There are so many fine people willing to help us improve our Spanish! Many of the following exercises use Javascript to make them more interactive, but no audio.

• Reglas Gramaticales and Ejercicios de gramática - by Juan Manuel Soto Arriví of Indiana University.

• Spanish Grammar Exercises - by Matthew D. Stroud at the Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas.

• Spanish Verb Conjugation Trainer - to help with the torture :o)

• Spanish Pronto's offers a vocabulary page that reviews "the most common Spanish words" in parts of speech and conjugated verbs, as well as a basic study reference covering the essentials of the Spanish language.

• Grammar - explaining the difference, for example, between Por/Para and Pedir/Preguntar. Provided by Cecilia Benenati of Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon.

• Several Fill-In-The-Blank exercises provided by Bertín Ortega y Esther Quintana. You have the ability to ask for hints and check your answers!

• Self-check Spanish Language Exercises by Juan Ramón de Arana.

• Beginning Spanish - this great site, from the University of Victoria, offers exercises for dialogue, reading, grammar, and practice exams (under the "Resources" section).

• Spanish Language Drills by Samuel Schiminovich of Columbia University.

• Study Spanish.com's Free Resources includes many grammar exercises, an idiom generator, and cultural notes. Be sure to check out their extensive list of Fun Links!

• 20 Common Errors made in Spanish by English speakers, by LingoLex.

Expand your horizons and practice your Spanish at the same time! Take advantage of these online media offerings:

• El Mundo - A very nice newspaper with lots of interesting cultural references.
  

• LANIC - Newspapers links from the Latin American Network Information Center at the University of Texas Austin. They also offer links to magazines, radio, and television. 

• Public Radio Fan - Scroll down the list for Latino USA and other interesting choices.

• Spanish Newspapers Online - Very interesting site...several newspapers from all over the world at your fingertips!

•  Language Box - Follow the links for access to print, radio, and television media.

•  Com FM - Provides links to international webcams, radio, television, and music programs that you can access online!

•  BBC Mundo - Read and listen to international news, translated into Spanish. A wonderful resource for exposing yourself to the wider world  :o)
  

Note: This entry was reposted to accommodate new additions. ~c.

Practice reading in Spanish with these great sites!

• new! TECLA online publication - for learners of Spanish. Created by the Consejería de Educación in London.

• new! Proyecto Sherezade - Stories from many countries, translated into Spanish. Some are available as mp3 files.

• Story Place offers an Elementary Library and Preschool Library of online, interactive stories in both Spanish and English. Have fun! Maintained by the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County.
  

• The International Children's Digital Library offers original works from all over the world, online and free. Do a "simple search" to find books in your desired language, or a "location search" to search by country. Very cool. Site maintained by the University of Maryland.
  

• Childrens Books Online.org - A good selection of classic stories in many languages, including Spanish. The stories are a little cumbersome to access, as they are scanned pages combined with pop-up translations in a separate window. However, I appreciate the effort of volunteers to make these materials freely available, and being able to view the original artwork is very nice!

• El Cuentacuentos - A small collection of tales such as Sinbad the Sailor, The Ugly Duckling, and Snow White - translated into Spanish.

• In the spirit of attempting a wide range of reading material, I am also trying out PortalComic Historietas - online comic books in Spanish. I make no guarantee for the content, as my Spanish is *not* good enough to translate all the words!

• An extensive collection of Spanish-language poets and their works can be found at Poesi.as - I find many of the poems beautiful to read aloud, even if I don't fully understand them. Site maintained by Luis Salas.

• Anthology of Spanish Poetry - maintained by Fred F. Jehle at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, he also offers explanation of rhyme and how to count syllables in Spanish poetry.
  

• You can read several Wikipedia articles in Spanish! Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit (taking true advantage of the community concept of the internet) so be aware of the veracity of content. Just scroll down to the bottom of the main page and click on the language of your choice.
  

The following sites contain vocabulary and grammar activities, with the added bonus of offering audio clips!

• Fonetiks.org - Help with pronunciation, includes audio clips.

• Arriba - Audio lessons in Spanish.

More to come!

If you aren't always able to find a neighbor to practice Spanish with (or to accost someone in Starbucks as I did the other day...), take heart! The following sites offer several tools for communicating with someone else in Spanish, with the added benefit that you will make friends in other countries and share your knowledge of English! All of these sites are FREE, but you do need to register in order to participate.

If you participate in any of the activities, I would love to hear how it goes for you  :o)

• Speak Any Language.com - Especially useful for the forums, where you can ask for a 'pen pal' in the language you each would like to learn.

• SharedTalk.com - This site is set up so that you can have email pen-pals in your target language, participate in forums (which seem to be a bit underused...), and hold small group chats with your partners. MUCH better than sitting at home alone repeating Spanish phrases to yourself :o)

• Polyglot - Find penpals, participate in forums and chat, meet with your friends in real life (through a moderated process). ¡Qué Bueno!

• InLingua - Solamente penpals, but there are several people interested. You can browse the lists of people by your target language.

• xLingo - This site has more extensive features than I've seen at other places, including Skype, Instant Messenger, the ability to keep your own Blog, RSS feeds, etc.

• LingoZone - Find a penpal, play Hangman online with your friends, create your own online vocabulary lists, and chat with your new friends!

Here are a few good online dictionaries:

• WordReference.com - Also see their Spanish Synonyms dictionary and Language Forums, where "more than 20,000 registered members help one another with questions about grammar, style, linguistics, slang, etymology, pronunciation and translation of words and phrases." Just join up (it's free), post your question, and you're on your way! You can also add a WordReference toolbar to your browser. Site created and maintained by Michael Kellogg
  

• Yahooligans English/Spanish dictionary

Songs for Teaching - Song lyrics, cds, ESL resources. Spanish and other languages.

Center for Applied Linguistics - Improving communication through better understanding of language and culture.

Spanish for Police and Fire Personnel

Radio Canada International - Streaming radio in Spanish and several other languages.

Conjuguemos - Verb conjugation activities! Woo-hoo!!

Edufuturo - Children's site with interactivities.

Spanish Writing Guide - Several examples showing how to use various words and phrases in Spanish.

Trabalenguas - Spanish tongue twisters!

Phrasebase - Learn Spanish phrases.

Susan Middleton Elya - Multicultural books in Spanish.

Marissa Montes - Links for children..in Spanish!

Culture for Kids - Bilingual and multicultural books and videos.

Last year I asked a friend to help me translate a letter that I wanted to send home with a student. I wrote what little I knew in Spanish, and she helped me with the rest - very kindly pointing out that I would never want to forget the tilde on the word 'ano' because if I did then it wouldn't mean 'year'. Anyhooo...that was my first lesson on the importance of including the accent marks in Spanish.

I was pleased to come across the following site managed by Bruce Jensen in which he states - most accurately - that "We English-speakers get along just fine without accent marks, but that doesn't mean they don't matter." He gives a fine explanation for the why and how of accent marks here: SOL - Spanish in Our Libraries . Other links on his site are worth checking out as well.

Of all available methods, I tend to use 'alt plus' written on a piece of paper and kept by my computer:

• alt + 160 = á
• alt + 161 = í
• alt + 162 = ó
• alt + 163 = ú
• alt + 164 = ñ
• alt + 168 = ¿
• alt + 130 = é
• alt + 173 = ¡ (that's not a lowercase i - it's an upside-down exclamation point)
• alt + 129 = ü

This is one of the options described on How to Type Spanish Symbols (University of North Dakota continuing ed. dept.)