Instagram is a good place to find out what your friends ate last night or to discover recent fashion trends, sports cars, or exotic houses.
Oh, and let’s not forget the memes.
Ever tried to open Instagram just for a moment and after 3mins it turns out that actually 20mins have passed?
We’ve all been there, didn’t we?
I’m sure you have felt the guilt of being unproductive when your instagram session turned out to take longer than expected.
It’s hard, I know.
Instagram has a bunch of engineers working on algorithms to make you stay longer within the app, and I must admit, they are damn good at it.
I have found myself quite often in a situation where I wasted too much time on instagram and then it hit me.
Ever had that “AHA” moment in your head? Or more like a lightbulb appearing above you, just like in cartoons?
Why not learn something useful in spanish while scrolling through instagram?
Brillant!
Turned out that spanish learning community on instagram is huge so I started to go down the rabbit hole and started to follow anyone I could find on my way.
It was great at the beginning, say first 1-3 days after mass-following of all these spanish learning accounts?
I was happily chilling and scrolling through my instagram feed and seeing all these spanish posts and I felt like I sponge taking in all that fresh water (spanish).
Guess what happened then? It was too much. My daily chill time with instagram was no longer a chill, but yet another learning session.
Some may argue that it’s great, yet another clever use of the free time to learn.
Sadly it wasn’t a case for me. I have followed more than 15 spanish learning accounts at the time and I started to be blind to them.
Sad but true, I could not take them all.
Following too many accounts was NOT effective and I had to narrow my list to just 4 that were perfect for my needs at that time.
Worked like a charm. From that moment, my instagram feed was perfectly balanced. Today my instagram feed consists of 15% spanish learning content and the rest is pure ‘fun stuff’ that doesn’t require any thinking.
You may ask: Is 15/85% the perfect ratio?
It’s a ratio that works for me and I can safely recommend that balance to anyone who tries to learn some extra daily spanish via instagram. Experiment on your own, see how spanish content you can handle in your fee without becoming blind to them or in other words, skipping spanish related posts.
Ok, let’s recap what’s important to remember while learning spanish on instagram:
- Don’t follow too many accounts – it might overwhelm you
- Make sure browsing IG is still fun, and not yet another learning app
- Following up to 4 accounts is fair enough for starters
- Instagram won’t replace your duolingo classes
Finally, let’s get to the list!
1. Spanishphrase
Format: Phrase of the Day
Languages: Spanish 🇪🇸 & English 🇬🇧
Recommended for: Beginners
@spanishphrase
🇪🇸 Test Your Spanish Knowledge 🇪🇸
Spanishphrase is (as you can guess from its name) posting every day a phrase in Spanish with an English translation. There is barely a day without a post.
What I do like about this account is its simple and clear design. The use of different colors grabs your attention, so you can’t scroll thru without noticing any of their submission.
As for the content: phrases are pretty simple but more importantly they’re useful for beginners. You’ll find there a lot of phrases you can use in a real-life Spanish conversation
2. Spanish.Toons
Format: Short Clips
Languages: Spanish 🇪🇸 & English 🇬🇧
Recommended for: Beginners & Intermediate
@spanish.toons
This account is one of my favorite accounts as it perfectly combines fun with learning. It uses short clips from famous cartoons like The Simpsons, SpongeBob with a mix of some top Disney ones.
Each post is a short video made of the same clip in spanish, then english. Both clips have subtitles included which is great for beginners who still struggle with listening comprehension. On top of that, posts are on the loop which means that you are able to watch them hands free over and over until you’ll understand every word they say.
What I really like about Spanish.Toons:
- Leverages cartoons to hook you up
- Scenes include a lot of daily, useful phrases
- Combines fun with learning
- English & Spanish subtitles
3. Howtospanish
Format: Looped Gifs
Languages: Spanish 🇪🇸 & English 🇬🇧
Recommended for: Beginners & Intermediate
@howtospanish
Somewhat similar to position #1 with a difference that the gifs are muted and instead, you’ll hear a pleasant voice of a woman that speaks out the phrase in Spanish at a normal speed, then she’ll repeat it slowly.
