We’ve been publishing a daily word on Facebook and Twitter and each day we’ve asked our Facebook friends and Twitter followers to post a comment using the word of the day, thereby practising their language skills. This week we’ve had a culinary theme and the Radio Lingua community has come up with some excellent examples of this week’s words: tapas, jamón serrano, paella, freír, and cocinar.
Friend us on Facebook | Follow us on Twitter | iTunes link
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Podcast (cbs-podcast): Download
We’ve been publishing a daily word on Facebook and Twitter and each day we’ve asked our Facebook friends and Twitter followers to post a comment using the word of the day, thereby practising their language skills. Well done to everyone who has taken part this week, using this week’s words in a sentence: el mar, bucear, tomar el sol, viajar, and relajarse.
Friend us on Facebook | Follow us on Twitter | iTunes link
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Podcast (cbs-podcast): Download
Be part of the Radio Lingua Network’s latest project by contributing to our Word of the Day project! Each day we’re publishing a word of the day on Twitter and Facebook and we’re inviting you to try using this word in a sentence. Whether you’ve just started learning the language, or you’re an experienced learner you’ll be able to try out your language skills using whichever word we’ve chosen for the day.
For this first week of the project we’ve chosen words with a summery theme, and our Facebook friends and Twitter followers have posted their comments using these words. We’ve featured our favourite posts in our audio review, providing some feedback on small mistakes made and, most importantly, sharing the learning experience with the entire Radio Lingua community.
How to access the Word of the Day
If you’re on Facebook, you can “like” the Coffee Break Spanish or Coffee Break French page. By clicking “like” you will see our daily posts appear in your feed. If you don’t notice them or they don’t coincide with when you’re online, simply visit the page and post your comment there. If you’re a Twitter user, then follow @learnspanish or @learnfrench and you should see our tweets appearing on your Twitter feed. We post the word twice a day, once around 11am UK time, and again around 11pm UK time, so hopefully everyone will be able to pick up one of these tweets! Again, if you miss it, simply visit @learnspanish or @learnfrench.
We look forward to reading your contributions to the project!
Over the past week we’ve been publishing a daily word on Facebook and Twitter and each day we’ve asked our Facebook friends and Twitter followers to post a comment using the word of the day, thereby practising their language skills. We’ve been overwhelmed with the excellent response from the our friends and followers and we’ve decided to feature the work of the community in a new podcast series. We’re delighted to bring you this first episode of our Word of the Day Review featuring this week’s words: el verano, la playa, el sol, el helado, and las vacaciones.
Friend us on Facebook | Follow us on Twitter | iTunes link
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Podcast (cbs-podcast): Download
Earlier this year we launched part of the Coffee Break Spanish course for Kindle as a pilot. We’re delighted to announce that the Coffee Break Spanish and Coffee Break French courses will be available in full on Kindle on 15th August 2012. We’ve produced Kindle versions of all the lesson guides and each course is being made available in sixteen volumes with five lessons per volume. Each volume will cost just $4.99 USD (currently £3.11 in the UK Kindle Store and €3.50 in the EU stores). As an introductory offer the first volume will be just $2.99 USD (£1.86 / €2.60).
Please visit Radio Lingua at amazon.com, amazon.co.uk or amazon.de to find out more about our Kindle editions currently available. The full series will be released on 15th August. It is worth pointing out that due to the limitations of the Kindle, these ebooks do not include embedded audio clips: they are Kindle versions of the lesson guides which you can use to read the notes which accompany each lesson. There is also the possibility of using the Kindle Experimental software to listen to the audio file on your device while reading the book. This is explained in greater detail in each Kindle book.
Update: 15th August
We had hoped that everything would go according to plan with this but unfortunately Amazon are holding up the process. All the books are ready to be activated but we are just waiting on confirmation from Amazon that the final steps have been completed. We’ll update you again as soon as we have news from Amazon.
