This paper presents a study on the use of learning strategies in foreign languages, and more specifically Spanish. The study was conducted with 376 Chinese and American students who were studying Spanish in their countries of origin. The results obtained from a latent class cluster analysis identified five groups of participants based on the intensity in their use of different language-learning strategies. These groups were characterised by their age, the amount of time that they had been studying Spanish and the use of Spanish in the social milieu. Some differences were found among these groups as regards the level of Spanish attained, while none were detected with regard to either the learning context of origin or gender.