Customer Reviews

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

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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!

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.

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.

I teach German and I wish that there were one of these BIG REDs for German! I just love it. The frequency list of words alone is worth the price of the book.

This is James from James Spanish (the learning Spanish blog). This weighty, comprehensive book covers a massive amount of vocabulary.

The book is split into various sections: root words, a dictionary of the most frequently used Spanish words, Spanish-English cognates, and a guide to suffixes. Rather than offering a basic list of words, or simple dictionary translations, the book offers `short-cuts' to learning large amounts of related words from single sources.

The root words section lists a root word followed by a brief description of its meaning plus a list of related words which are derived from the root. For example, the root word `bajo' means low, and after this word the book lists words such as `abajo' meaning under or beneath, and `bajarse' meaning to lower oneself. Seeing how various words relate to a root is a useful skill in helping you to work out what an unknown word means. With a good understanding of root words and context you can take an educated guess at many new words. The way the words are organized help you to learn many related words while studying just one single root word.

The book uses the concept of frequency to note how common a word is in general use. This frequency table is listed in the book, along with definitions of each word.
If a word in the book is within the top 5,000 most frequently used words then its `frequency number' will be noted alongside it. (1 equally the most used Spanish word, 10 being the tenth most common word and so forth.) Obviously the lower the frequency number the more useful it will be for you to learn it, helping you to prioritize which words are best to learn.

The cognate section lists words which have a common origin in different languages. This list includes many Spanish words which are extremely easy to remember because they are similar to their English cognate. The list begins with the 100 most commonly used, so after just a few glances you should have most of these words under your belt. The rest of the cognates are organized in a manner similar to a thesaurus, giving you plenty of options to find similar words.

The guide to suffixes explains some of the most commonly used Spanish suffixes, letting you build even more of a vocabulary from root words.

While this might all seem a bit overwhelming, when you get the hang of each section you can quickly discover how useful the book can be.

In closing my review of this product, I'd like to share with you the three Amazon products that I have found most helpful in my pursuit to learn Spanish. If you are truly serious about achieving fluency, I'd recommend getting all 3 of them if you can afford it.

1. Lights, Camera, Spanish (Book + DVD): Learn Conversational Spanish by Watching a Romantic Adventure This is actually a 90 minute movie for Spanish-language learners. It gives the option to watch the movie with subtitles but I'd recommend not using them to improve your Spanish. This "movie" also includes a workbook so that you can reinforce the Spanish vocabulary words and phrases from the film. The workbook also has lots of exercises to keep you engaged in the film. But be prepared to hear Chilean accents. Although pleasent to the ear, the accents from Chile are very different from most Latin American accents.

2. Verbarrator Version 1.1 (Windows Version) This software replaces the traditional verb conjugation books and makes learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs an interactive and fun activity. This should be a required resource for anyone who wants to improve their ability to conjugate Spanish verbs. Especially anyone who is challenged by the drudgery of learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs and who is looking for a new way to make learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs an easy and fun activity

3. Diccionario esencial de la lengua espanola de la Real Academia Espanola (Spanish Edition) If you are really serious about speaking the language fluently, then at some point you will need to replace your Spanish-English dictionary and get a pure Spanish dictionary with both the vocabulary words and the definitions entirely in Spanish. I use this one only because it was highly-recommended by a friend from Spain who teaches Spanish.

This book is great as a reference. It would work with a spanish class but not as a main source for learning the language.

The first third of the book is organized nicely and seemed useful ... Until I realized that it only contains cognates. I have no idea why so much effort was spent organizing words that are almost the same in both languages. False cognates are useful, but I am not interested in seeing 180 pages of cognates. The middle section shows Spanish roots for words, and while somewhat interesting, it didn't seem that useful to me. The last section was the most useful ... the 5000 most common words, although you could probably find these with a Google search.

I checked this book out from the library today because I loved Scott Thomas' other Spanish textbook "Listen N Learn Spanish with your favorite movie....and wanted to check out his other book. I totally love "The Book Red Book of Spanish Vocabulary". This book it is a great tool for learning the language and I am loving it as a dictionary too.

Things I love:
1) It is a "big book" with big type. I can easily look up and see the words.
2) The dictionary of Spanish roots is out of this world. First of all a dictionary organized this way makes it way easier to find a word. It also makes it easier to learn new words and better ways to use words. For example the word Abrir (to open)has 9 words under it from the same root....from reabrir (to reopen) to abertura (opening), to entreabrir (to open partially)
3)The thesaurus of Spanish cognates is also great. The words in this section are grouped by categroy and make writing, talking and vocabulary building within a given area a breeze.

Fabulous book. I would recommend this book for beginners and those fluent in Spanish. I am pursuing a degree in Spanish. This book keeps me familiar with the needed basic rules, vocabulary and cognitions of words as well as much more that allows me to keep focused on my educational info through my studies by reminding me of all of the basics in learning Spanish. This book is full of all the basics I need throughout the pursuit of my degree in Spanish.

a friend recommended this book,for individuals like me,has some difficulty learning in a classroom setting.This book is for beginners to advanced-home learning,using practical useage...all I remember from college spanish is to ask - where is the library - pretty useless...(donde' esta el bibliotheque ?)..with this handbook you can just pick out a word you want to know - read the accompanying spanish & english sentence, with that word in context,and go from there.