Thursday, September 15, 2011

Learn Spanish: Top 3 Spanish News Sites

Reading the Spanish news is an excellent way to expand your Spanish vocabulary and improve your Spanish writing skills. There is an excellent range of Spanish news resources, covering a massive range of Spanish topics, and therefore you certainly won't get bored or run out of stuff to read. You can tailor your reading exactly to your Spanish needs and interests. This article recommends 3 Spanish news sites which offer a fantastic amount of interesting Spanish articles, as well as my top tips on how to make the most of the resources they offer.

1. The first site I'd recommend highly is RTVE.es. This is the home of the Spanish national television and radio online, and provides a huge wealth of useful Spanish articles, TV programmes and podcasts. The news articles are useful to help with Spanish reading although the main advantage is that the majority of articles come with a news video included - these generally last a minute or two and help you to improve your listening as well as reading. Making this association between spoken and written Spanish is essential to reach Spanish fluency.

However the television and radio programmes available on RTVE a la Carta are what sets the website apart as a Spanish learning resource. There is an archive of 4 minute news summaries with a written summary if you're short on time; live TV and radio if you want to just be listening in the background, and finally a huge number of full length TV and radio programmes. These are split into different categories and series so it is easy to find something that interests you. The news is probably the easiest of these to understand initially with excellent clear broadcasting so this is a good place to start. The documentaries offer more in depth vocab and analysis of different topics, and the soap operas such as 'Cuentame' and 'Amar en Tiempos Revueltos' are great for training your ear to understand everyday (and often opinionated!!!) Spanish.

2. El País is my second recommended Spanish news site. There are a great range of articles presenting the international news in Spanish language. The site itself splits the world into different sections and all the relevant news areas such as politics, economics, culture etc. There are also Spanish blogs and an opinion section so all in all there is no Spanish news site with more extensive international news coverage.

3. BBC Mundo is the third news site I would recommend. This has a huge number of videos and short news videos so you can dip in and out. The material is also more varied and often obscure, relating to all areas of culture in the Spanish speaking world. If you don't want to focus on Spanish news this website is a great way to fill your free time with interesting Spanish news.

There are of course many other Spanish reading resources out there and there is a collection available at http://www.topspanishtips.weebly.com

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