We just finished the pilot edition of Español en Vivo, an 87-page Spanish textbook for the A1 and A2 levels, and we’re giving it away. Download the PDF here. No email gate, no signup, no catch. Use it with one of our tutors. Use it with a tutor from somewhere else. Use it at your kitchen table. The point is that it gets used.
This is the second book in our free textbook series. The first, Italiano dal Vivo, came out last week. The Spanish edition follows the same blueprint, scaled across twenty-one Spanish-speaking countries: real conversations, real regional dialects, role-plays that get harder as the grammar deepens, and a finishing exam in the actual DELE A2 format. Built by the same Strommen team behind our private Spanish lessons and group classes.
Why we built it
Spanish textbooks have a problem. The academic ones are thorough, expensive, and built around a generic neutral Spanish that nobody actually speaks. The apps are fast and shiny and leave you mute the moment you sit down across from a real Spanish-speaker. Neither one teaches you what to do when a Cuban barber says “¿qué bolá, asere?”, or how to argue about pizza in a Buenos Aires peña, or what órale actually means in a Mexico City taquería.
So we wrote the in-between book. The grammar is rigorous. The conversations are real. Each chapter is set somewhere specific in the Spanish-speaking world: a café in Madrid, a tapas bar in Sevilla, a family table in Mexico City, the cobblestones of Cartagena, the Mercado de Surquillo in Lima, a morning in Buenos Aires, a cantina in CDMX, a clinic in Havana, a peña in Cuzco. The grammar shows up because the scene needs it.
What’s in the book
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14 chapters across A1 and A2. Saludos y presentaciones, en el bar de tapas, en familia, por la ciudad, en el mercado, un día típico, en el restaurante, en la taquería, contando un viaje, por teléfono (business Spanish), en el médico, opiniones y preferencias, planeando el futuro.
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A pronunciation primer. Vowels, the C and G rules, J, LL, Ñ, RR, the silent H, the three stress rules. The traps English speakers fall into, fixed in eight pages.
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Six regional dialects, side by side. Mexican, Castellano (Spain), Rioplatense (Argentina/Uruguay), Colombian, Cuban, and Andean, with sidebar comparisons in every chapter and a dedicated appendix at the back.
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Voseo introduced properly. Chapter 6 is set in Buenos Aires and teaches the vos conjugations alongside tú, so you can recognize and use both. No more freezing at the first “¿qué hacés?”.
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Business Spanish. A full chapter on the formal register, with phone calls and email templates. The same material we use with corporate Spanish students. See more at Business Spanish tutors.
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A DELE A2 mock exam. Listening, reading, grammar, writing, and speaking sections in the official format, with a marking rubric for the tutor. Ready for anyone preparing for the real DELE A2.
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Verb tables, an A1-A2 glossary, and a directory of every Strommen Spanish specialty. Reference material that earns its keep on a tutor’s desk.
The role-plays, built for tutors
Every chapter ends with a role-play script the tutor and student run live. The scripts are tagged by tier so the tutor knows exactly how much improvisation to bring in.
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Tier 1, scripted. Read the lines together. Build confidence.
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Tier 2, branching. The script has decision points. The tutor picks the harder branch when the student is ready.
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Tier 3, improvised on a frame. The tutor follows scenario rules but invents the specifics. Adds noise.
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Tier 4, open. Debate, planning, negotiation. Grammar serves real intent.
The Tier 5 scenarios wait for the B1 book. That’s the philosophical conversation over a glass of Malbec in Buenos Aires, in the subjunctive.
For homeschool families
If you’re homeschooling and want a real Spanish curriculum that doesn’t cost you a dollar, this is yours. The chapter structure maps cleanly onto a one-semester course at the high school level, with the role-plays serving as the speaking component. We also offer 4-credit accredited Spanish courses for homeschool students who want a transcript-ready outcome. Reach out through our contact form and we’ll walk you through how that works.
For tutors
If you teach Spanish and you want a free curriculum you can run with any student, take it. Print it. Mark it up. Strip the cover and write your own. The “Tutor’s corner” sidebars in every chapter are written for you: short notes on what tends to trip students up, what drills land best, where to spend extra time. If you want to swap notes with our team or join a Strommen tutor pool, the contact form is open.
Listen to Bad Bunny on page 10
Between the pronunciation primer and Chapter 1, we slot in a Strommen listening Interludio built around DtMF (Debí Tirar Más Fotos) by Bad Bunny, the most-streamed Spanish-language song of 2025. The Interludio is a guided first listen with a Puerto Rican Spanish slang preview and a direct link to our full DtMF lesson with line-by-line translation. If you understand the chorus on the first listen, your ears are ready for the rest of the book.
What’s coming next
The Italian and Spanish pilots are out. We’ll refine both based on what tutors and students tell us, then move to French, Mandarin, Japanese, and German in the same format. After that, we keep going through the languages we teach. Want to know when the next one lands? Drop us a note through contact.
Download
Español en Vivo, A1 to A2 (PDF, 26MB, 87 pages)
Free to download. Free to share. Free to print. We only ask that you keep the Strommen credit on the cover and the back-matter directory intact, since those are how new students find their way to our tutors. Everything else is yours.
Frequently asked questions
Is the textbook actually free? Yes. No email gate, no upsell, no watermark. Download the PDF and use it however you want. We make our money on private and group lessons with the same tutors who wrote the book.
Which dialect does the book teach? A clean Latin American baseline (close to what Mexican and Colombian tutors call español neutro), with side-by-side sidebars in every chapter showing how things shift in Spain, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, and the Andes. You learn one Spanish well and develop the ear for the others.
Does it teach voseo? Yes. Chapter 6 is set in Buenos Aires and introduces the vos forms alongside tú. By the end you can recognize and produce both.
Can I print it for a class? Yes. Print as many copies as you need for your students, your homeschool co-op, or your tutoring practice. The pages are designed for letter-size printing with generous margins.
Do I need a tutor to use it? No, but it’s built with one in mind. The role-play sections in particular work best with a conversation partner. Many of our tutors offer a free 30-minute first lesson if you want to try the role-plays with a native speaker. Browse our Spanish tutors here.
Will there be a B1 and B2 version? Yes, that’s the plan. The pilot edition closes with a preview of the B1 opening chapter (the subjunctive over wine), and the sequel is in production.
Is there a course for homeschool credit? Yes. Strommen offers 4-credit accredited Spanish courses for homeschool students who need a transcript-ready outcome. Use the textbook as the core material and pair it with weekly tutor sessions. Reach us via the contact form for the credit-course details.
Can I become a Strommen Spanish tutor? If you’re a native or near-native Spanish speaker with real teaching experience, we’d love to talk. We’re a curated network, not a marketplace, and we vet every tutor personally. Get in touch through contact.
Ready to start?
Download the textbook, or reach out to us to be matched with a Strommen Spanish tutor who can run the role-plays with you live.
