Published October 21, 2025

One of the most fun and different ways to practice Spanish is by playing board games.
But… do any board games work for this purpose? While most games include at least some interaction, we believe these five strike the perfect balance between having fun and actually practicing your Spanish in a meaningful way.

1. Dobble

This is a game where you must pull the highest or lowest number of cards from a deck as quickly as possible.
The idea is simple: first, you look at your card and identify the figure that appears the most. Then, you look at another card, and if you find a match, you must say the name of the figure out loud in order to take that card. But be careful! Other players will be doing the same, and they might react faster than you. If they pull more cards, they’ll score more points.

How does this help us practice Spanish?
Easy, to take a card, you have to say its name out loud and you must do it in Spanish and as quickly as possible. But what happens if you already remember all the figures? Does the Spanish practice end and become repetitive? No!

The next level is using full sentences in different tenses. To make the game more challenging and to get more practice, instead of just saying the figure’s name, you can replace it with a sentence in a tense that includes the figure; you can do it in presente tense, simple past, simple future, present perfect… etc, etc, etc.

To play this game, you’ll need at least one other person, and we recommend playing with up to six players.

Our suggestion? Play with someone who speaks Spanish so they can correct you if you make a mistake… but make sure to beat them anyway! Board games are war.

2. Catan

A game that needs no introduction thanks to its worldwide popularity, known for its simplicity and easy player interaction, but if you’re not familiar with it, here’s a quick summary:
On a hexagonal map, you build settlements and roads at the intersections of tiles to collect resources, based on the types of terrain surrounding your settlements. If your town is next to forests, mountains, and mines, you’ll receive a resource every time the dice roll matches the numbers on those tiles or by trading with other players.
With those resources, you can buy more settlements, roads, or upgrade towns to cities, which give you points. The first player to reach 10 points wins the game.

How does it help you practice Spanish?
The heart of this game lies in trading resources. Because dice rolls are random, resources are often scarce and so players need to trade in order to help each other (and themselves) get ahead.
Of course, you’ll also need to watch out helping someone too much, the goal is to win and not make someone else to win!
This constant “back and forth trading” creates plenty of opportunities for conversation and, in no time, you’ll be offering, negotiating, and exchanging resources that translate easily into real world Spanish use.

A special mention goes to the tricky “por” vs. “para”. This game gives you a fun and natural way to practice those differences, since you’ll be using them often during trades, offers and counter offers.

That being said… this game is also famously known for ruining friendships, so play it chill.

3. Scrabble

This game also needs no introduction, it’s one of the most classic games, found almost everywhere.

What’s it about? On a board, players must form words horizontally or vertically. For each word you build, you earn points based on the word’s complexity and you can get bonus points depending on the tiles where you place the letters, some boost individual letters, others entire words.

How does it help you practice Spanish?
By recalling the names of things and objects, you exercise your memory and spelling. This is the vocabulary game. It's perfect for practicing and expanding your Spanish word bank in a fun and competitive way. See your tokens at hand and start remembering those words!

4. Dixit

This is a relatively new game, but it has become very popular in recent years.
The gameplay consists of each player choosing one card from their hand of five and saying a word or sentence that relates to it, then placing it face down.
After that, the other players each choose a card from their own hands that they think best matches the word or sentence the first player said, and they place it face down as well. The cards are then shuffled and revealed. Everyone must guess which card was originally played by the first player based on their description.

If everyone guesses correctly, all players, except the first one, earn points due to the description being too obvious, so the storyteller is penalized with 0 points. If no one guesses it, no one gets points and if some players guess correctly, both the storyteller and the correct guessers earn points and, additionally, if someone picks another player's card, the owner of that "decoy" card earns bonus points.

The goal? Move forward on the score track and be the first to reach the end.

How does it help you practice Spanish?
By connecting words or sentences to the images on your cards, you’re forced to describe ideas, concepts, or visual elements from memory, strengthening your vocabulary and sentence building skills.

However, you’ll also need a good dose of imagination to describe your card in a way that isn’t too obvious or too vague.

5. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D)

And finally, another game that hardly needs an introduction, thanks to its decades of popularity.
Want to be a wizard, warrior, paladin, rogue, or something else entirely? You can! But be prepared for a lot of talking, a lot of fighting, plenty of laughs and maybe even a few disappointments

The mechanics can vary a lot depending on the edition, format, or rulebook, but the core structure is the same: There’s one narrator (the Dungeon Master), and the other players are guided, challenged, or attacked based on the story that’s been prepared.

How does this help us practice Spanish?
By constantly speaking in real time about your actions, you’ll need to ask for things, interrupt others, attack enemies, roll dice, call for help from your allies, and, most importantly, stay in character.

That being said, out of all the games, this might be the most challenging one for language learning. It’s not about practicing a specific skill or vocabulary set but more like “free style” speaking, where your imagination drives everything you say! But in the end, it’s incredibly fun and, after all, who hasn’t dreamed of slaying a fantastic creature and claiming a legendary treasure?

Aaand that's it!! These 5 board games are a fun way to practice Spanish in a dynamic and engaging way.

Of course, to play them properly you’ll first need to be familiar with the tools you'll be using and if you feel like you need a refresher on Spanish rules, check out our active courses and study groups to join our classes! We also have board games available for practice with classmates or friends.