Customer Reviews

First Spanish Reader: A Beginner's Dual-Language Book (Beginners' Guides) (English and Spanish Edition)

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

First Spanish Reader: A Beginner's Dual Language Book, is an excellent beginner book for the Spanish neophyte or for the individual with some background in Spanish that needs a little refreshing. It contains 41 short stories/proverbs in somewhat graded difficulty of well-known Spanish writers past and present. Spanish verbal forms, that bugaboo for most students of Spanish, are arranged so that the first 15 selections are in the present-indicative, after which imperfect-indicative and preterite are introduced, followed by future and conditional verbs towards the end. No subjunctive verb forms are found in this small volume. Idiomatic Spanish is introduced as well, using common idioms understood in all parts of Spanish-speaking world.

The choice of selections reflects the Spanish culture well and is excellent, often highly amusing, and arranged so that short and long selections are interspersed.

In the rear of the book, oral and written exercises regarding each selection are especially helpful if this book is to be used in the pedagogical setting. Additionally, a thorough vocabulary, referenced for the selections presented, rounds out this book.

Editor Angel Flores has done a remarkable job with this book. I would highly recommend it for the beginning Spanish student or those who wish to brush up on their prior Spanish.

Classy and elegant are the first words that come to mind upon going through the first few pages of this book.

The book is a selection of stories, or their portions, from the original literature, ranging from the medieval times to the first half of the 20th century, and covering both Spanish and Latin American authors. In addition, it has an occasional interlude consisting of a short poem or a selection of proverbs to tempt the neophite into further exploring the richness of the Spanish language. Being a dual-langage book, the english translation of a story appears on a facing page. I found the translation of varying utility in nailing down the nuances, but the glossary at the end of the book is quite good, so one can read without a separate dictionary at least on the first pass.

The book generally avoids the use of subjunctive and introduces the past tense only in the middle. I had thought that this would make the stories look emaciated, as is the case with a number of such readers I'd seen. Somehow, it does not happen with Flores' delightful volume; if anything, it drives the point home that verbs is not all there is to a language, rich vocabulary and phraseology are just as important, and Flores' selections definitely get across that aspect of the beauty and expressiveness of the Spanish language.

As you work through this reader, more likely than not, your motivation to keep going with your Spanish and, furthermore, to get familiar with its rich literature, will be reinforced tremendously. It will also encourage you to venture into unabridged novels and stories in Spanish sooner than you had thought possible.

Finally, an attractive price helps make it a real winner.

Excellent reader for beginners. It is broken in to "tense" sections, i.e. present tense, past, subjunctive, etc. I read it outloud with my tutor and it is very helpful. I would highly recommend it.

I was very disappointed in this reader. The stories are all old fables with antiquated language...less helpful for the modern reader.

A few of these old stories are charming....but they soon lose their charm when you hit your ninth or tenth one.

I would recommend a more contemporary book that would suit the average taste....this one is not for everybody.

I bought this book to use in a Spanish Literature class for many age ranges. I decided against it because the English translation was too accessible to my students, and I feared that they would use it as a crutch.

However, for the more discplined, self-teachers, I recommend this book highly, as long as you read it aloud. If you want to speak Spanish, practice by Speaking Spanish. Great for mid-level speakers of ages eleven and up I'd say. For younger children, try Flip Flop Spanish.

This is an excellent book. The use of Spanish is very consistent with authentic styles of expression. The primary issue however, is that this is not a book for beginners. I studied Spanish in high school, and then returned to serious study starting five years ago. I now take a private advanced Spanish class and teach Spanish to beginners at a community adult school. I rate this book at an intermediate level. Beginners won't be able to understand it well and this will cause needless frustration and discouragement. I've worked in this book with another advanced student who also teaches beginning Spanish and we have concurred that the vocabulary alone is above the beginner level, not to mention the colloquial grammar (i.e. this book does not limit itself to the simple grammar that beginning students have learned from the typical Spanish language textbook)... The title should be: Spanish Reader for Intermediate Level Spanish Students. Not as elegant, but far more accurate.

This is an excellent reader for use in a class where the instructor assigns readings from it and subsequently goes over them in class. However, students attempting to learn Spanish on their own are reminded that good knowledge of vocabulary and grammar is very difficult to acquire simply via comparing a translated version of a story with the original.

This book was just what I hoped for: short stories in relatively easy Spanish, with facing English text to check when you're not sure you understand something. Resist the temptation to "cheat" and you'll find you understand a lot more than you think you do. If you've learned almost exclusively spoken Spanish, as I have, you sometimes have to look carefully at a word and think about it before you slap your forehead and say, "Por supuesto! Yo entiendo." Enjoy

I was intrigued at how I imagined a dual language book to work, it was well versed, and has a great selection of writings. This was very enjoyable as a bedtime reader and since the writings were by different people, you get exposure to a number of uses in verbs as well as sentence structure, of which you can not get using a single study course.

the spanish english translation is excellent.. contains very interesting and short captivating stories of 1 to 2 pages. contains translated common proverbs.. It is a small book that is instructive and entertaining. I highly recommen it