Synergy Spanish Systems Blog

I just received this question in the comments about my blog post on Spanish spoken quickly.

Is there a magazine or newsletter that has English and Spanish side by side for our reading assignment?

Thanks for the question Jim.

I have seen books like that and I enjoyed them a lot when I started learning Spanish.
I don’t know of such a magazine, but I do know of an online resource that perhaps works even better.

With this resource you can read just about anything in Spanish that is published online.

Here’s how it works

1) Go to the word champ reader page,

2) On that page you can either enter the web address of the page you want to read, or click on the links to el Mundo, el Pais, Univision and Hola.

3) Once the page loads, if you see a word that you can’t figure out, just point the mouse at the word and in second you’ll get a Spanish to English translation of the word.

Pretty cool!

So, what do you want to read?

I put together a couple of pages to help you find enjoyable reading material in Spanish. (It’s important to enjoy what you read or let’s face it… you won’t read for very long.)

This page has magazines published in Spanish that you can read online.

Why not read some gossip magazines, I admit it’s a guilty pleasure of mine.

Here a link to a list of newspapers in Spanish that have articles online.

The newspapers are listed by country.

So, if you live in a Spanish speaking county or you have a favorite county, you can get keep up to date with the big issues there. That way, you’ll have plenty to talk about with the locals when you get there.

Let me know what you think about these resources by leaving a comment.

Here’s a list of Spanish newspapers with online articles. They are listed by country so if you live in a Spanish speaking county or you have a favorite county you can get keep up to date with the big issues there.

That way, you’ll have plenty to talk about with the locals when you get there.

Argentina
Ámbito Financiero - Financial news from Argentina.
Diario Clarín - From Argentina.
La Nación - One of Argentina’s national newspapers.
La Nueva Provincia - Online news from Bahia Blanca City, Argentina.

Colombia
El Espectador - from Bogota, Colombia
El País - From Cali, Colombia

Chile
El Mercurio - News from Chile.
La Tercera - News from Chile.

Costa Rica
La Nación - One of Costa Rica’s national newspapers.

Ecuador
Púlsar - Texts of radio news from Ecuador.
El Telégrafo - Ecuador’s oldest newspaper, now online.

El Salvador
El Diario de Hoy - From El Salvador.

Guatemala
Diario La Hora - Afternoon newspaper from Guatemala.
Prensa Libre - From Guatemala.

Honduras
La Prensa - Daily news from Honduras.
El Tiempo - From Honduras.

Mexico
El Diario de Yucatán - A Mexican daily with special collection on Mayan culture.
La Jerga - Bilingual (Spanish and English) alternative newspaper from Mexico.
El Norte - From Monterrey, Mexico.
Novedades - News from Mexico.
El País – from Mexico City, Mexico
Pulso - Mexican daily newspaper
El Universal - From Mexico City, Mexico

Miscellaneous
El Diario - From Orangestad, Aruba.
La Insignia - An independent leftist Latin American newspaper.

Nicaragua
El Nuevo Diario - From Managua, Nicaragua
La Prensa - From Nicaragua.

Panama
La Prensa - From Panama City.
El Siglo - From Panama City Panama

Paraguay
Última Hora - Independent Paraguaian Newspaper.

Peru
La Republica - A daily from Lima, Peru.
El Comercio - Lima, Peru.

Puerto Rico
El Nuevo Día Interactivo - Interactive version of a Puerto Rican newspaper.

Spain
ABC - One of Spain’s largest national newspapers.
Canarias7 - News from the Canary Islands.
La Voz - “The only paper from Lanzarote in the Canary Islands.”
Cinco Dias - From Madrid, Spain.
El Comercio - Asturia, Spain.
El Día - Newspaper from Tenerife, Canary Islands.
Diario de Mallorca - From Mallorca, Spain
Información - From Alicante, Spain
Levante-El Mercantil Valenciano - From Valencia Spain
El País - From Madrid, Spain
El Periódico de Catalunya - Online version of this Spanish daily.
Rebelión - Alternative Spanish newspaper.

USA
La Semana del Sur - From Tulsa, Oklahoma (USA)

Venezuela
El Nacional - From Caracas, Venezuela
El Universal - From Caracas, Venezuela
Venezuela Analítica - A journal of political and economic analysis.

