The Big Red Book of Spanish Vocabulary: 30,000 Words Including Cognates, Roots, and Suffixes (Big Book of Verbs Series) [Paperback]

Scott Thomas (Author), Gaby Thomas (Author), Rose Nash (Author), Dorothy Richmond (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 26, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0071447253 | ISBN-13: 978-0071447256 | Edition: 1

A new, and dramatically improved, three-pronged approach to learning Spanish vocabulary

The Big Red Book of Spanish Vocabulary is much, much more than a Spanish vocabulary reference! This unique and complete resource combines three complementary approaches to vocabulary building—cognates, root families, and suffixes—to instantly increase word familiarity and aid memorization.

Whether for active face-to-face communication or passive comprehension of written or spoken words, an in-depth knowledge of vocabulary is the key to foreign language mastery. The Big Red Book of Spanish Vocabulary makes acquiring this mastery simpler and more straightforward than ever before by providing:

• An extensive thematic list of Spanish cognates and an alphabetic glossary of Spanish root families—both with more than 14,000 entries
• A comprehensive listing of the 130 most common Spanish suffixes, with 4,000 common examples
• A frequency index listing the 5,000 most frequently used words in Spanish
• An alphabetic index cross-referencing every entry in the root, suffix, and frequency sections

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The easiest way to add more than 30,000 words to your Spanish vocabulary!

You know the basics of Spanish, but if you really want to develop your language skills, you need to have a larger cache of Spanish words that you are comfortable using in conversation or in writing. The Big Red Book of Spanish Vocabulary is a remarkably effective tool that will help you add thousands of words to your Spanish repertoire by organizing them into logical groupings, making memorization a snap.

The 30,000 Spanish vocabulary terms are divided into the following sections:

• Cognates: These words are similar in Spanish and English, making them the easiest to learn. This section contains 14,000 cognates thematically arranged into twenty key topics.
• Root families: Another easy way to expand your vocabulary is to become familiar with related word families that have the same root. This section contains 14,000 terms grouped into 2,200 root categories.
• Suffixes: More than most languages, Spanish relies on suffixes to denote parts of speech and convey nuances of meaning. This section contains 4,600 terms grouped into 130 of the most common Spanish suffixes.

The Big Red Book of Spanish Vocabulary also includes a Frequency Table listing the 5,000 most commonly used words in Spanish and an Alphabetical Index cross-referencing every entry in the root, suffix, and frequency sections.

Whether for school, business, travel, or just for fun, The Big Red Book of Spanish Vocabulary will give you the major boost in vocab you need!

About the Author

Scott Thomas and Gaby Thomas are veteran translators, interpreters, and teachers. Rose Nash, Ph.D., is a professor emerita of Linguistics. Dorothy Richmond is a successful author of Spanish-language books.

Product Details

• Paperback: 672 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (August 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071447253
• ISBN-13: 978-0071447256
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #122,740 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great tool for systematically improving your vocabulary, July 11, 2006

By 

David Slauson "enigman" (Lyons, Co USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Big Red Book of Spanish Vocabulary: 30,000 Words Including Cognates, Roots, and Suffixes (Big Book of Verbs Series) (Paperback)

Trying to increase your Spanish vocabulary? Do you favor a logical approach that improves your understanding of how the language works? Not sure where to start? This book might be what you're looking for. It is organized into four major sections:

ROOT DICTIONARY: contains over 14,000 words organized by root. Each root and associated word includes a brief definition. Grouping words by root makes the relationship between words readily apparent, and makes it easy to learn and remember new variants. For example, the root "bajo" <low> lists 23 words formed from it, including: abarjarse, bajar, rebajar, bajo, bajeza, bajista (bass player!), abajo, cabizbajo, etc, all of which relate to some low thing, act, or condition. Each derived word also shows its frequency-of-use, if it happens to be among the top 5000. Of the bajo-derived words, bajar, bajarse, bajo, and abajo are all commonly used... being in the top 1800. This makes it easier to sharpen one's focus.

SPANISH FREQUENCY TABLE: actually a dictionary with headwords ordered by frequency-of-use. Each headword is followed by fairly complete definitions and examples. Like English, most of the Top-40 words are articles, adverbs, conjunctions, and pronouns. The top verbs are haber(18), tener(21), estar(22), hacer(24), fue(25... yes, it includes conjugated forms of verbs as well as the infinitives), poder(26), decir(28), dar(37), deber(43). Again, a useful tool for someone who wishes to prioritize their study.

THESAURUS OF SPANISH COGNATES: begins with more than 100 high-frequency Spanish-English cognates, and then groups thousands of cognates by category, much like a standard thesaurus.

GUIDE TO SPANISH SUFFIXES: another useful way to study cognates.

Overall I think the book is a terrific tool for anyone who is interested in learning more about the language, while improving vocabulary.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A well-thought out aid to increasing vocabulary, March 30, 2006

By 

Steve (Whitby, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Big Red Book of Spanish Vocabulary: 30,000 Words Including Cognates, Roots, and Suffixes (Big Book of Verbs Series) (Paperback)

I already had several vocab books before I bought this one. I think this is my most useful one yet. It would be great for one section alone - one which gives you the 5,000 most commonly used words in a Mexican newspaper. I used to find it very difficult choosing which words to select for my daily increase in vocabulary. I always had to think, "Would they use that word much?" Now I don't have to think about that. I am simply working my way through the 5,000. What is encouraging is I have started reading Spanish newspapers, and lo and behold, a word I have just tried to learn the day before, is there in print. That Spanish word, for example, for "bird bath" that I got from elsewhere, never seems to appear!

Also I use the roots section of the book to see if my new words have similar words in common. This helps to remember more vocab.

Another section looks at the endings of words, and how you can get a feel for the language from them. It looks very useful and is written by Dorothy Richmond who has written a couple of other Spanish language-learning books that I have.

Finally there is a massive dictionary of cognates which I will get into when I have got my 5,000 words, and there is a good index at the back linking to the different dictionaries the book is comprised of.

All in all, my favourite book for improving my Spanish vocabulary.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but.., February 9, 2007

By 

A. Schaeffer - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Big Red Book of Spanish Vocabulary: 30,000 Words Including Cognates, Roots, and Suffixes (Big Book of Verbs Series) (Paperback)

I think this is a super interesting idea for a book and provides a great deal of useful information. Unfortunately, it also contains a large number of errors - especially in the section with the top 5000 words. Some definitions are simply wrong (e.g. cocer is "to cook" not "to sew" - coser is "to sew") But, there are lots of mistakes in this section. So, ¡Ten cuidado!