How to Find the Best Spanish Lessons

Spanish is the second most spoken language in the world, second to Mandarin. With over 400M native speakers, Spanish is the official language to over 21 countries across Africa, Europe, South, Central, and North America. There are many different variations of how Spanish is spoken because of its diversity. For example, Argentinian Spanish (porteno) is quite different in terms of grammar structure, accents, and slang words compared to Mexican or Colombian Spanish.

One of the major benefits of learning how to speak Spanish is that it’s a romance language. Popular languages like French, Portuguese, and Italian share similar characteristics to Spanish, because they all belong in the same language family. You will find that several of the most common Spanish words are intertwined with other languages in the romance family. This brings us to the second major benefit of learning Spanish. Many people ask how long it takes to learn Spanish, and if you happen to know French, Italian, or Portuguese, learning Spanish is quite easy.

It may surprise you to know that English shares many similar words to Spanish as well. These are called cognates or borrowed words.

All you need to do is familarize yourself with cognate rules and you can immediately access thousands of words in your Spanish vocabulary.

Should I take Spanish lessons online or in-person?

The reality is, it depends on your personal situation, learning style, priorities, and more. To help make the decision easier for you, we can cover some of the main factors you should consider.

How much time do you have to learn Spanish?

We all have only 24 hours in a day. If you’re like most people, you have other priorities that are important in your life beyond learning Spanish. Some of us want to advance our professional careers, while some of us want to spend time with family and friends. Trying to balance learning a new language while attending to the other priorities in your life is not always easy. When you learn with a private tutor in-person, you’re often required to commute back and forth every time you have your Spanish lesson. If you live 15 minutes away from your tutor or meeting place, that accumulates to several days over a span of time.

What’s your budget?

It’s a golden rule that in-person lesson are often more expensive than online lessons. The reason is simple. It’s more convenient for tutors, while costing them less because they save time and money on commuting costs. These factors lead to teachers lowering their price to attract more students. Since it takes roughly 6-12 months to learn a new language, saving a few dollars per each lesson can accumulate to a big saving.

What does your lifestyle look like?

Are you the type of person that travels frequently for work or for travel? If so, how do you plan to continue your momentum when you’re out of the city? This is another major benefit to bringing your lessons online, as you can take your Spanish lessons from wherever you are in the world. At Rype, we also have tutors spread across different parts of the world, which allows you to coordinate multiple timezones to your convenience.

How will you find a Spanish tutor near you?

Do you already have a Spanish tutor in your local city that you know of? The reality is, most people don’t have that type of relationship. And even if they do, it doesn’t mean they are the best tutor for you. On Rype, you can find hundreds of qualified Spanish tutors online that you can pick from. Best of all, you can switch tutors within a few clicks at anytime.

Have you tried learning Spanish online?

Learning a new skill online is more mainstream than ever today. Even some of the top Universities like Harvard, Stanford, and Yale are streaming their lectures online for students to enjoy. Most people who choose to learn Spanish in-person dismiss the online learning experience simply because they’ve never tried it. The good news is, we offer a free trial for new members to try it out, 100% risk-free.

How do I know if my tutor will provide great Spanish lessons?

Once you’ve committed to learning Spanish online, the next step is finding the right tutor for you. While this will vary from person to person, based on their interests, we can give you a high-level guide on what to look for. Use the following as a simple checklist while you’re searching for your Spanish tutor and even during your first few lessons.

What are others saying about their lesson experience?

The first place you should look is student reviews when assessing the quality of any tutor. Unfortunately, these reviews won’t show up if you’re finding a local tutor but you can find these in online tutoring websites like Rype. Be sure to read the negative reviews as well to get a better understanding of the weaknesses of your potential tutor. Remember that no tutor is perfect for everyone, as we all have different preferences, but you want to be aware of them.

Do they have a certificate or Spanish teaching background?

The other filter you can use is seeking certificates or teaching backgrounds they may have. This could be a degree they obtained from University or college, or a certificate they received after going through a teacher training program. Since teachers receive some amount of professional training when they teach at a language school, you can also use that as a filtering criteria.

Do they ask you specific questions about your goals?

Now we are going to talk about how to assess your Spanish tutor during the lesson. It’s important that your tutor asks you specific questions during the first lesson. These are questions like:

• Why are you learning Spanish?
• Have you tried learning Spanish before? Why did you quit in the past?
• What methods have you tried?
• How do you learn best: audio, visual, games, textbooks, etc.
• How often will you be taking Spanish lessons?
• What’s your timeline for learning Spanish?

This is important because it signals how personalized your lesson plan will be. If they jump straight into teaching without going through these questions, it should signal a red flag. It’s nearly impossible to customize a learning experience that’s suited to you if they don’t know your specific goals and needs.

Are they assigning you Spanish exercises or lessons?

Finally, an important factor to look out for is assignments. Your tutor should already have a booklet of assignments and quizzes you can do. The exception to this rule is if you already had an agreement not to receive assignments post-lesson. Perhaps it’s because you’re solely focused on improving your Spanish conversation skills. Or maybe you don’t have the time to complete these in between lessons.

What do I get by taking Spanish lessons with Rype?

An all-access lessons membership

When you join Rype, you get access to all of the languages we offer as a package. In addition to Spanish, we offer French, German, English, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, and many more popular languages. This allows you to take lessons in other languages while you are brushing up on your Spanish. As of today, there is no other website that offers this type of value.

Fully personalized lesson plans

We understand that each student has different learning needs and goals of why they’re learning Spanish. That is why every Spanish tutor will ask questions during the first lesson to better guide your journey. This way, we’ll know whether it’s best to use interactive games or only stick with audio calls, etc.

1-on-1 live immersion learning

The beauty of taking Spanish lessons on Rype is the ability to book live 1-on-1 classes. With 30 minutes a day, you’re able to reap the benefits of daily immersion learning versus binge learning. By making small improvements every single day, your learning curve will compound exponentially over time. This is how many of our successful students manage to learn Spanish in 3 to 6 months.

Access to thousands of handpicked professional Spanish tutors

Every tutor goes through a rigorious hiring process before they teach with us. We also perform live 1-on-1 video interviews in order to assess the personality, professionality, and overall fit with our students. This means that you save time by avoiding the task of interviewing teachers before you start learning Spanish.

Same day availability

Want to book and take your lessons on the same day? You can on Rype. We can do this by sourcing tutors from different timezones around the world. Compare this to an in-person lesson with a local tutor, where their teaching schedule is limited to regular working hours (9am to 5pm).

Satisfaction guaranteed

If your Spanish teacher is not a good fit for you, you can find another qualified tutor that may better match your learning style. This ultimate flexibility in switching tutors ensures that you’ll be fully satisfied with who you’re learning Spanish from. Our outstanding customer support team will take care of you if you’re not fully satisfied.