Since we launched Coffee Break Spanish back in 2006, millions of learners around the world have joined Mark and Kara to learn Spanish. We introduced Show Time Spanish as a follow-up to Coffee Break a few years ago, and this proved to be extremely popular with more experienced learners.
It’s now time to introduce a new show which will be aimed at intermediate to advanced Spanish learners: the Coffee Break Spanish Magazine will launch in September 2012 and will be a regular magazine show with news, reports, listeners’ questions and special features on grammar, language-learning tips and culture. Much of the show will be in Spanish, but we’ll also feature lots of explanations and language study in English, all presented by some familiar voices!
The Coffee Break Spanish Magazine will be an audio show, and as usual there will be full text support in the premium version of the course. However we’re delighted to be introducing a video element to Coffee Break Spanish – we’ve been out with our cameras filming interviews with real native speakers on the streets, so we’ll be bringing you authentic Spanish as it’s spoken around the world. The video elements will also be part of the premium content.
There’s not long to wait – the Coffee Break Spanish Magazine will launch in September 2012 and we’ll update you with exact launch dates very soon. We hope you’re as excited as we are to join us in the first series of our Coffee Break Spanish Magazine very soon!

[Updated, 1st March 22:00]
It’s 29th February and as we all know, this day only comes round once every four years. Tradition has it that the normal rules don’t necessarily apply today. Hundreds of years ago this day was not officially recognised by English law: it was “leapt over” and had no legal status, so a break in tradition was acceptable.
Some of our female listeners may taking advantage of this break in tradition to propose to the man they want to marry, but we’ve decided to break our own rules a little and offer a 29% discount on all courses purchased on the Radio Lingua site for one day only. Well, not exactly one day – we’ll make it two days, until the end of the day on 1st March on 2nd March, just to make sure everyone in every part of the world has the opportunity to purchase while it’s still 29th February wherever you are!
If you’ve previously purchased a membership or product from us, log into your Control Panel and add the relevant product from the drop down menu. Enter 29FEB12 in the “coupon code” box.
If you’ve not purchased an item from us before, you can view our full range of products here, or visit the appropriate store front for Coffee Break French, Coffee Break Spanish, Show Time Spanish, or One Minute Languages. When you complete the form, make sure you enter 29FEB12 in the coupon code area at the bottom of the signup page.

Update: Wednesday 29th February, 16:30 GMT
We’ve been experiencing a huge surge in traffic today as people have been checking out our one-day sale. Any sale day would normally result in lots of traffic but today traffic seems to be particularly high. We’re delighted that so many of you are interested in finding out about what we have on offer. However, this has affected the speed of the site and things are going slowly. If you’ve just purchased, perhaps you’d consider not downloading all the content for your product immediately – instead just download a few of the first episodes you require and collect the rest later in the week when things are back to normal. We’ll monitor this carefully over the next few hours and we will extend the sale if necessary to ensure that no-one misses out on using the coupon code as a result of problems. Apologies to everyone for the inconvenience.
Update: Thursday 1st March, 00:15 GMT
The traffic spikes have continued this evening and we’re continuing to monitor the server. We assume that over the next 12-24 hours things will calm down a little. If you have had problems signing up for a course please do try again at some point tomorrow, or contact us and we’ll take a note of your details to ensure that you don’t miss out on the discount. We can only extend the code if you have contacted us to explain that you’ve had difficulties before the end of the sale as detailed below. Thanks again for your patience and apologies again for the inconvenience.
Update: Thursday 2nd March, 22:00 GMT
As we have indicated on Facebook and Twitter, we have decided to extend the sale by 24 hours as a result of the problems with our server over the past 48 hours. The interest in the sale was much greater than we anticipated and our server didn’t quite cope with the unexpected traffic. For information we are currently going through the process of moving our site to a new server and this process will be complete within the next couple of weeks. Please see below for the revised end times of the sale. Once again we’d like to apologise to all our listeners for the inconvenience caused over the past couple of days, and thank you all for your patience.
Terms and Conditions
- Please note that the 29% reduction will be applied at checkout.
