MY DEEZER AND SPOTIFY PLAYLISTS
of What I Believe to Be the Best Spanish Language Songs Re Learning Spanish. We've all done it: Tuned into various Spanish and Latin American music radio stations hoping to find some decent Spanish language music only to meet with absolute tosh. Not that the good stuff doesn't exist. It's just that it's suprisingly unpopular. Nevermind. I've made a playlist that is perhaps more suited to anglo-american tastes. And it's long, so stick it on shuffle and you've got the best Spanish language radio station that never was SPANISH RADIO: A PICK OF THE BEST
Spanish Language Radio Stations for learning Spanish The wonderful thing about radio is that you can listen to it whilst doing other things. It goes, therefore, that the wonderful thing about listening to Spanish language radio is that you'll be learning Spanish without getting behind on all those other jobs you've got to do (washing up, ironing, vacuuming... well,,, perhaps not that last) The choice of Spanish language stations is bewildering (country, region, genre... etc) and sometimes it's hard to know where to start, so take the strain off the task and let me guide your ears. FREE LYRICS TRANSLATION SPANISH LESSON
Beginner-Intermediate Level Jesse & Joy Corre! (2011) Mexican brother and sister act that hit it big, very big. This song was used in the infamous telenovala 'La que no podia amar,' and if you ever watch it yourselves, you'll be going 'dum... dedum-dedum' with the rest of us. This song makes for a superb basis for a lesson: modern, uncomplicated, good lyrical narrative, clear singing voice. What's stopping you FREE LYRICS TRANSLATION SPANISH LESSON
Intermediate Level Romeo Santos Propuesta Indecente (2013) 779 million views on YouTube. Let me repeat 770 MILLION REVIEWS. Can you afford NOT to know this song. As it happens, though it may be extremely risqué, even controversial, it is also a great catchy song with a strong lyrical base. Romeo, a bronx born singer of latin descent, has been key making popular the Bachata style of music. Come and see why! FREE LYRICS TRANSLATION SPANISH LESSON Beginner Level Shakira Pienso En Ti (1995) We all know Shikira, right? Well... wrong! Come see Shakira's other, less hip jingling side, with this 'hair raising on the back of the neck' song. It's extremely simple, very short, yet immensely poignant. It is also the only Shakira song you are ever likely to make out all the words. It also happens to be one of my favourites: "it's my website, and I'll do the songs that I want to, the songs that I...." FREE LYRICS TRANSLATION SPANISH LESSON Intermediate Level Juanes' A Dios le Pido (2002) If you are learning Spanish then be prepared to come across this song (that is if you haven't come accross it already!) This song was, and still is, everywhere. Juanes is a legend and many of his songs would make great bases for a lesson but I chose this one for a reason in particular; it is a mental work out for the Subjunctive Mood. If you don't know what that is, then, ROLL ON UP. FREE LYRICS TRANSLATION SPANISH LESSON Intermediate Level Carla Morrisons Déjenme Llorar (2012) I remember not so long back when I was doing a job that I hated... just flippin hated. I remember coming home each day and sticking on this song because I knew nothing would have cheered me up, and so I decided to just wallow in self-pity. But the song did help, and the reason is is because its a latin grammy award winning marvelous piece of work. I'm sure you'll enjoy learning the ins and outs of the lyrics of one of Mexicalifornia's treasured jewels. Just be prepared to part with a few tears, that's all. FREE LYRICS TRANSLATION SPANISH LESSON Intermediate Level Nena Daconte's Voy a Tumbarme al sol (2013?) This was the first lyrics translation language lesson I ever did (Spanish or French) and so it remains close to my heart. It is probably the most complete (standards have slipped!) Why start with this song? It was constantly on the radio at the time and kinda got stuck in my head. No regrets though, as it's still as catchy little number. I'm also a little taken by this Spanish group's lead singer, Mai Menses, and you'll be too when you see her perform a live acoustic version of the song in this lesson. Right! all done! I'm off lie in the sun... FREE LYRICS TRANSLATION SPANISH LESSON Beginner Level Nuestro Camino (a song from) Violetta (2014) Don't know what Violleta is? It's a very successful Argentinian Disney channel ado-series about a girl and her friends who sing a lot (can you tell this definition was not copied from Wikipedia!) Ok, If this is not your thing, fair enough. However, I found this karaoke video of one of their songs on YouTube and thought to myself, 'It's almost tailor made for Spanish language beginners.' So I then searched for the lyrics and a translation (it's not mine) and put them together. I will gradually be adding annotations to make it into a proper lesson. |
The Best Free Online Spanish Language Live Television Channels Accessible from AbroadHere are some of the Spanish language TV channels that I use regularly over the net and thus recommend to you.
