Most Helpful Customer Reviews
161 of 162 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best advanced grammar available, October 15, 2003
I have over 20 years experience as a college teacher of Spanish and as a federally certified Spanish court interpreter and, in my opinion, this volume is without equal among Spanish grammars. What you find here is not available anywhere else: an empirical, scholarly presentation of Spanish as it is spoken throughout the Spanish-speaking world. This is not an intermediate grammar as some reviewers have asserted. It is not a repetition of conventional grammar rules as they have been handed down for generations. There are much simpler books that explain the use of the subjunctive, the mechanics of noun-adjective agreement, verb conjugation etc. Rather, this book describes how literate people in different countries (or regions of countries) use the language in real life. It tells you to what extent they respect the traditional academic rules of grammar, and to what extent they break them and change them. In other words, it tells you what the living rules of the language are in distinct places. All of this is supported by copious citations from the writings of novelists, scholars, journalists, etc. making it an eminently readable book. It's very easy to pick it up to search for the answer to a specific question and end up reading for an hour because it contains so much fascinating information. In short, it is a superb and eminently useful piece of scholarship, which belongs on the shelf of any serious student of the language.
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62 of 62 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excelente y completo, ¡bravo!, May 11, 2001
This is the best guide by far that I've seen to Spanish grammar. It has everything in it, covering even obscure topics that other books ignore, such as the future subjunctive and the neuter ello. What makes the book particularly interesting is that it discusses Spanish as it is actually written and spoken, not just how the grammarians would have it. And it's quite up to date, also, discussing, for example, how Spanish makes plurals of the numerous English words that have entered the vocabulary in recent years. What is also interesting is that the book explains how the language is used in different countries. It's the first book I've seen that truly gives a feel for the differences between Spanish Castilian and Latin American Spanish (and the differences in the different varieties of Latin American Spanish). The book supports its explanations with numerous examples taken from contemporary writing throughout the Spanish-speaking world. This book is truly an astounding resource, well worth the price.
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56 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Forced to buy it, opted to read it!, September 7, 2000
As a Spanish major in college, I didn't feel like buying any more grammar books to read since they got so damn expensive and I hardly needed to use them (they were kinda ineffective). But, little did I know would I be making an investment of a lifetime with 'A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish'. I sat down one night and, hestitantly, I opened the book...hours later, I was still reading it. I am very much into detail, and man, this book has got details! I love it now and I will never use another grammar reference guide again. So if you want to dissect the Spanish language, I throw my support to this book.
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