- The coupon code is limited to one use per customer. Please do not create a second account in order to use the coupon code twice: your accounts cannot be merged afterwards and multiple accounts will cause major problems for using iTunes to access the materials.
- EU customers should be aware that the prices quoted on our signup pages do not include VAT. If you use the coupon code easter then the 29% discount will be applied and then 20% VAT will be added to the total cost.
- The sale only applies to items purchased directly on the Radio Lingua website through our membership system and is not applicable to products currently available in the iBookstore or Kindle store.
- No refunds will be given on any materials purchased at full price during this time if the coupon codes have not been used.
- We are publicising this sale on Twitter, Facebook, through our members’ database by email and via our mailing list. If you do not receive this information via one of these channels within the period of the sale we cannot retrospectively apply the discount.
- [Information below updated as of Thursday, 22:00 GMT] Just to be absolutely clear, our “one-day” sale ends at:
2nd March 2012 – 15:59 / 1 minute to 4pm in San Francisco
2nd March 2012 - 16:59 / 1 minute to 5pm in Denver
2nd March 2012 - 17:59 / 1 minute to 6pm in Chicago
2nd March 2012 - 18:59 / 1 minute to 7pm in New York
2nd March 2012 - 20:59 / 1 minute to 9pm in Buenos Aires
2nd March 2012 - 23:59 / 1 minute to midnight in Glasgow
3rd March 2012 – 00:59 / 1 minute to 1am in Paris
3rd March 2012 - 01:59 / 1 minute to 2am in Cape Town
3rd March 2012 - 02:59 / 1 minute to 3am in Moscow
3rd March 2012 - 06:59 / 1 minute to 7am in Bangkok
3rd March 2012 - 07:59 / 1 minute to 8am in Beijing
3rd March 2012 - 08:59 / 1 minute to 9am in Tokyo
3rd March 2012 - 09:59 / 1 minute to 10am in Sydney
The final episode in the series of Show Time Spanish includes episode eight of our soap Verano Español. Just what will Laura say to Ángel and Fiona after discovering them together? And will Ramón finally have the courage to tell Laura how he feels? Find out in the long-awaited final instalment of the telenovela.
Please note that these episodes are the same episodes which were released on the Show Time Spanish feed a couple of years ago. We have decided to release them on the Coffee Break Spanish feed to help existing learners who have recently completed Coffee Break Spanish through the reruns of our original series.
As with Coffee Break Spanish, our Show Time Spanish course features a range of additional materials which can be purchased as a “Season Pass”. For Show Time this Season Pass offers a full transcript of all the Spanish used in the text, lesson notes, and bonus listening materials which provide extra practise of the language covered in each lesson. We offer Season Passes at £47.00 GBP (+VAT for EU customers) for Season 1 (lessons 1-20) and Season 2 (lessons 21-40), and for the first time today we’re introducing a Complete Show Time Spanish Season Pass (lessons 1-40) for £84.00 GBP (+VAT for EU customers). Please click on the links for each pass, or if you’re an existing customer, log into your Control Panel and add the pass to your membership.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Podcast (cbs-podcast): Download
We’re delighted to be joined once more by Alba in this special episode of Show Time Spanish. It’s the last ‘normal’ episode in the series: next week we’ll have the eighth and final instalment of Verano Español, so lesson 39 is the final ‘normal’ episode in the series. We find out what Alba has been doing since before the summer and Mark takes the opportunity to test listeners on some of the phrases learned earlier in the series.
Please note that these episodes are the same episodes which were released on the Show Time Spanish feed a couple of years ago. We have decided to release them on the Coffee Break Spanish feed to help existing learners who have recently completed Coffee Break Spanish through the reruns of our original series.
