Learning Spanish in Chat Rooms
To learn through osmosis, I visited a few Spanish chat rooms today. My favorite was Espanglish Chat because it’s made specifically for Spanish and English learners. But I found that chat rooms are not the best method to learn Spanish; between the typos and Spanish internet slang, I hardly knew what people were saying!
That said, it’s still good practice. Spanish chat rooms let you sit in on real conversations without feeling awkward, and you get to see examples of many common expressions.
Besides, Spanish internet slang can be fun when it isn’t confusing. For example, you can tell the Spanish speakers from the learners like me, because they type “jaja” instead of “haha”. (But “lol” seems to be universal.)
So even though I had trouble understanding them, I met a couple nice people and we exchanged instant messenger screen names to practice Spanish and English together. As long as I don’t get sick of my new friends and block them, I’m sure I’ll learn a lot. 
July 12th, 2007
One thing that’s missing from chat room learning is listening/speaking. Maybe some of your new friends use Skype and would chat with you that way.
July 12th, 2007
Yeah, that’s true. Then again, I’m kinda shy about voice chats… Though that’s probably why I should try it more, right?
I wonder what sorts of group voice chats there are for Spanish speakers/learners. That’d be worth researching!
December 20th, 2007
Yeah, there are a few conversational groups out there. If you go to Wikispaces.com, there is a Spanish conversation group. Here’s the link:
http://spanishconversation.wikispaces.com/
Also, once you’re ready to do one-on-one chats with native speakers, you can find some good people over at The Mixxer. (www.language-exchanges.org)
Happy chatting!
December 21st, 2007
Thanks for those links, Voices! I’ll check them out.
July 18th, 2008
I’ve been trying to learn spanish online. since im not able to go to school or pay for those expensive cd-rom programs. i wanted to share my info that i’ve found. skye i’ve heard is a good one to use to talk to people and to find the right person to talk to is go to notesinspanish.com on the forums. you can meet penpals etc. then move over to skype to talk..it’s worth checking out it’s all free
July 30th, 2008
The best mirror is an old friend