Let me know about the newspapers you like or don’t like. Also if I missed your favorite online newspaper in Spanish, let me know and I’ll add it to the list.

Online magazines in Spanish

AR - Women’s magazine

CAR & DRIVER - Spanish version of Car & Driver

Caretas - A weekly news magazine from Peru.

cine FOTOGRAMAS - Movie magazine from Spain

DE VIAJES - Travel magazine

decoracion CASA DIEZ - Home and decorating

decorar MI CASA - another decorating mag

Diez Minutos – Spanish gossip Magazine.

ELLE – Spanish version of the women’s magazine Elle

EMPRENDEDORES - Business and entrepreneur

familia real - All about royalty

Gerencia - A business magazine from Guatemala.

Hola – Gossip Magazine from Spain.

NUEVO ESTILO - Decorating magazine

OK – Spanish version of the European gossip mag.

People – People magazine in Spanish, like the US version but with more Latino celebrities.

PSYCHOLOGIES - physiology magazine

QMD! - Celebrity gossip

QUO – Science and technology

RAGAZZA – Women’s Magazine

La Revista - The Sunday magazine from the Spanish daily El Mundo.

Teleprograma – Magazine about TV and celebrities

THE F1 - Formula 1 racing

Let me know which ones you like or don’t like. Also if I missed your favorite online magazine in Spanish, let me know and I’ll add it to the list.

One of the steps to communicating well in Spanish is learning how to handle fast Spanish.

I’ve found the best way to use Spanish quickly is by practicing with a mixture of slow and fast Spanish.

A sport that requires super fast reflex actions is martial arts. Yet, when I used to study karate, we spent a lot of time taking things slowly.

Every time we learned a new move we used to practice it very slowly, with a lot of attention to the finer details of the movements.

We practiced slowly until we could do the move correctly without thinking about how to do it.

You know, one of my favorite sayings related to learning Spanish is…

”You can’t think and hit at the same time” - Yogi Berra

Just in case you’re wondering, Yogi was talking about hitting a baseball not people.

So what do karate and baseball have to do with Spanish?

Actually a lot!

To defend yourself using karate, the moves have to be instinctive or they won’t work.

In fact, Spanish speakers often talk about their ability in English by saying - puedo defenderme en ingles. Which is something like saying, I can get by or I can handle myself in English.

If you want to be able to handle yourself in Spanish, to paraphrase Yogi, you can’t have a conversation and think about grammar rules at the same time.

Here’s how I start my students practicing slowly to build up their speaking and listening abilities… This audio is the very first audio lesson from Bola de Nieve, and here’s an action guide for that lesson.

Here’s another lesson from Module 9 of Bola de Nieve.

Notice how the audio is faster later in the course.

Also notice how we slow down the Spanish every time we introduce something new. Then, after a few practices we get back into the conversation at a very natural and authentic speed.

The later lesson may be beyond your ability right now. However, I included it to demonstrate to you that by starting slowly you can learn to defenderse y hablar naturalmente.

Plus, perhaps even more importantly you start to handle the speed of Spanish.

Besides using audio, another great way to have time to build your understanding, knowledge and skills is to read in Spanish everyday.

In fact, if you’ll just do two things everyday you can take your Spanish so far people will be amazed how well you speak. All you need to do is mix a little interactive audio each day with 15-30 minutes of reading and your improvement will be better than taking years of formal classes.

I know it’s true because my students have made wonderful progress in less than a year.

Let me know your thoughts by posting a comment here on the blog.

I just found a free Spanish course from the BBC.

Well actually, I didn’t find it. One of my students found it and let me know about it.

As the Spanish course is from the BBC, it has really high quality production.

Although I am very happy with our mix of audio and action guides in Bola de Nieve and Synergy Spanish, I have to say, I am a little envious of the production values the BBC can produce.

It has an interactive video format.

You may find it a little too basic for you depending on where you are with your Spanish. On the other hand, it could also be just what you need, especially if you haven’t spent a lot of time around native Spanish speakers.

So, why not check it out and see if it helps your Spanish.

Here’s the link to the BBC Spanish course – Mi Vida Loca

I’d like to know what you think, can you do me a favor and leave a comment here on the blog.

Saludos

Marcus