As with Coffee Break Spanish, our Show Time Spanish course features a range of additional materials which can be purchased as a “Season Pass”. For Show Time this Season Pass offers a full transcript of all the Spanish used in the text, lesson notes, and bonus listening materials which provide extra practise of the language covered in each lesson. We offer Season Passes at £47.00 GBP (+VAT for EU customers) for Season 1 (lessons 1-20) and Season 2 (lessons 21-40), and for the first time today we’re introducing a Complete Show Time Spanish Season Pass (lessons 1-40) for £84.00 GBP (+VAT for EU customers). Please click on the links for each pass, or if you’re an existing customer, log into your Control Panel and add the pass to your membership.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Podcast (cbs-podcast): Download
In this episode Mark is joined by Sofía from Argentina and Ana Isabel from Ecuador. Language points discussed include the difference between si no and sino, using hace with a time phrase, and voseo, the use of vos in Rioplatense Spanish.
Please note that these episodes are the same episodes which were released on the Show Time Spanish feed a couple of years ago. We have decided to release them on the Coffee Break Spanish feed to help existing learners who have recently completed Coffee Break Spanish through the reruns of our original series.
As with Coffee Break Spanish, our Show Time Spanish course features a range of additional materials which can be purchased as a “Season Pass”. For Show Time this Season Pass offers a full transcript of all the Spanish used in the text, lesson notes, and bonus listening materials which provide extra practise of the language covered in each lesson. We offer Season Passes at £47.00 GBP (+VAT for EU customers) for Season 1 (lessons 1-20) and Season 2 (lessons 21-40), and for the first time today we’re introducing a Complete Show Time Spanish Season Pass (lessons 1-40) for £84.00 GBP (+VAT for EU customers). Please click on the links for each pass, or if you’re an existing customer, log into your Control Panel and add the pass to your membership.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Podcast (cbs-podcast): Download
This week Mark returns with Loreto for the second of our Chilean episodes of Show Time Spanish. In episode 37 we learn a bit more about Chilean culture and Loreto teaches Mark some Chilean expressions.
Please note that these episodes are the same episodes which were released on the Show Time Spanish feed a couple of years ago. We have decided to release them on the Coffee Break Spanish feed to help existing learners who have recently completed Coffee Break Spanish through the reruns of our original series.
As with Coffee Break Spanish, our Show Time Spanish course features a range of additional materials which can be purchased as a “Season Pass”. For Show Time this Season Pass offers a full transcript of all the Spanish used in the text, lesson notes, and bonus listening materials which provide extra practise of the language covered in each lesson. We offer Season Passes at £47.00 GBP (+VAT for EU customers) for Season 1 (lessons 1-20) and Season 2 (lessons 21-40), and for the first time today we’re introducing a Complete Show Time Spanish Season Pass (lessons 1-40) for £84.00 GBP (+VAT for EU customers). Please click on the links for each pass, or if you’re an existing customer, log into your Control Panel and add the pass to your membership.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Podcast (cbs-podcast): Download
¡Estamos de vuelta! It’s been a few weeks since our last episode of Show Time Spanish, and this has been the result of major server problems. We’ve completed a migration of all our content to new servers today, and we’re delighted to be back with a new episode of Show Time Spanish in which Mark is joined by Loreto, from Chile. In this first of two episodes with Loreto, we learn about the geography and culture of Chile.
Please note that these episodes are the same episodes which were released on the Show Time Spanish feed a couple of years ago. We have decided to release them on the Coffee Break Spanish feed to help existing learners who have recently completed Coffee Break Spanish through the reruns of our original series.
As with Coffee Break Spanish, our Show Time Spanish course features a range of additional materials which can be purchased as a “Season Pass”. For Show Time this Season Pass offers a full transcript of all the Spanish used in the text, lesson notes, and bonus listening materials which provide extra practise of the language covered in each lesson. We offer Season Passes at £47.00 GBP (+VAT for EU customers) for Season 1 (lessons 1-20) and Season 2 (lessons 21-40), and for the first time today we’re introducing a Complete Show Time Spanish Season Pass (lessons 1-40) for £84.00 GBP (+VAT for EU customers). Please click on the links for each pass, or if you’re an existing customer, log into your Control Panel and add the pass to your membership.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Podcast (cbs-podcast): Download
In this week’s show we’re returning to our telenovela, Verano Español. It’s the morning after the night before when Ángel arrived drunk at Iona’s party. Needless to say Laura’s dad isn’t very impressed with Ángel! Laura’s friend Fiona arrives from Scotland and the love triangle threatens to become a square! As usual, in Act II, Mark will help listeners understand the story by working through a series of questions and answers about what happens in this episode.
