Learning Spanish Like Crazy is an audiobook series on Audible, created in collaboration with Spanish teachers from Latin America. It emphasizes learning to communicate confidently with native Spanish speaking friends, customers, or neighbours, as opposed to focusing on how to order fish in a restaurant or book a hotel room for a family vacation. There are brief grammar explanations followed by extensive speaking practice — you will find that you get to practice speaking almost as much as the narrators.

Each lesson has a specific grammar goal. The narrators will take a grammar structure and help you practice it from different points of view and with different vocabulary words. For example, you may be asked to translate, “I asked him to not wrinkle his tie” then “I begged him not to wrinkle his tie”. Or, “Did you ask them to unplug the iron?” then, “did they ask him to unplug the toaster?”. Although this may seem repetitive, you will most likely become confident in creating your own sentences quite quickly.

Although the branding is outdated, Learning Spanish Like Crazy seems like an excellent introduction for Spanish learners. It may move a bit fast for some, but you can check out a free sample of the first lesson on Audible to see if it suits your learning style. Some alternative options are Pimsleur, Paul Noble or Language Transfer (free).