Foundations 1

Interactive Video course, taking you from zero to conversational in 36 lessons.

Available for Pro Members from 1st September 2023.

Accelerate through Beginner Zone

So, you’ve decided to learn Spanish. Fantastic!

Learning Spanish will enhance your life in many ways, enabling you to travel the globe, speak to over 1 billion more people, and even open up new ways of thinking and perceiving the world.

But where to start?

There are many approaches to learning Spanish, and you’re probably asking yourself things like…

With Foundations 1, we’ll take you by the hand and help you learn the basics of Spanish, in the most efficient, fastest way possible. You’ll get along the road towards A2 (pre-intermediate) in no time!

What you'll learn in Foundations 1

Over each stage of the course, you’ll put together a strong foundation in Spanish:

Learn how to handle yourself in everyday situations in Spanish, including introducing yourself, expressing your likes and dislikes, describing places and things, giving directions, and so much more.

You’ll be exposed to the most frequent verbs, nouns, adjectives and other vocabulary, and will get frequently tested and reminded of them to ensure you retain them for the long term.

Meet the biggest grammar concepts that underpin the Spanish language, broken down systematically. We’ll cover the basics of gender, conjugating verbs, the present tense, adjectives, reverse construction verbs, “ser” and “estar”, and more.

Here's what you get with Foundations 1

Interactive Video Lessons

The best way to learn concepts is with immediate recall and testing. The best way to do that?

Right in the video itself, at the moment it’s taught!

Brain-friendly notes

To learn something deeply, it’s good to approach from multiple angles. That’s why each lesson comes with comprehensive accompanying notes, (re)explaining key concepts.

Frequent Recall Tests

You’ll find periodic tests throughout the course, reminding you of things you were taught earlier, and helping concepts and vocabulary stick in the memory for the long term.

Course Curriculum

View Curriculum

Over 36 video lessons, you’ll cover all the major basics of Spanish:

Course Introduction

An overview of the course, and how to get the best out of it.

You already know Spanish

Learn to recognise some basic Spanish words you might already know, and meet your first simple (but useful!) structure in Spanish.

Greetings

Learn different ways to greet people in Spanish

Let me present to you…

More phrases to use when you meet someone.

Phrases to memorise now

You’ll find yourself relying on these useful “meta-language” phrases throughout your Spanish-speaking journey.

Memorisation techniques

What’s the best way to learn vocabulary, and how should this change over time?

Vocabulary test 1

The Alphabet

Meet the alphabet, from A-Z, and handy memorisation tips.

Numbers

Learn the numbers from 1-99, and get plenty of practice.

Ser and Tener

How and when do we use these incredibly common and useful verbs?

“Ser” with Occupations

Learn to talk about your occupation, using the verb “ser”.

Vocabulary Test 2

First conjugations, talking about people

Learn to talk about other people, and meet your first conjugations in Spanish.

Mid-course Review

Complete present tense conjugations

Meet all of the conjugations, along with tips and hacks for memorisation and usage.

Telling the time

Learn different ways of telling the time in Spanish.

Daily routines

Combine your knowledge of time, numbers, and verb conjugations to talk about your daily routine.

Vocabulary test 3

The verb poder

Meet this incredibly useful, common verb – the first of the “stem-changing” verbs we’ll look at.

The verb querer

Another common verb, which is also stem-changing

Vocabulary test 4

Gender

Some basic rules for deciding the gender of a noun, covering about 80% of all nouns.

Articles

Learn how to use articles, matching to the noun in both number and gender. Hear your first longer-form dialogue.

Ordering and the imperative

How do we ask for things in Spanish? Learn different ways, and how this can vary by country.

Ser and estar

A deeper dive into these two verbs, with the complete conjugations and some key differences.

Ser as relational, family vocabulary

Talk about your family, and get practice using the verb “ser”.

Estar for location

Get practice saying where things are, using the verb “estar”

Ser, estar, and tener: Descriptions of people

Meet some adjectives to describe people, and learn the differences between these key verbs.

“Hay” to talk about existence

Vocabulary test 5

Likes and dislikes with “gustar”

Learn how to use this important verb, and how to talk about what you do and don’t like.

Pronouns review

Likes and dislikes part 2

We expand on how to talk about what we do and don’t like, and meet new verbs and structures.

Demonstrative pronouns and preferir

Tener que

Talk about obligation with the verb “tener que”

We learn about this completely irregular, yet very common verb.

Vocabulary test 6

Ir a future

Combine “ir” with “a” to talk about the planned future.

Days of the week

Impersonal “se”

Learn how to dramatically expand your communication with this relatively simple structure.

Directions

Give and understand directions in Spanish

Vocabulary test 7

Course Review

Next steps

Questions?

Who is this course for?

This course is for people who are starting Spanish from scratch, or those who want a refresher of the fundamentals

What level does this course teach to?

After taking this course, you’ll be close to an A2 level in Spanish. You’ll have a solid understanding of many of the fundamentals in Spanish, and will be able to handle yourself in basic Spanish in many common situations.

How does the course work?

It’s an interactive video course. Over 30+ videos, you’ll learn and practise different Spanish concepts, including grammar, vocabulary, expressions, and comprehension. You’ll see tests right in the video themselves, and additional tests throughout the course. Each lesson is accompanied by comprehensive, intuitive notes, helping you learn in bite-sized pieces.

What does “spiral-learning” mean?

Let’s take an example – a grammar reference book. You might be tempted to pick one of these up and read through it to help you learn Spanish.

However, you’ll find that you spend hours and hours learning every detail about articles, before moving on to gender, or verbs, or any other important concept. You’ll go slowly, and probably get frustrated.

This is “over-learning”. In reality, as a beginner, it’s good to get an idea of the basics as quickly as you can. You can revisit concepts to build out more detail in the future (hence the “spiral”) – with this approach you’ll make faster progress, and get to communication faster.

Who can access this course?

This course is available to Pro members. Click the “Go Pro” button for more details.

Why “Foundations”?

We started out Spanish Obsessed as a podcast, then “back-filled” to create more beginner materials. One frequent, and fair, criticism that we’ve faced is the lack of an overall structure across our podcasts.

That’s why we’re building “Foundations”. We aim to give students strong foundational knowledge in Spanish, in a series of structured, systematic courses. We’ve just released the first one (Foundations 1), and in the future will continue to build additional courses, all the way up to advanced levels.

These courses will (eventually) form the backbone of Spanish Obsessed 🙂