The best app to learn Spanish

What to look for

You answer out loud, not only by tapping. The language is the variety you want — for most of the Americas, Latin American Spanish. Sessions are short enough to repeat tomorrow. The next session remembers where you stopped. A score does not stand in for a sentence you can use.

The best apps to learn Spanish usually win one of those and skip the others. A vocabulary app can be excellent at words and still leave you silent. A tutor can be excellent at conversation and hard to fit in a day. You can use more than one. The one that matters is the one you talk to.

What most apps train

Recognition. You see a word, you pick its pair, you keep a streak. That is useful memory practice. It is a weak rehearsal for the moment someone asks what you did on the weekend and waits.

Where a coach fits

Paseo is built around that moment. You put on headphones and talk with a personal coach, in Latin American Spanish, in a conversation that is ready when you are. It is on a waitlist.

This page is not a ranking. It will not score products we have not measured. If you want the practice that transfers, pick a way to speak, and then actually speak.

A pace you can check

The hours come from the State Department. The calculator turns a walk into weeks and leaves flashcards out.

• Speaking practice, in public figures
• Conversation hours