34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Better for teachers than students, September 2, 2004
This review is from: Ingles Para Dummies (Paperback)
I found this book to be quite useful for me, as I am a teacher of beginning English in classes comprised mostly of latinos. I speak and read Spanish at least half as well as English. Ingles para Dummies has a lot of lists of vocabulary and of expressions, and pages of examples I can incorporate into my lessons. But it is not likely to be useful for its avowed purpose, that is, for a student trying to learn English by him/herself.
It begins with two chapters, the first being all about pronunciation, and the second being an introduction to English grammatical structure. Only in the third chapter does it begin to give the student things to say. Of course, a student will have no idea what the rules of pronunciation and grammar are all about before he gets things to say in the language. Rules are inferred from usage, not the other way around. The first priority of anyone learning a language is communication.
When I teach, I start off with "I am Ned," "you are Alfonso", "she is Maria", etc. My students first learn to talk to one another, and in the process pick up pronouns and verb conjugation implicitly. This book wants the reader to learn a list of words first, and only later discover the utterances that the words fit into.
As to the very difficult pronunciation in English compared to Spanish, the book makes no attempt to teach its readers the correct pronunciation of English short vowels or "th" or "sh." It orthographizes "This is Kevin" as "Dis is Kevin" which would be pronounced by the Spanish-speaker as "Dees ees Kayveen". Not good.
Of course, it goes without saying that one can't learn any language from just a book. One has to have a human, a teacher or friend, to provide the sounds, intonation and rhythm. Bottom line: Ingles para Dummies is a decent reference, but a poor maestro.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not exactly for dummies, January 10, 2007
This review is from: Ingles Para Dummies (Paperback)
I use this book to help my Mexican boyfriend learn more English for his job. This is the second book we have purchased, and while it is VERY in-depth for a beginner book, it is somewhat overwhelming and off-putting. Since I am a native English speaker, I am able to unravel some confusion for him that might otherwise have remained unclear. The material is good, but a little bit too grammar-oriented for the novice English student.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Muy Bueno!, November 16, 2002
This review is from: Ingles Para Dummies (Paperback)
Realmente util, son capitulos que van paso a paso descubriendo los tips del idioma ingles, puedes empezarlo del capitulo que te sea comodo, de acuerdo a tu conocimiento, te aconsejo revisarlo todo.
Esta acompañado de un CD, para afianzar el oido, quiza, le falte practica de escrituta.
Una buena inversion!!
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