Spanish for Beginners. The Complete Spanish Course. LEVEL 1. (Udemy.com)

This is the first of Peter Hanley's four-level Spanish series, and the only Spanish course in our language learning top five. It runs just under four hours across 20 short video lessons, each followed by a written exercise sheet and an optional musical chant. The method is speak-along: no note taking, no grammar tables, just building sentences out loud and repeating them until they stick. It is aimed squarely at complete beginners or false beginners with gaps at a low level.

Reviewers say the constant recycling works. Phrases from early lessons keep turning up later, and one student who spent a year on Duolingo says a month here got them further. The teaching is described as easy to follow, the guitar chant at the end of each lesson gets more love than you'd expect, and the Word document summaries are handy for review. The complaints are consistent too. The pace is quick, and a few learners say the tongue twisters and rapid drills leave them behind. One unhappy reviewer wanted holiday phrases and found the sentence-building approach beside the point.

Value is the sticking point. Under four hours is short for a paid course, there are no quizzes or captions, and this is only level one of four, so finishing the basics means buying more. The videos were last updated in August 2023, though Spanish grammar does not go stale the way software does. If you learn by ear and want to be speaking from day one rather than memorizing lists, it is a strong first step. Phrase-book shoppers should look elsewhere.