En Breve: A Concise Review of Spanish Grammar [Paperback]

Seymour Resnick (Author), William Giuliano (Author), Phyllis M. Golding (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1993 | ISBN-10: 0155007483 | ISBN-13: 978-0155007482 | Edition: 3

This unique grammar review includes many proverbs, songs and poems to illustrate points of grammar. Abundant, interesting exercises follow each grammar lesson and include reading, cultural and conversational material. Features: * Concise format not only permits the instructor to cover the entire book in one semester, but also allows time to integrate supplementary materials. * Provides answers to section exercises in an appendix, encouraging students to study effectively on their own. * Reinforces skills in each lesson with exercises that review the previous lessons and with two comprehensive review sections. * Includes an appendix on false cognates to help students distinguish words that look alike. * Incorporates brief Spanish-English and English-Spanish dictionaries. New to this edition: * Introduces many new exercises and frame stories throughout the text. * Includes brief sections on practical conversational expressions and idioms related to eight different topics. * Encourages students to predict what each passage will address with new prereading sections, Vistazos preparativos. * Provides an orthographic table in Appendix D, helping students improve writing and pronunciation.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Spanish

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Holt Rinehart & Winston; 3 edition (December 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0155007483
• ISBN-13: 978-0155007482
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,792,608 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Improve your Spanish with this useful and enjoyable book., December 28, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: En Breve: A Concise Review of Spanish Grammar (Paperback)

This book is the best book I have found to help you review and expand your knowledge of Spanish. It is meant for someone who already has a basic command of the language. There are short, easy lessons in practical grammar and vocabulary that are combined with exposure to Spanish literature. The lessons are followed by brief quizzes with the answers provided in the back of the book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!, July 4, 2008

By 

J. Evans (DC area, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: En Breve: A Concise Review of Spanish Grammar (Paperback)

I began to learn Spanish 11 years ago as a 9-year-old when I moved to Madrid with my family. We stayed there for two years and then moved to Asuncion, Paraguay for another two years. So that was a good 4 solid years of classes and daily exposure to the language. Since returning to the U.S., my Spanish stopped improving despite taking high school Spanish courses each year. Then I came to college, and for 3 semesters I took no Spanish. But last semester I took a course on grammar and composition, and the first part of the course was just going through En Breve.

I loved it. So many little questions and doubts that had been building up in my mind concerning Spanish grammar and idiomatic constructions were answered. If you thoroughly read this book, your control of the Spanish language will dramatically increase.

I recommend this to anyone who knows a decent amount of Spanish but who isn't very confident in their grammar. Don't misunderstand me, my grammar wasn't bad; in fact it was better than most of my peers since I had the advantage of four years of exposure to native speakers. But I knew that there were tons of things that I didn't know how to express clearly, which I now know how to express.

Some of the most useful things I learned in this book were how to correctly express ideas such as...
"Strong as they may be, they never win."
"The more you buy, the more popular you are."
"She bought more books than she can read."

As simple as those ideas are, relatively few non-native speakers of Spanish seem to know how to express them correctly. The book of course also contains the more obviously necessary discussions on direct and indirect object pronouns; the tenses and their uses; the subjunctive mood and its uses; what prepositions are necessary after what verbs under what conditions; et cetera. This book is incredibly useful and surprisingly comprehensive.

I only wish this were a series so that there were parallel versions for French, German and Russian, for example.

I'd just like to advise that it is not worth the amazon price of $93.95 to have it new, as it is just a medium-sized paperback book. Just buy it used for a third of the price.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars spanish, September 19, 2009

By 

Kelsey A. Lorenz - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: En Breve: A Concise Review of Spanish Grammar (Paperback)

Product came on time, but had to send it back because it was the wrong edition (my mistake), i emailed them and got a quick response on how to return the item