Free C2 Spanish course: mastery

At C2 you understand virtually everything you hear and read, and can express fine shades of meaning. What remains is refinement in word order and focus, literary tenses, irony, regional variation and precise word choice.

10 grammar lessons, 2 graded stories, 4 classic books, flashcards and an AI conversation partner, all free. Plan on roughly 200 hours of study for this level (1100 in total from zero, by an approximate CEFR estimate that isn't specific to Spanish).

What you'll be able to do

• Listening: I can understand any kind of spoken Spanish at native speed, including regional accents such as rioplatense or Andalusian.
• Reading: I can read virtually all forms of written Spanish, including abstract, legal and literary texts and, with some support, classics such as the Lazarillo.
• Reading: I can pick up irony, understatement and what a text implies without saying.
• Speaking: I can take part effortlessly in any conversation, with a good command of idioms and refranes.
• Speaking: I can express fine shades of meaning precisely and rephrase smoothly when I hit a difficulty.
• Writing: I can write complex letters, reports and essays with an effective, logical structure.
• Writing: I can write summaries and reviews of professional or literary works.

What you'll learn

Learning C2 Spanish with AI

At C2 the AI partner works as a demanding conversation partner and editor: it discusses anything with you and comments on style, not just correctness. The AI also explains any wrong answer in a lesson, in plain English. It's included free, with a daily allowance; like any AI it can make mistakes, so the lessons remain the reference. More about learning Spanish with AI.

All 10 C2 grammar lessons

Free to read here. In the app, each one is taught in short steps with audio, practised, and brought back for review.

1. Word order, topic and focus: A Juan no lo he visto
2. Literary tenses: pretérito anterior, -se subjunctive, historic present
3. Irony, understatement and implicature: no está nada mal
4. Academic, legal and administrative Spanish
5. Regional variation: voseo, ustedes, seseo and ceceo, vocabulary
6. deber vs deber de, haber de, tener que: modal nuance
7. Precise prepositions: en/a, de/desde, contra, ante, tras, so
8. Wordplay, double meanings and humour
9. Cohesion in long texts: anaphora, ellipsis, connectors
10. False friends and fine word choice: actual, embarazada, sensible, éxito

Reading at C2

• Me voy a Madrid: Rioplatense dialogue (Buenos Aires): two friends talk about a move to Madrid. Features voseo (vos sabés, decime, vení), che, laburo, quilombo, re, posta, and jokes about Spain Spanish.
• La mercería: Literary vignette about the closing of an old haberdashery and its owner, with literary tenses (apenas hubo bajado, -se subjunctive).
• Lazarillo de Tormes by Anónimo (1554): A boy serves a blind beggar, a miserly priest and a starving squire: the first picaresque novel. 16th-century Spanish.
• El Buscón by Francisco de Quevedo (1626): The life of Pablos, a barber's son from Segovia who tries to rise in the world by trickery. Dense, punning Golden Age prose.
• El gaucho Martín Fierro by José Hernández (1872): An Argentine gaucho sings of being forced into the frontier army and becoming an outlaw. Verse in rural speech.
• Don Quijote (primera parte) by Miguel de Cervantes (1605): Part One of Don Quixote: an old gentleman who has read too many books of chivalry sets out with Sancho Panza to right the world's wrongs.

Questions