How you learn is a personal thing and what might be right for me might not be right for you. Here I'll run down how I am learning Spanish and the resources I use.
I class myself as a "self-paced" learner which means I don't like schools or weekly lessons as they might move too fast or too slowly for me. That's worth bearing in mind when going through these resources.
I wish I had found Language Transfer ( https://www.languagetransfer.org/free-courses-1 ) first, it would have made learning so much faster ... buy hey-ho, at least I found it!
Language Transfer is not about learning all of the Spanish language but it lays out some truly excellent rules so you don't have to learn parrot fashion and try and memorize everything. You'll learn hundreds of Spanish words within the first few minutes.
Just listen to the whole course first without feeling you have to remember the actual words, verbs or sentences. Its the rules and methods of uncovering the language that you want to pick up.
I've listened to it several times now - its ideal on long drives or on the bus - and each time I learn something new.
On its own Duolingo ( https://www.duolingo.com/learn ) is a bit of a parrot fashion learning method. Its all about repeating the same things over and over again until they sink in.
However it does give you excellent practice in listening and writing and helps you start to build your vocabulary. What's more you can do it on your phone which means there is always time for a quick lesson while waiting in the Supermarket queue!
To me DuoLingo is a must have but only together with these other resources.
I found Duolingo frustratingly slow for learning new vocabulary and as I wanted to get conversational I found Anki ( https://ankiweb.net/about a great way to learn new words.
I used the following two decks:
Practicing and learning both decks needs about 20-30 minutes every day.
There are 12 episodes of Extra for Spanish learners ( Here is episode 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dfb9-ZTCA-E ) on YouTube but your going to need to be fairly comfortable with the language before you dive in.
Its super cheesey but it does the trick and it will teach you the way many Spanish speakers really talk, something you don't truly get on any of the other resources here.
One great thing about YouTube is you can slow films down (look for the little cog on the bottom right, click it and go to 'Playback Speed') and that's a must because the actors talk real fast.
By the way, the way they pronounce words might also confuse you (especially Lola) unless you have listened to the whole of Language Transfer first and just got the concept of the "Mood Tense".
Radio Cinco ( https://www.rtve.es/radio/radio5/ ) is the national news station of Spain which means its good clean Spanish!
I hardly understood any of it to start with but I would sometimes have it on in the car or while cooking and listen out for words I did understand like "Tambien", "Ademas", "entonces" and so on.
Gradually I would then understand more words around those.
I say I had it on in the car, I had it on playing from my phone in the car (because Radio Cinco has an app that lets you do this really easily and because I don't live in Spain or a Spanish speaking country).
A lot of wine comes from Spain and a lot of the labels are printed in Spanish. Take an extra five minutes in the Supermarket to read some labels before being removed by security ;).
You can often find these advertising Spanish lessons in classified ads online. As I said I don't really like "lessons" but I have found native Spanish speakers living in my area from time to time.
Its a mixed bag - some have been excellent but moved on, others have been hopelessly unreliable at turning up - but they all greatly helped me improve my listening skills and speaking confidence.
If you do live in some outback where there are no Spanish speakers within a hundred miles you might want to try baselang (https://baselang.com/).
Its a bit pricey but you can speak to Spanish speakers when you have the time rather than at set times every week. Be aware they are mainly South American Spanish speakers so the pronounciation of words might be a little different compared to Spanish in Spain but you will be perfectly understood in Spain and can make refinements later.
You have to provide this one. Expect it to take you at least a couple of years to start understanding Spanish in its written form. Yes you can be more hard core if you have the time and shorten that period but I just kind of accepted I needed to plod along and do a little every day. Always Anki Cards and Duo, sometimes some YouTube at super slow speeds!
It took me two years to get to a point when I could pick up a normal book and start reading it, longer to really understand full speed TV and radio.