Lupa: Learn Spanish as it's really spoken
The Lupa app hosts a selection of audio stories from Radio Ambulante, an award-winning long-form journalism podcast distributed by NPR. These stories are recorded in the field all over Latin America and normally require native-level Spanish fluency to understand. But with the Jiveworld audio player and ear training method they are now within your reach. The player gives you just enough help to keep you on the edge of understanding: your ear will quickly adapt to different regional accents and styles, and your vocabulary will expand fast. And because our study-relisten cycle is based around your natural concentration span, you can retain more, study longer, and learn more Spanish.
Listening and understanding is the foundation for true fluency (more than speaking and being understood). You can spend years on drills, flashcards, and grammar study, only to stumble when you encounter a native speaker in the wild: you can't understand the answer to the question you asked (where IS that bathroom?), you fear answering the phone in Spanish, can't follow a story on the radio or TV, or engage in meaningful social interactions. You may miss things that a native four-year-old would catch.
The problem is that your ear has been trained on "Slow Spanish" — the artificial, curated speech used by teachers in most language study products. "Slow Spanish" is not "Real Spanish". It's not even about the speed: rather it's about the local accents; the way sounds run together in natural speech; colloquial use of words; and how it all changes from region to region.
Listening in Lupa, you're getting real language in its full complexity and beauty. Radio Ambulante's stories will transport you into Spanish-speaking communities all around Latin America and beyond. You'll be captivated by tales of love, adventure, soaring success, and sometimes devastating heartbreak, told by the very people who experienced them. With the help of the Jiveworld player, your ear gets the practice it needs so that it can lock into a wide variety of accents and styles of speaking, whether it is a bookseller in Bogotá, a Chilean football star, a bee professor in Puerto Rico, or a poet from Buenos Aires.
Lupa offers you many types of assistance while you listen. You can use any or all of them — whatever your level of Spanish requires:
- Show just the words you need, and hide the others for your ear to figure out (so it's not just a reading exercise)
- Titles and hints help you stay on-track in the story
- Speed control for the more challenging passages
- Vocabulary that you can tap for instant help
- Language notes about accents and idioms
- "Tricky bits" — we identify spoken phrases that may be harder to decipher by ear
- Intuitive controls for easy navigation within the story
- Bios for the speakers, alerts on non-standard usage, and more
You always have immediate access to both the full Spanish transcript and the English translation when you need the extra boost.
Practicing regularly, even a few minutes a day, you will find yourself getting comfortable listening to native voices speaking at natural speed, and you will build up a robust vocabulary so you can handle yourself with confidence in any Spanish conversation.
Download Lupa and start your journey to real-world Spanish fluency today.
Category : Education
Reviews (30)
This is an excellent app. The contemporary stories offer a wide variety of native Spanish speakers. I especially like the ability to export new words and phrases and then import them into Anki, a flashcard app. Without hesitation l recommend this for anyone who wants to improve their Spanish listening and vocabulary skills!
Okay, I love love love the content!! I listen to Radio Ambulante all the time and I understand the words but have no idea what's going on so this is great. I love the opportunity to shorter sections listen as many times as you need. I do think that there could be some improvement with the integration of new vocabulary and the translation. That part feels a bit clunky at times. Maybe it would be nice to see the new vocabulary before you listen?
Phenomenal design, and this app definitely can help you improve. I do think the subscription is far too expensive though. The cost just doesn't make sense: a) they would get many more subscribers if it was lower and b) this is pretty much just a client side app for a podcast that exists online for free
It's great but would be even better if there were a quiz function to practice/test new vocab development.
The last challenge in learning Spanish is understanding spoken Spanish. Lupa helps you make progress. It still takes a lot of time but it helps. You still have to REALLY work at it.
Fantastic app...best one I have found for listening comprehension. I can converse very comfortably with people from many different countries in Spanish but when people speak very rapidly or with a strong accent, I don't always catch every single thing that they say, and I want to understand completely. This app is a huge help and it has the best combination of useful tools for translation, speed control, and vocab that I have found. Worth every penny for the subscription.
I just started but it seems great so far. I like how there are different levels of assistance. For example, seeing every word in the transcript, seeing some words, or no words and just listening. I like how easy it is to get the vocab definitions of words that may not be familiar in the context that they are being used. There have been a couple of words that were not defined that I had to look up outside the app. Overall, I would reccomend it to an intermediate Spanish learner.
Lupa is fantastic for improving listening in Spanish. The slow audio, word-by-word transcription, and replay features help immensely with comprehension. The stories are very interesting, varied, and well-told, with different voices and accents from journalists and interviewees. It's the stories themselves that keep me listening; I want to know what happens next. Highly recommended for Spanish learners.
Lupa is the perfect next step for the intermediate student. The stories of radio ambulante are so much more interesting than simple traditional learning materials. It makes you look forward to hearing the next story instead of it being a chore. Also, nothing at all compares to real dialogue when it comes to improving comprehension and real understanding. It has been a great bridge for me to finally be able to listen to and comprehend native content.
Excellent app. Well designed and easy to use. Someone has actually thought about this properly and the features all work perfectly with no lag. Perfect for intermediate to advanced Spanish learners who need more practice with understanding Spanish spoken from a variety of countries. You will need to decide yourself how many hints you allow yourself and how many listens you do for each chapter. The bite-size chunks of audio are spot on for the time-poor student. Try the 2 free stories first.
It's a great app for learning Spanish if you know the basics. I'm somewhere between an intermediate and advanced level so the app wasn't quite hard enough for me. If the developers can add more levels of difficulty, such as the entire podcast episodes in 5 minute sections, or writing and speaking practice with other learners, I'd consider using the app regularly and possibly pay for it.
