Flashsticks

You all know that I've been upping my Spanish in a various amount of ways - these range from watching everything with Spanish subtitles, to shamelessly flirting with my Spanish tinder match, to actually learning to the traditional way. So, when Flashsticks showed interest in working with me and helping me boost my Spanish vocab (the kind that would actually come in handy, instead of the idioms and insults said Tinder date has been teaching me) I jumped at the chance. As a family we've been testing this out for about a month and so I've dragged everyone's opinions together in order to give you the lowdown on learning Spanish with Flashsticks.

Now first things first; you can actually learn a ton of languages with Flashsticks (including sign language which I think is genuinely really cool) and so if Spanish isn't your language, don't rule it out just yet! Now, essentially, from what I can work out, Flashsticks are a branch of PostIt, and although they have an interactive app (and we'll get onto that in a minute) - the kits come with packs of PostIt notes with a ton of vocabulary words. Helpfully, these PostIts are colour coded; green for neutral words, blue for masculine words and pink for feminine words and you'd be surprised at just how helpful this system really is when it comes to remember the gender of nouns, something that I've really struggled with when learning the language. We've stuck a lot of these around the house where we'll see them often and save a few niggly words (the word for mirror is one that all of us seem to struggle with) we really are developing our vocab!

Now onto the app - Flash Academy is pretty good as language apps go, to be honest. There are 3 difficulty levels and each one contains sub categories to teach you words - you can listen to the words, watch people speak them and then you have to click the corresponding english word for the Spanish phrase. It's pretty basic, but I really like that fact that I can watch someone pronounce the words as well as hear it, because I feel like that really improved my pronunciation. Combined with the sticky notes that I'm seeing most days, I feel like this constant repetition and awareness is really boosting my confidence and knowledge of words.

I think there are some bits to be improved on - I'd like them to be able to judge whether I'm speaking the word right out loud, I'd like a little harder testing in the later levels and I'd like a little more on words order; but, all in all, if what you need is basic vocabulary and enough to get you decently through a holiday abroad then Flash Academy and Flashsticks are definitely amongst the best resources to get your head around vocab and the gender of nouns. It's not cheap - the Flashsticks I have will only set you back £4.99 but the app will set you back anywhere between £3.00 and £6.99 a month which could definitely stack up - it is worth it, in my opinion though.

If you're learning a language I'd love you know if you'd ever used Flashsticks, or what apps you swear by! If you want to give Flashsticks ago you can use my code for a free month on the app (SAMMY1M) or to get 10% of a pack of the postits (SAMMY10) - not affiliate or anything, just a good deal.

Sammy xo.

Contains PR samples/items gifted to me by companies however all opinions are my own - please view my disclaimer for more information.