or podcasts are not your things, then try Spanish language radio. In several parts of the U.S., you should be able to turn the dial in your car to find local Spanish radio stations. They may be talk radio or music.
If you want to find more radio stations or don’t like the Spanish radio stations in your area, you can check out the following:
- Spanish Radio Stations app – Spanish Radio Stations is found on the Apple Store and the app has online radio stations classified by different categories
- Radios de España – Radio AM FM – Radios de España is also found on the Apple Store and contains the best radio stations in Spain.
- Radio Spain – this is a Googe Play option that has some of the best radio stations in Spain
If you want some Spanish radio options for the kids, then you are in luck! These are some of the best Spanish Kids Radio Stations that you can try. I am particularly loving the BabyRadio options!
- TrilingualChildren.com – This link should take you to 6 or 7 Spanish radio stations for kids.
- BabyRadio.es – This is Spain’s BabyRadio. It is a great resource for Spanish kids radio, podcasts, and music. If you have trouble reading the website in Spanish, have your web browser translate the words from Spanish to English.
- BabyRadio on YouTube – Here is the YouTube channel for Spanish BabyRadio. This also has videos, so you can play the videos on your TV, tablet, or smartphone.
- iHeartRadio.com – Here are some Latino radio stations that you can choose from on iHeart Radio.
Latin Music
Do you want to turn up the heat on your music selection? Are you thinking you want a little Latin Spice added to your life? Well, listen to some of the most popular Latin music by the likes of artists like Enrique Iglesias, Shakira, Gloria Estefan, Ricky Martin, and Marc Anthony.
Some of the best music options are available for free with apps from the Apple Store and Google Play. Also, there are great playlists on Spotify and Soundcloud full of only Latin music.
Here are some apps with fantastic Latin music that you can find on the Apple Store and Google Play. Further, here are links to Latin music playlists on Spotify and Soundcloud.
Conversations While You Drive
One of the best ways to learn a new language is by having active conversations with people. You have to listen to what other people are saying, have your brain interpret the information, think of how you want to answer, and then respond.
It is easier for people to listen and interpret what is being said. The challenging part, and where your language learning rapidly improves, is responding to that person in Spanish. Speaking to others in Spanish will set your brain on-fire by recalling the information you previously learned and putting that information to use.
So, what are some ways that you can have conversations in the car?
First, you can talk with your kids only in Spanish. Why not make it a game? I know that having Spanish conversations can be difficult for beginners, so set a time limit of 5 or 10 minutes to start. As you and your family’s Spanish improves, extend the amount of time that you hold only Spanish conversations. This can be fun for you and your family!
Second, carpool with friends and relatives. Do your friends and relatives have kids? You can have Spanish only conversations in the car with them. Show them how much fun you can have by only speaking in Spanish for car trips.
Last, call an expert . . . meaning that you call the best Spanish speaker you know. In my case, I could call my aunt to check-in with her. My aunt is fluent in Spanish and loves when we practice our Spanish with her. Believe it or not, people really appreciate it when you try to speak another language with them . . . even if it is only your aunt. Do you have any family or friends that you can call on your drive to practice your Spanish with?