If it's spices, I don't even bother with a spoon. Just dump a bunch in until it looks good. Most recipes call for so small amounts of spices that you're not really going to taste it, so why bother putting it in at all?
I've started searching for "ethnic" recipes in their home languages, because the English-language ones are often so badly under-spiced that the called-for amounts aren't even useful as a rough estimate (for e.g. shopping or judging whether you have enough on-hand to make the dish), and sometimes are practically a completely different dish than the real thing. (if the dish has an English-language Wikipedia entry, clicking the link on that page for the dish's page in its native language is a great way to find the right thing to search for, and then Google Translate usually does an OK job on the recipe itself)
This is not the case with Indian food. But the main thing with this question is there is a huge difference when it comes to spoon sizes with table and tea spoon. So what is a spoonful.