Online Class: Spanish for Travelers — A Beginner's Guide

A self-paced online course in traveler's Spanish covering basics in grammar and vocabulary but always focusing on travel so that you can communicate on your journeys quickly.
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  • 13
    Lessons
  • 46
    Exams &
    Assignments
  • 13
    Hours
    average time
  • 1.3
    CEUs
 
 
 

Course Description

¡Buen viaje!  Enjoy your trip!  The Essential Spanish for Travelers: a Beginner’s Guide (with audio clips) is a fast, fun, and manageable way to learn the Spanish you need to travel around the Spanish-speaking world.  This course starts at the beginning assuming you know nothing about Spanish and takes you through, simple lesson by simple lesson, until you feel comfortable ordering food in Mexico, reserving a hotel room Costa Rica, asking for directions to the beach in southern Spain, and maybe even flirting in Argentina.

This course will teach you how to ask questions, understand the answers, talk about what you did yesterday and explain what you plan to do tomorrow. Along the way you will gain essential vocabulary and hear real conversations so you can travel con confianza (with confidence).  Throughout your journey to learning Essential Traveler’s Spanish, you will find explanations, examples and activities that provide the building blocks to construct a base for the Spanish language. Watch for the side text boxes that provide insiteful clues and hints to assist you in your learning process. Eventually you will be able to speak and understand one of the world’s most important languages.

This Essential Spanish for Travelers: A Beginning Guide (with audio clips) is designed to give you the basics in grammar and vocabulary but always focusing on travel so that you can communicate on your journeys as soon as possible. All activities, examples and vocabulary lists are geared towards traveler’s needs. But be forewarned: merely reading through the course as if it were a novel will not help you reach the levels that are possible if you truly take advantage of the tool you are reading right now.  In order to get the most out of this course, you must actively work with it, completing the exercises, working on the activities and having fun.

Courses Frequently Bought Together:
  • Completely Online
  • Self-Paced
  • 6 Months to Complete
  • 24/7 Availability
  • Start Anytime
  • PC & Mac Compatible
  • Android & iOS Friendly
  • Accredited CEUs
Universal Class is an IACET Accredited Provider
 
 

Course Lessons

  • Lesson 1: Mastering Spanish for Adventurers: Your Essential Travel Companion

    Incorporating foreign language usage into everyday scenarios makes learning more relevant and memorable, transforming vocabulary from rote memorization to practical application. Through dialogues, formatted activities, and accompanying audio clips, learners gain both contextual understanding and auditory familiarity with essential Spanish phrases.

  • Lesson 2: Spanish Pronunciation Made Easy

    Learning Spanish pronunciation is straightforward; its phonetic consistency offers relief from English's complexities. The lesson introduces the Spanish alphabet and basic pronunciation rules to get you started.

  • Lesson 3: Speak Like a Local: Essential Travel Vocabulary for Your Journey

    Explore the essential travel vocabulary with categories designed for easy retention and practical use in real-life situations. Understanding nuances of formality and time expressions will enrich your Spanish communication skills.

  • Lesson 4: Introduction to Present Tense in Spanish

    In Spanish, understanding pronouns helps distinguish between levels of formality and allows tailored verb conjugations for accurate communication. The present tense encapsulates both current and prospective narrative actions, necessitating attentiveness to context in conveying precise meanings.

  • Lesson 5: Navigating the Complexities of Irregular and Tricky Present Tense Verbs

    Delve into the intricacies of present tense irregular verbs, focusing on the unique roles of 'ser' and 'estar' in expressing identity and condition, along with reflexive verbs for self-related actions. Discover the often singularly used 'haber' to articulate existence effectively in Spanish.

  • Lesson 6: Travel Words: A Guide

    Key insights are provided into functional Spanish nouns and their gender/plurality, enhancing your travel vocabulary for airports, currency, and accommodation. The guide supports practical language use for emergencies, finding directions, and meeting new people.

  • Lesson 7: Navigating Your Spanish Journey: Essential Travel Phrases

    Learn to navigate Spanish-speaking environments with key phrases, covering essentials like ordering at restaurants and asking for directions. Revise numbers up to 1999 and listen to dialogues for effective practice.

  • Lesson 8: Mastering Noun and Adjective Agreement in Spanish

    Mastering Spanish description requires making adjectives agree with nouns in gender and number, ensuring that both components of the sentence are harmonious. This lesson highlights that adjectives have to adapt, shifting between masculine, feminine, singular, and plural forms.

  • Lesson 9: Likes, Dislikes, and Opinions in Spanish

    Learning verbs like 'gustar' and 'parecer' allows one to articulate opinions and desires by understanding Spanish sentence structure, which often places the emphasis on what is pleasing to someone. The unique phrasing, such as 'A Juan le gusta el chocolate,' anchors communication in cultural and linguistic nuance, meaning 'Chocolate is pleasing to Juan.'

  • Lesson 10: Travel Talk: Constructing Questions Effectively

    The lesson focuses on the effective use of question words and prepositions to form clear and concise questions, crucial for engaging with locals while traveling. Mastery of these elements fosters better communication and enriches cultural experiences.

  • Lesson 11: Unlocking the Power of the Preterite and Imperfect Tenses

    Explore the nuances of Spanish past narrative with preterite for completed actions and imperfect for repeated or ongoing past events. Mastering different verb forms, including irregulars like 'ser' and 'ir,' will empower you to convey precise timelines and contexts in your stories.

  • Lesson 12: Expressing Future Events

    Effective communication about future activities in Spanish includes understanding the vocabulary cues and mastering the grammar of expressing future actions. The unit provides practice with various future constructs, including ir + a + infinitive and regular as well as irregular verbs in the future tense.

  • Lesson 13: Navigating Cognates and Avoiding Common Pitfalls for Travelers

    The magic of cognates lies in their ability to cleverly disguise as familiar words across languages, easing the traveler’s linguistic journey. Yet, beware of the siren call of false friends, which may lure you into embarrassing conversational mishaps.
 

Learning Outcomes

By successfully completing this course, students will be able to:
  • Demonstrate the ability to order meals and identify tableware in Spanish during a restaurant setting.
  • Identify and use Spanish present tense verbs in sentences to describe personal experiences and routine activities.
  • Define the pronunciation of Spanish vowels and consonants based on their position and combination within words.
  • Demonstrate correct pronunciation of Spanish words by applying stress and accent rules.
  • Identify and accurately apply the correct Spanish vocabulary for days of the week and months of the year in written and spoken contexts
  • Recognize and accurately use basic Spanish greetings and introductions in a variety of social settings
  • Demonstrate the ability to conjugate regular -ar, -er, and -ir verbs in the present tense for different pronouns.
  • Recognize and correctly apply formal and informal personal pronouns in conversational contexts.
  • Differentiate between the uses of ser, estar, and haber in identifying, describing, and locating subjects in Spanish sentences
  • Recognize and accurately conjugate Spanish stem-changing verbs in the present tense for different subjects
  • Describe the gender and number rules for Spanish nouns using definite and indefinite articles.
  • Identify and recall Spanish vocabulary related to airports and travel to facilitate conversation while traveling.
  • Demonstrate the ability to construct basic travel-related sentences in Spanish using common verbs and vocabulary.
  • Demonstrate mastery of lesson content at levels of 70% or higher.
 

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