Please note that these episodes are the same episodes which were released on the Show Time Spanish feed a couple of years ago. We have decided to release them on the Coffee Break Spanish feed to help existing learners who have recently completed Coffee Break Spanish through the reruns of our original series.
As with Coffee Break Spanish, our Show Time Spanish course features a range of additional materials which can be purchased as a “Season Pass”. For Show Time this Season Pass offers a full transcript of all the Spanish used in the text, lesson notes, and bonus listening materials which provide extra practise of the language covered in each lesson. We offer Season Passes at £47.00 GBP (+VAT for EU customers) for Season 1 (lessons 1-20) and Season 2 (lessons 21-40), and for the first time today we’re introducing a Complete Show Time Spanish Season Pass (lessons 1-40) for £84.00 GBP (+VAT for EU customers). Please click on the links for each pass, or if you’re an existing customer, log into your Control Panel and add the pass to your membership.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Podcast (cbs-podcast): Download
In this week’s show we’re returning to our telenovela, Verano Español. It’s the morning after the night before when Ángel arrived drunk at Iona’s party. Needless to say Laura’s dad isn’t very impressed with Ángel! Laura’s friend Fiona arrives from Scotland and the love triangle threatens to become a square! As usual, in Act II, Mark will help listeners understand the story by working through a series of questions and answers about what happens in this episode.
Please note that these episodes are the same episodes which were released on the Show Time Spanish feed a couple of years ago. We have decided to release them on the Coffee Break Spanish feed to help existing learners who have recently completed Coffee Break Spanish through the reruns of our original series.
As with Coffee Break Spanish, our Show Time Spanish course features a range of additional materials which can be purchased as a “Season Pass”. For Show Time this Season Pass offers a full transcript of all the Spanish used in the text, lesson notes, and bonus listening materials which provide extra practise of the language covered in each lesson. We offer Season Passes at £47.00 GBP (+VAT for EU customers) for Season 1 (lessons 1-20) and Season 2 (lessons 21-40), and for the first time today we’re introducing a Complete Show Time Spanish Season Pass (lessons 1-40) for £84.00 GBP (+VAT for EU customers). Please click on the links for each pass, or if you’re an existing customer, log into your Control Panel and add the pass to your membership.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Podcast (cbs-podcast): Download
In lesson 33 it’s destination Mexico as Mark is joined by Juan from México D.F. Juan introduces Mark to the geography and some of the tourist attractions of Mexico. Language concepts included the use of soler, the difference between amable and amigable, and a reminder of the fact that “another” is otro/otra in Spanish – and not un otro / una otra…
Please note that these episodes are the same episodes which were released on the Show Time Spanish feed a couple of years ago. We have decided to release them on the Coffee Break Spanish feed to help existing learners who have recently completed Coffee Break Spanish through the reruns of our original series.
As with Coffee Break Spanish, our Show Time Spanish course features a range of additional materials which can be purchased as a “Season Pass”. For Show Time this Season Pass offers a full transcript of all the Spanish used in the text, lesson notes, and bonus listening materials which provide extra practise of the language covered in each lesson. We offer Season Passes at £47.00 GBP (+VAT for EU customers) for Season 1 (lessons 1-20) and Season 2 (lessons 21-40), and for the first time today we’re introducing a Complete Show Time Spanish Season Pass (lessons 1-40) for £84.00 GBP (+VAT for EU customers). Please click on the links for each pass, or if you’re an existing customer, log into your Control Panel and add the pass to your membership.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Podcast (cbs-podcast): Download