5 Best Online Spanish Classes of 2023

Are you planning to learn Spanish? Did you study Spanish back in high school and are now thinking about picking it up again? Are you an intermediate or advanced Spanish student looking to improve your grammar or vocabulary?

There are different ways you can go about it. You can attend traditional in-person classes, you can find a tutor in your area, or you can learn online. If you choose the latter, here are our top picks:

• Best for group classes: Berges Institute
• Best for one-on-one lessons: Preply
• Best for self-learning: Babbel
• Best for conversation practice: italki
• Best for passive learning: Language Transfer

#1 - Berges Institute - Best for group classes

We are obviously biased, but we do believe Berges Institute is the best option for online group-based Spanish classes. With 5 grammar and 3 conversation levels, the Berges program is one of the best ones available. It focuses on building correct sentences from the very beginning. It is very logical, and it uses a building block approach, heavily emphasizing grammar. This methodology works best for people who want to follow a grammar-intensive, incremental curriculum, as opposed to full-immersion or vocabulary-based approaches.

With instructors based mostly in NYC and Chicago, Berges Insitute teaches Spanish to students from all over the world through an intuitive online scheduling platform that makes booking classes a breath.

#2 - Preply - Best for one-on-one lessons

Preply is a platform for booking one-on-one private lessons with tutors all over the world. Lesson prices start at about $5/hour. Lessons are usually based on speaking, and they can be booked through their online platform, which includes several filters (country, price, availability, and even specialties in specific dialects).

Preply features a built-in rating system for tutors that lets students match with a teacher with confidence. Since tutors are freelancers and Preply doesn't require them to follow any specific curriculum, the student and the tutor can decide together the focus of each lesson.

#3 - Babbel - Best for self-learning

Even though Babbel also offers live classes, the Babbel app subscription is their flagship product. Based in Germany, the company was an app-based language learning pioneer back in the late 2000s. Their app has been downloaded millions of times. Even though there are several free apps for learning Spanish, students who are serious about learning often chose Babbel over those.

The Babbel subscription features bite-size lessons (about 10-minutes long) along with several exercises to practice what you learn. If self-learning with a computer or a phone is your thing, Babbel is definitely the best choice.

#4 - italki - Best for conversation practice

If your Spanish grammar and vocabulary are already really good, italki is a great option for practicing conversation with native speakers from all over the world in a one-on-one setting. Find a native speaker that's available when you are, and start practicing!

Both their web and mobile apps are intuitive and easy to use, and they have a huge student and teacher base. If you are looking for one-on-one immersion-based Spanish practice, italki is a great option.

#5 - Language Transfer - Best for passive learning

Language Transfer is 100% free, and it offers several Spanish pre-recorded lessons in a podcast format. Don't let the fact that it's free fool you: their lessons are very well designed and presented, and since they are in an audio format, you can listen to them while you are at the gym, driving, or in the subway. You might need to complement your learning with some immersion or some traditional classes, but Language Transfer is still a great tool for improving your Spanish.

Their website has a clean, modern layout that's very easy to navigate on all devices, and they also have a mobile app both for iPhone and Android.

How we chose the top 5 online Spanish classes

We researched more than 20 options before making a decision. For selecting our top 5, we made the decision based on program, technology, user experience, reputation, and pricing.