Nach der Ankunft

A close alternative, and worth having as a second card whichever you choose first. An account frozen for a routine check is an ordinary week and a disaster if it is the only one you have.

Santander, BBVA, CaixaBank and the rest all offer free student accounts, and eventually you want one: it is what a scholarship, a part-time job and some landlords expect. It is a second-month job rather than a first-week one, because opening one needs the NIE and the padrón certificate you will not have yet.

How people in Spain actually pay each other back — rent shares, a dinner, a deposit. It is not an app of its own: it appears inside your Spanish bank's app once you have one, which is a reason to open a local account eventually.

Public transport directions in every city here, including live bus times in most of them. Download the offline map of your city before you land.

Better than Maps for buses specifically, and it knows the local ticket types.

Trains between cities. Book early: the cheap fares on the fast lines sell out and the price roughly doubles at the last minute.

The ride app with the widest Spanish coverage, including cities where Uber does not operate.

Licensed taxis rather than private hire. In several Spanish cities this is the only thing running at four in the morning.

Both operate in the larger cities and in neither case everywhere. Worth having if you already use them; not worth relying on outside Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Málaga.

Noticeably better than the alternatives on formal Spanish — contracts, official letters, anything written by an institution.

Worse prose, but it reads a photograph of a sign or a form through the camera, which is the thing you will actually use it for.

Not a substitute for the course, and good at the one thing a course cannot do: fifteen minutes a day on the days you have no class.

A dictionary that conjugates verbs and shows real sentences. The single most useful thing on a phone in the first term.

Language exchange: you find somebody learning your language who speaks Spanish, and you meet for coffee. In a university city there are dozens within walking distance.

The same idea, with a larger base outside the big cities.

Groups that meet regularly — hiking, board games, running, photography. The reliable way to meet Spaniards rather than only other students.

Not an app: a network with a section in most Spanish university cities, running trips and language exchanges that are open to language students too. Find your city's section and its social accounts.