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Title: Practical Spanish Grammar : A Self-Teaching Guide (Wiley Self-Teaching Guides) by Marcial Prado ISBN: 0-471-13446-5 Publisher: Wiley Pub. Date: March, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.11 (9 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: I am REALLY teaching myself Spanish using this book
Comment: Alright, I have read all the reviews that precede mine and many of them mention the book's one major deficiency -- it has too many typos. Just one example: on page 145, the word "descubrir" ("to discover") is introduced for the first time, appearing there in the main vocabulary list of new words for Chapter 9, and it is misspelled "descrubrir", which is inexcusable. I suspected the misspelling but was not sure until I checked my dictionary and also saw the word spelled correctly in the exercises that followed. This sort of thing is unfortunate in an otherwise fine text.
That said, this book is excellent. I am learning Spanish using this book as my main text. I started studying Spanish using this book in November 2002 and have completed fourteen of its fifteen chapters. It's now the beginning of March 2003 and I am reading the news online in Spanish with almost total comprehension. I had no prior experience with Spanish.
"Practical Spanish Grammar" has many exercises in each chapter covering both vocabulary and grammar and also three major "quizzes" of a hundred questions each covering Chapters 1-5, 6-10, and 11-15. The answers to all exercises and quizzes are given in the back of the book. In my opinion, Professor Prado has done a great job of giving me just what I need (and no more or less) to master new words and new grammatical concepts. The material is presented in a manner that fixes those concepts in my head and reinforces them with the exercises that follow.
When I finish this book, I will start going through Prado's "Advanced Spanish Grammar", which recapitulates and elaborates in more depth upon almost everything presented in "Practical Spanish Grammar" and introduces new concepts besides. Plus, "Advanced Spanish Grammar" is written ENTIRELY in Spanish and, looking ahead, I have found that I already understand it.
Now, there is one more thing: if, like me, you are trying to teach yourself Spanish on your own, you will need more than this book alone. I have purchased a few bilingual books that have texts of Spanish stories on one page and the English translation on the facing page. I don't need to be constantly referring to my dictionary when I read Spanish this way, since the translation is on the facing page. It has been the combination of Prado's "Practical Spanish Grammar" with these bilingual "story books" that have helped me to make so much progress in such a short time, especially with idiomatic expressions and other vocabulary material not found in Prado's book.
Angel Flores' "First Spanish Reader" is the best place to start with these bilingual stories because it's very much designed for the beginner (although many of the stories are real sleepers). Her "Spanish Stories" book seems to be the follow-up; the Spanish is much more advanced and the stories much more interesting. Both of Flores' books have excellent glossaries. John King edited "New Penguin Parallel Texts: Short Stories in Spanish", whose stories are more contemporary in theme and idiom.
And finally, there is a lot of Spanish to be read online for free. You can read a bilingual newspaper (containing English and Spanish side-by-side) ... ("Dos Mundos" bilingual newspaper out of Kansas City).
I don't know Prado and I am not trying to sell anyone's books. I just know that, to my surprise, this approach is working for me and "Practical Spanish Grammar" has been the fulcrum for my efforts. I recommend it highly.
A proposito, in my opinion the paperback version of "The New World Spanish/English English/Spanish Dictionary" is easiest on the eyes and easiest to handle of the dictionaries I have used or examined. Buen viaje!
Rating: 4
Summary: ¡Este libro es muy bueno! (This book is very good!)
Comment: This book is good in that it explains areas of Spanish well (nouns, verbs, adjectives, the time, etc.) If you want to learn Spanish, and you are a novice, this is the book for you. It talks about what the word is for different countries if they are different (it talks about "vos" being the word for "tú" in Argentina, and it talks about different words for different countries.) It talks about what Mexicans say "Qué horas son" instead of "Qué hora es". This book has few mistakes (which other books do to, at least the one my teacher is using), but you can catch them because it is taught and then sometimes there are mistakes (for example, in the book there is this place where the Spanish says "doce", but it should be "dos".) (Not the part where they teach it.) This has lots of practice problems in it. And, this book has a short section in the beginning about how to pronounce the letters of the Spanish alphabet, and contains how different countries pronounce different letters.
My teacher is teaching me Spanish, and she uses the book Basic Spanish Grammar along with this book. You might perfer Basic Spanish Grammar over this book, or this book over Basic Spanish Grammar. You decide!
If you are an advanced Spanish speaker wanting to learn more about Spanish, I would suggest going with Marcial Prado's book called Advanced Spanish Grammar.
¡Libro bueno! (Good book!)
Rating: 4
Summary: A excellant review
Comment: This book is a great review of about two to three years of high school Spanish. The book starts out at the basics and builds up through the present subjunctive. Along the way, helpful vocabulary is presented with exercises and interesting dialogue. I really like the way Prado footnotes his vocabulary lists with notes on the usage of certain words. It's a nice touch lacking from all too many texts. The format is very clear, which makes this book a great reference. I gave the book only four stars because it does not go use vosotros and there are a few errors in the exercises. Other than that, this is a great book to review basic Spanish.
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Title: Advanced Spanish Grammar : A Self-Teaching Guide (Wiley Self-Teaching Guides) by Marcial Prado ISBN: 0471134481 Publisher: Wiley Pub. Date: January, 1997 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses by Dorothy M. Devney ISBN: 0844273341 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Pub. Date: 11 January, 1996 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: 1001 Most Useful Spanish Words (Beginners' Guides) by Seymour Resnick ISBN: 0486291138 Publisher: Dover Publications Pub. Date: 07 June, 1996 List Price(USD): $1.95 |
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Title: Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Pronouns And Prepositions by Dorothy Richmond ISBN: 0844273112 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Pub. Date: 11 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: Easy Spanish Phrase Book: Over 770 Basic Phrases for Everyday Use ISBN: 0486280861 Publisher: Dover Publications Pub. Date: 26 May, 1994 List Price(USD): $1.50 |
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