The usage of gifs is there to catch your attention while scrolling through your Instagram feed. On top of that, once in a while gifs represent recent important events, for example, that rocket on the screen above is from the first launch of humans by SpaceX.
What I really like about Howtospanish:
- Funny gifs matching the phrase below
- Consistency of uploads (1-3 posts a week)
- 2x repetition of each phrase
4. Learningespanol
Format: Word of the day
Languages: Spanish 🇪🇸 & English 🇬🇧
Recommended for: Beginners
@learningespanol
If you are not a fan of the 2 first accounts that rely on listening, which sometimes is hard when you are in a public place with no earphones handy, then you surely gonna like this account.
It’s mostly for beginners who can’t handle too much content within a post and it takes less than 10 seconds to process the post and learn from it. I call these ‘word of the day’ accounts.The account is aimed for english audiences, hence the pronunciation in the brackets is tailored for them.
What I really like about Learningespanol:
- Easy way to learn 365 extra new words a year
- Images associated with the word
- Takes less than 10 seconds to learn and move on
5. Spanishpod
Format: Infographics & Videos
Languages: Spanish 🇪🇸 & English 🇬🇧
Recommended for: Beginners
@spanishpod
There is a high chance you have come across spanishpod on youtube before. They not only have an excellent youtube channel for spanish learners, but also a resourceful instagram page.
Most of their posts have a different layout and form, so chances are low that you’ll ever turn blind to these. By following this profile, you’ll get to know a lot of situational phrases and parts of the body. They use a lot of icons to help you visualize the written content.
Once in a while a soft advertisement post will appear on your feed from that profile, but given the amount of free knowledge they provide, I just turn a blind eye on these.
What I really like about Spanishpod:
- Variety of colorful eye-catchy and posts
- Perform mini tasks within the post (e.g. what’s your favorite Spanish word)
- Consistency of uploads (~1 post/day)
6. Daily.spanish.word
Format: Word of the Day
Languages: Spanish 🇪🇸 & English 🇬🇧
Recommended for: Beginners
@daily.spanish.word
This is another Instagram page perfect for beginners, even the absolute ones. Learning a word a day will net you 365 new words yearly if you are consistent. Because they are very consistent – uploading content daily (2k+ posts and counting). Pretty impressive consistency of uploads.
Their posts are pretty standardized, with an English word followed by its Spanish translation. On top of that, on the bottom of each image, there is a tip or hint to remember this particular word faster and smoother.
What I really like about daily.spanish.word:
- Consistency of uploads (no excuses!)
- Pro tips on remembering the given word
- Easy and useful words to learn
7. spanishhacks
Format: Conjugations & Word Families
Languages: Spanish 🇪🇸 & English 🇬🇧
Recommended for: Beginners & Intermediate
@spanishhacks
Spanish hacks is one of the very few accounts that post conjugations of regular and irregular verbs. Even though their posts don’t have flashy covers as compared to other Instagram accounts on this list, you can learn a lot from these.
Their second type of posts is about word families, such as games (see the screen above), instruments, countries, and more. When scrolling Instagram and stumbling upon these you’ll need a bit longer to get familiar with the content. I assure you tho, it’s totally worth it!
What I really like about spanishhacks:
- Up to 2 posts / day
- A lot you can take from just one post
- Conjugation posts (which is very rare among this type of accounts)
8. Thespanishmemes
Format: Memes
Languages: Spanish 🇪🇸
Recommended for: Intermediate
@thespanishmemes
This list could not be complete without some memes. Here I present you an instagram account that will take you down the rabbit hole of spanish humor. I labeled as an account to follow if you are intermediate level, however I also encourage beginners to go ahead and give it a try. Even if you don’t understand much at first, over time you’ll notice some copy/pastes of english memes and this is when you start connecting the dots.
What I really like about Thespanishmemes:
- Memes
Hope you find this list useful! If you are also a frequent facebook or Reddit lurker, be sure to check out my list of the best social profiles and groups to follow.
