Spanish Fluency for Real Life

I've been using Lupa for 3 months for Spanish learning. The way Lupa is positioned, as a way to facilitate the learning experience that people already practice using podcasts (frequent pauses and transcript reference) was entirely on point. I've wanted to listen to Radio Ambulante but could never quite get the nuances of the stories. This app allows you to control listening speed with a transcript that follows the audio, highlighting phrases or words that you probably don't know and are earmarked for later study. The fact that one podcast tends to repeat the same new vocabulary introduced by a particular topic is great for reinforcement, and even small idiosyncrasies in speech are explained. There is some friction from the performance of the app-- it takes a long time to load, and sometimes the audio, transcript highlighting, and responsiveness of controls are just laggy enough that you're a couple words off. But these are ultimately very minor aspects of a thoughtful language learning interface.

I bought this app for my high school sophomore son to help him study for the AAPL test in order to get the seal of biliteracy on his diploma. The adjustable speed function was the most useful in building his ability to listen to native speakers who speak quickly in thick dialects using local vocabulary. Students in school aren’t usually exposed to these kinds of speakers, but instead hear slower, more academically ‘correct’ language. They need practice hearing REAL people too! Additionally, the stories are very interesting and unique. I teach at a dual language school and have recommended this app to my own students. I also recommend it to native speakers who enjoy hearing stories! I don’t have anything bad to say about this app, but I wish that more of the stories were shorter. It can take 45 minutes to get through some of the stories—longer if you replay them at different speeds.

I wanted to cry tears of joy when I heard Daniel Alarcón announce this app one day while I was listening to RA. I’ve been an active listener of the podcast for over a year now and this app fills the exact gap I’ve been noticing with my language progress. Listening comprehension is really the last piece I need to become truly fluent in Spanish but for some reason there are not a lot of independent learning options available that focus on listening comprehension. As a nurse and a nurse practitioner student I speak Spanish to my patients every day and I’m always afraid I’m going to miss something important. I’ve been using this app for only a week and already my vocabulary and understanding of my patients has grown tremendously. I’m super grateful to RA and the app development team. Thank you!

This app is amazing—it does something no other language app does: it lets you listen to Spanish conversations as if you were living in the country (the only real way to become fluent or even conversant in a language) and then provides accompanying tools (a way to slow down the speech, written translations, vocabulary builders) to help train your ear and understanding as you learn. And instead of contrived content, you are listening to current news and stories from the superb RadioAmbulante podcast. I got it for my language-resistant teenage daughter and she loves it—as do I to brush up on my Spanish and keep it current. Just a genius marriage of language learning and A+ journalism. I’d give it six stars if I could.

I love this app! It’s great to be able to fine tune it to my needs - look at the entire transcript, just some words and I like being able to adjust the speed. The thing I love the most is to be able to listen to interesting stories with a full understanding. I’ve used a lot of language learning apps and other language learning modalities and this one is by far the most enjoyable and best use of my time to improve my Spanish. An improvement I’d like to see is more vocabulary words available for instant translation and to add to my learning list.