I highly recommend this app to any intermediate student of Spanish. I've been a fan of Radio Ambulante for some time, and although the Spanish transcripts are available, this app provides more: an interactive method for increasing your comprehension and listening skills. The price is very reasonable and the developers are actively working on improvements and adding features. There's not a comparable language-learning tool on the market.
100% worth it. The stories are interesting and it's really helpful to have the English translation there (but hidden ) for when I need it. And the vocab feature is really handy too. I used to go to the Radio Ambulante website and read the transcript while listening, but this just makes the process so much easier.
Lupa is a dream come true! There are many features to tailor the app to your level and needs like audio speed, amount of translation, and the ability to re-listen to sections. These developers have obviously done great beta-testing and created a seemless learning tool for students of Spanish. I would love to see this app available to other language learners, specifically for English and French. It's fun, entertaining and practical.
I love Lupa! I use workbooks to learn Spanish grammar and I watch Spanish movies subtitled in English, but since I discovered Lupa, my listening comprehension has improved very rapidly, because I can read the text while I listen, adjust the speed, and pause the story to get definitions of new words. This makes the auditory input comprehensible. The stories are always interesting and I enjoy hearing speakers with different accents from many different countries. Lupa is a fantastic learning tool!
NO ONE-TiME, LIFETIME SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE, only monthly and annual ($100+-)!! The app features for comprehension seem fantastic, but you have to subscribe for full access; there are only two free stories to try. It's way too expensive, so very disappointed! Update: found Beelinguapp with similar features and subscribed for only $16 for the first year, which was a 60% discount offered after trial of app! Love Beelinguapp so far.
It's great! There are lots of resources for starting out learning a language, but it's harder to find supported learning tools at a more advanced level. Was just listening to radio ambulante episodes before this app came along - good for training the ear but I'd just absorb meaning from context and rarely learnt new vocab. Now Lupa makes it so easy to check any words I'm not clear on and properly consolidate them in my memory, it's fantastic for growing intermediate/advanced vocab. Thank you!
This is a wonderful app that is beautifully designed and offers a way into some of the most illuminating Spanish narrative audio for English speakers. Unfortunately my Spanish wasn't quite ready for it, but I was kindly given a refund. Make sure you're at least somewhat conversant, lower intermediate before you begin. I look forward to returning to it once my Spanish is a bit stronger.
This is a fantastic app. The subscription is unfortunately too expensive for my budget as a student, but that doesn't mean I don't think it's worth it. I think the UI is great, exactly what I'd want for practicing listening skills; the content is top notch, too. If I could spare the $, I would definitely pay for this app.
This is perfect for high intermediate learners of Spanish. it's like you got into my brain and ask me how could i best learn to understand Spanish spoken by natural speakers at normal rates. ¡perfecto!
This app is worth the money if you are serious about learning spanish this is a great resource. It is a great supplement to study of Grammar and actually speaking with people in Spanish. Lupa is a beautiful app aesthetically and is easy to use. The stories are amazing and humbling as well in my opinion as they paint pictures of life in Spanish speaking countries. You cant help but feel connected to these stories!
A really non-standard UI. Not intuitive. Why do they play music in the background while you're trying to listen to a dialogue. Update - this app is really only suitable for advanced students. I found it very difficult to understand dialogues with native speakers who have heavy accents. News in Slow Spanish is way more expensive, but you learn more because the Spanish is standard and the diction much clearer.
This is a life changing app for anyone who wants to get serious about taking Spanish to next level. I haven't studied since I was in Guatemala 30 years ago. The chance to dramatically improve my Spanish while getting the great stories from Radio Ambulante has been phenomenal. And those around me who speak Spanish better than I do are pretty wowed by the improvement. I'm readdicted to learning Spanish and I can see fluency up ahead. Thank you so much.
This is a good app f/ those with basic level of spanish comprehension. You can hone vocab, grammar and listening skills. The featured stories are really interesting. Try switching btwn. different settings (displaying all words, some words, translated, non translated etc.) to see what works best for you.
It's a great app. I like listening to stories with the words highlighted. There are a couple bugs. For example the last spoken word of a chapter is often cut off. Sometimes the app closes unexpectedly. Over all, I like it and it's worth the subscription.
This app is so helpful for those of us learning Spanish as a second (or third, etc) language! I've found many apps geared toward learning a language to be too easy and focused on basic grammar/vocabulary. Lupa is great for more advanced learners and also seems to be adaptable for intermediate learners!
This app is allowing me to make the jump into fluency from intermediate Spanish . It's a tool to improve comprehension and vocabulary. It also is based on great reporting from Radio Ambulante, so it includes more thought-provoking stories than you would typically find in a language learning course.
This is an absolutely incredible learning tool. For anyone looking to learn real Spanish - how it's spoken day to day, not in books - this is well worth your time. The stories are amazing and the app makes it super easy to build vocabulary, improve understanding, and become closer to fluency.
This may be the best language learning app ever developed. It's absolutely brilliant and I hope they can continue adding more stories each month. I wish they could add some additional functionality around the vocab lists, but really I have few complaints.
Lupa is perfect for intermediate learners who struggle to understand native speakers. I have been studying Spanish for years, but still can't converse fácilmente con mi esposo y su familia. The interface helps me understand what I hear - first you listen to slowed audio with some written cues for harder parts, then at normal speed, with moving blocks that indicate when the speaker is starting a new word. Plus, the content is interesting to listen to, unlike a lot of language learning content.