The Public Owned Channels (SPAIN) NOTE: only the first one has 100% none blocked broadcasting. +
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These three are the public funded channels, a bit like BBC 1 and 2 plus BBC 24hr news . Well, not really.
UPDATE: I am starting to watch more and more of these three as a direct result of the problems I'm currently finding with the Atras Player (see below) and I'm starting to ask myself what it was I had against them in the first place. The picture quality is pretty good and it functions a lot better than a lot of other hispanophone channels out there. In essence, it is more than usable and watchable. And then I remember the one glaring problem with the first two within this group and that is the amount content blocked from the international audience. Some evenings there are blank screens on these two right up till midnight. (though thankfully rare) None-the-less, it is still worth keeping their site open in a tab as the quality of the content remains good, but more importantly, being public and national, these two remain the best peek through into European Spanish culture available on the internet. NOTE: when you get the dreaded orange screen 'lo siento...' on both, switch to the 24 hour news channel which never gets blocked. The Private Owned Channels (SPAIN) UPDATE: it seems that the Antena 3 and La Sexta links now only work if you have the Hola browser extension in use. I shall leave the moral choice to you.
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La Sexta and Antenna3 come from the same company and they certainly feel the same whilst having separate contents. I like these two a lot. They may produce a lot of 'trash' tv at times but this said trash tv still tends to have appeal. In comparaison to all the other hispanophone channels availible on the internet these two seem the most modern with the highest production values though at times a bit 'bling bling' if you ask me: emphasis on sensational investigations rather than documentaries of the BBC genre. The evening news each day is very watchable. Some american series are available like The Mentalist and some spanish made ones also However, what is really great about these two is their Atras Player. This produces an extremely high quality picture and sound so that it stands head and shoulders above any other Spanish speaking station (some of the latin american ones are just dreadful) and the fact that the sound is good is an important factor if your learning Spanish. The player functions fast and without problems and so pausing one of them, pressing your tab to the other, and pressing play, functions almost like switching real tv channels.
CONTENT: I can't speak for their daytime tv but the evening stuff (if you live in europe - time zones and that) tends to... TO BE CONTINUED ... AND THE OTHERS...? NOTE: I was thinking of adding more channels to this list, but to be honest, the rest of what is available on the internet is just pap, absolute PAP!. The players of the Latin American stations are mostly unwatchable and when they are you kinda wish they weren't. I've about 12 other tv bookmarks from around the Spanish speaking world that I've used once or twice just to confirm my doubts and that's about it. If you want to confirm for yourselves go to wiiTV and search by country. But the chances are that you have already, and have come face to face with a mountain of pap (you do know what I mean when I say 'pap' don't you) and in consequence have arrived here looking for someone who has already done the sieve work. In the words Wham, 'I'm your man.' HOW TO WATCH THESE CHANNELS For ease of use I advise you to create a new bookmarks folder in your bookmarks manager (see how to do this at bottom of this list) and call it Spanish tv. Now make three bookmarks, one for La Sexta, one for Antena3 and one for the La 1 de TVE (you can easily switch between La 1, La 2 and the news channel from this same page) Why do this? Often, these channels have content that they haven't the right to show to an international audience (usually films that presumably get sold to each Spanish speaking country separately or adverts featuring celebrities that these same celebrities don't want seen in their own countries). The result is a frequently occurring blank screen with an apology, and so you'll need all three bookmarks open in three separate tabs so that you can quickly switch from one to the other when this happens. Being able to set them up in different tabs by double clicking on each bookmark at the start of each telly watching session makes this very convenient. Will come back and do a run down of the regular programmes to watch on these channels... eventually.
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NOTE: FOR A VERY COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF LINKS WITH REVIEWS OF FREE INTERNET BASED RESOURCES GO SEE: Howlearnspanish.com. I VOUCH FOR ANDREW'S METHOD OF LEARNING A LANGUAGE: UNBEATABLE. NOTE: I FOUND THE LINK AFTER DOING THIS PAGE... (FACE-PALM)