Ever thought about learning Guarani? Here are 9 reasons to learn Guarani and the best resources to learn the language. If you’ve been looking for some reasons to learn Guarani or are just curious to learn more about the language, this one’s for you.

My Story

I first encountered Guarani back in 2015 during my final year of university Spanish study for my degree. I later decided to write about bilingualism for my final dissertation and (among other places) wrote about Guarani alongside Spanish in Paraguay.

However, it wasn’t until May 2017 when I started to learn the language myself.

I knew we’d be visiting Paraguay towards the end of our trip to Latin America, and decided it would be a good chance to learn an indigenous American language so I chose Guarani.

As you might already know (especially if you’ve seen this episode of Language Stories) I kinda fell in love with the language and the country.

This video is a little different to the usual 9 Reasons – it’s filmed mostly on the road in Paraguay!

Resources

LiveLingua

– free Peace Corps to help get you started with some structure. No audio unfortunately, and the text fades later in the PDF copies, but it acts as a good anchor for your studies when there’s very little else out there.

Duolingo

– there’s a Duolingo course for Guarani, which is always a handy extra to have available. It is taught through (regional) Spanish, so you’ll need to know Spanish to be able to take advantage of this.

Memrise

– There’s a handful of Guarani courses available on Memrise to support your studies too. Many of these teach via English.

italki

– at some point, you’ll need to speak! italki is where I met my tutor Marcelo.

Clozemaster

– I was pleasantly surprised to discovered that Guarani is on Clozemaster! AND, it’s taught through English, so even more accessible to the wider world. Yay!

Arandukapp

– I haven’t yet had a chance to try this because I don’t currently own an Android device, but there is a relatively new Guarani audiobooks app available, which I’m beyond excited about because audio has been the hardest thing to find.

Guaranglish

– another Android app, so I have only tried briefly when I met the developers in Paraguay for Language Stories. It’s a great choice!

Let’s Talk Guaranime

– I’ve not been able to find this podcast feed in any podcast app but they’ve uploaded a couple of episode audio clips to this YouTube channel. And the text is on the blog here.

Guarpar on YouTube

– this YouTube channel uploads new clips every now and then but has an existing range of clips from popular films and TV shows that they’ve dubbed in Guarani. My favourite is the sloth scene from Zootopia.

Guarani Bible Podcast

– even if you’re not religious, with such limited audio resources, this may be useful.

Clases de Guarani on YouTube

– this is something that’s appeared since I started learning and it’s so helpful! Bitesize Guarani lessons taught through Spanish.

My Guarani YouTube Playlist

– I’ve gathered together songs, lessons, and lots moe videos about the language, in the language or teaching the language on my YouTube playlist for Guarani here.

My Guarani Spotify Playlist

– there’s lots of songs out there in Guarani. I’ve compiled all the ones I know of on my playlist here and am always adding to it.

Mbaejeff on Instagram

– As far as I know, Jeff is a Peace Corps volunteer currently based in Paraguay. He shares helpful little videos on his Instagram in Guarani, Spanish and English. Many have subtitles.

Discovering Paraguay on Instagram

– This is the account of Natalia, who we interviewed for Language Stories too! She shares interesting nuggets of culture and language from Paraguay.

IDIPAR

– If you’re going to Paraguay anytime soon, I have to recommend IDIPAR. It’s where I spent a week learning Guarani at the start of our trip and it’s a great way to start a visit to the country. I wrote about my experience here.

9 Reasons to Learn Guarani