Skype is a fantastic free online service that allows people to essentially use their internet connection as a phone line with the added bonus of being able to see the person they\’re talking to via live, real-time video that can be enabled or disabled by the user. Note that Skype lets you talk to anyone else with a Skype account, anywhere in the entire world (Spain, China, Brazil, Argentina, France, etc., doesn\’t matter) for free, no charge whatsoever with no strings attached.

Now, I\’ve taught myself two languages already, Spanish and Japanese, and let me tell you that, by far, the most valuable tool of the hundreds that I tried was Skype. Why? Because it allows you to do the most valuable and useful thing in language-learning, and it allows you to do it from home, whenever you want, for free: it allows you to practice your new language with native speakers.

How to Use Skype to Learn Spanish

1. Get a free account on skype.com, it only takes a couple of minutes and an e-mail address, no big deal.

2. Download the Skype software to your computer (they have Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux versions available–basically, whatever you\’ve got, it\’ll run on it).

3. You\’ll need a microphone to speak into (most computers come with one that you can use like a speaker phone, so all you have to do is sit there and talk and it\’ll be able to pick you up quite well–check your manual or system settings to see if you\’ve got one) and a speaker or headphones to be able to hear. A very popular device with Skype users is the phone-operator-style headset you can get for $10-15 from anywhere that sells electronics or computer stuff that has headphones plus a microphone, these are perfect for Skype use.

4. Now you\’ll need to find some native speakers to practice with, which is actually really easy! The easiest and fastest way to do this is to sign up for a free language-exchange (aka \”intercambio\”) site, of which there are dozens. If you want to sign up with several then just google \”language exchange\”, my personal recommendation for the best one is \”The Mixxer\” which can be found at language-exchanges.org, they have hundreds of thousands of members and have been around forever, you\’re guaranteed to find tons of native Spanish speakers to help you on there.

Also, an added bonus, is that because English is, by far, the most popular second language in the world, native English speakers are in far higher demand than anyone else, and so they tend to have the easiest time finding a partner because everyone wants to learn English! I told you this would be easy.

5. Once you\’re signed up on a language exchange site or two, just search for native Spanish speakers using the site\’s search function and then send a couple dozen people a message asking if they\’d like to speak sometime. Out of those two dozen or so, maybe half will respond and most of those will end up setting up regular times to speak with you, so now you\’ve got a half a dozen or so native Spanish speakers that you can talk to, thereby ensuring that you\’ve got someone you can practice with nearly every single day!

You\’ll be fluent in no time, guaranteed.

Author Bio: If you can\’t speak Spanish at all and think you\’re not ready to talk to native speakers yet… I understand how you feel. You want to get to the point where you\’re talking with natives as soon as possible, and the system that I personally recommend for this (which can get you there in about 2 months) is something called learning spanish like crazy that uses native speakers.

Category: Education
Keywords: spanish,skype,learn spanish,how to learn spanish,teach yourself spanish,foreign languages