# Is it just me, or is the free version of Duolingo kind of useless? What's a good free resource for learning basic Spanish?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-the-free-version-of-duolingo-kind-of-useless-whats-a-good-free-resource-for-learning-basic-spanish/1026966>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [January 23, 2026, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-the-free-version-of-duolingo-kind-of-useless-whats-a-good-free-resource-for-learning-basic-spanish/1026966 "2026-01-23T19:30:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\
**Post date:** [August 24, 2026, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-the-free-version-of-duolingo-kind-of-useless-whats-a-good-free-resource-for-learning-basic-spanish/1026966/41 "2026-08-24T00:12:11Z")

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Bumping this because I’m trying to use Duolingo to learn (modern) Greek. So far, so good, I guess, although I have a notorious track record of doing really well at the early classroom lessons in foreign languages and then choking when I have to actually _speak_ the language.

Is there any way to get it to cough up more verbal explanations for stuff? Like, I get that “see lots of examples and figure out the rules for yourself” is often more powerful than just being told what the rules are, but I feel like I would have been lost if I hadn’t already known enough about how languages work to go “OK, _that_ must be the indefinite article that goes with feminine nouns, and the other one is for masculine ones,” and as it is, I would really like a nice verb-conjugation chart right about now.

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**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\
**Post date:** [August 24, 2026, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-the-free-version-of-duolingo-kind-of-useless-whats-a-good-free-resource-for-learning-basic-spanish/1026966/42 "2026-08-24T00:26:34Z")

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If you want free and good I would recommend the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) language courses. This is the training the US Government gives to its employees (think US diplomats). 100% free.

> **[FSI Language Courses - Free Online Language Courses](https://www.fsi-language-courses.org/)**
>
> The ultimate resource for all the free Foreign Service Institute language courses. Download all the courses materials, mp3 audios and PDF workbooks for French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic, Japanese, and much more.

They rank different languages by difficulty (time to learn) from easiest at 24 weeks to most difficult at 88 weeks:

> **[Technical Difficulties](https://www.state.gov/national-foreign-affairs-training-center/foreign-language-training)**

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