Customer Reviews

Practical Spanish Grammar: A Self-Teaching Guide (Wiley Self-Teaching Guides)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Alright, I have read all the reviews that precede mine and many of them mention the book's one major deficiency -- it has too many typos. Just one example: on page 145, the word "descubrir" ("to discover") is introduced for the first time, appearing there in the main vocabulary list of new words for Chapter 9, and it is misspelled "descrubrir", which is inexcusable. I suspected the misspelling but was not sure until I checked my dictionary and also saw the word spelled correctly in the exercises that followed. This sort of thing is unfortunate in an otherwise fine text.

That said, this book is excellent. I am learning Spanish using this book as my main text. I started studying Spanish using this book in November 2002 and have completed fourteen of its fifteen chapters. It's now the beginning of March 2003 and I am reading the news online in Spanish with almost total comprehension. I had no prior experience with Spanish.

"Practical Spanish Grammar" has many exercises in each chapter covering both vocabulary and grammar and also three major "quizzes" of a hundred questions each covering Chapters 1-5, 6-10, and 11-15. The answers to all exercises and quizzes are given in the back of the book. In my opinion, Professor Prado has done a great job of giving me just what I need (and no more or less) to master new words and new grammatical concepts. The material is presented in a manner that fixes those concepts in my head and reinforces them with the exercises that follow.

When I finish this book, I will start going through Prado's "Advanced Spanish Grammar", which recapitulates and elaborates in more depth upon almost everything presented in "Practical Spanish Grammar" and introduces new concepts besides. Plus, "Advanced Spanish Grammar" is written ENTIRELY in Spanish and, looking ahead, I have found that I already understand it.

Now, there is one more thing: if, like me, you are trying to teach yourself Spanish on your own, you will need more than this book alone. I have purchased a few bilingual books that have texts of Spanish stories on one page and the English translation on the facing page. I don't need to be constantly referring to my dictionary when I read Spanish this way, since the translation is on the facing page. It has been the combination of Prado's "Practical Spanish Grammar" with these bilingual "story books" that have helped me to make so much progress in such a short time, especially with idiomatic expressions and other vocabulary material not found in Prado's book.

Angel Flores' "First Spanish Reader" is the best place to start with these bilingual stories because it's very much designed for the beginner (although many of the stories are real sleepers). Her "Spanish Stories" book seems to be the follow-up; the Spanish is much more advanced and the stories much more interesting. Both of Flores' books have excellent glossaries. John King edited "New Penguin Parallel Texts: Short Stories in Spanish", whose stories are more contemporary in theme and idiom.

And finally, there is a lot of Spanish to be read online for free. You can read a bilingual newspaper (containing English and Spanish side-by-side) ... ("Dos Mundos" bilingual newspaper out of Kansas City).

I don't know Prado and I am not trying to sell anyone's books. I just know that, to my surprise, this approach is working for me and "Practical Spanish Grammar" has been the fulcrum for my efforts. I recommend it highly.

A proposito, in my opinion the paperback version of "The New World Spanish/English English/Spanish Dictionary" is easiest on the eyes and easiest to handle of the dictionaries I have used or examined. Buen viaje!

If you are a visual, structured learner with the long-term goal of fluency, I can think of no better place to start than with PSG. The book is logically structured, comprehensive, and has linear-qualities hard to find in most texts. I probably knew ten words of Spanish when I bought this book and when I finished (five hard months later) I could get almost any point across.

I've found the language business to be a little like the gym business: "Rock hard abs in three minutes a day" is replaced by "Two months to fluency without memorization or conjugation." PSG takes the higher road, making it a serious learning tool ill-suited to the dilettante. Each chapter starts with as many as 100 vocabulary words that must be memorized before even getting into the dialog and grammar discussions. In addition, exercises (with answers in the back) must be completed at the end of each section. If you're willing to put in the time, though, this book will give you a rock-solid foundation in the language.

What bugged me? Prado's clear, concise explanations sometimes seemed a little too concise with regards to complicated subjects. The focus on S. American vs. Spanish dialects wavers constantly, exercises were sometimes lazily conceived, confusing typos and accidental repetition are common, and vocabulary is sometimes less than practical (though if you want to be a weight-loss guru or auto mechanic in Mexico, you'll be set.) Of course, there's also the issue of books teaching you to read and write a language as opposed to speaking it-but that's a limitation of the medium and not the author...

Humble suggestions for Mr. Prado. 1: Use this forum to post a hotmail address and invite people to email you with suggestions on unclear sections and editing errors (assuming you plan to write a 3rd edition of this excellent book.) 2: Bribe some of your Mexican-American students with extra credit to record the books vocabulary, dialogs, etc. and post the recordings to the CSU website in MP3 format.

Despite my nitpicking, this was, for me, the best learning tool available.

I bought this book so I could brush up on Spanish for use at work. I don't know how a complete novice would fare with it; I took several years of Spanish in high school (a long time ago) so I had some prior background in the language. The book is easy to use. The explanations of grammar are fairly clear but some of them could be less concise. I did have some difficulty with one or two points that were completely new to me. The vocabulary lists are mostly relevant for travelers but they do include some terminology related to business and health care. The main thing I do not like about the book is the poor editing. It has a LOT of typographical errors. This is particularly bad when a word in one of the vocabulary lists is spelled incorrectly (more than once for the same word!) Other minor problems are annoying. The exercise sections of the book include space for writing answers but the spaces are not large enough for normal writing. Many of the more advanced grammar exercises should be longer. It would be helpful if the author had recommended Spanish language reading materials appropriate for beginners and/or more reading exercises. Despite the deficient editing the book has been useful. I learned a lot.

This book is a great review of about two to three years of high school Spanish. The book starts out at the basics and builds up through the present subjunctive. Along the way, helpful vocabulary is presented with exercises and interesting dialogue. I really like the way Prado footnotes his vocabulary lists with notes on the usage of certain words. It's a nice touch lacking from all too many texts. The format is very clear, which makes this book a great reference. I gave the book only four stars because it does not go use vosotros and there are a few errors in the exercises. Other than that, this is a great book to review basic Spanish.

This book is just what I wanted: a thorough coverage of grammar with plenty of useful exercises. It even provides 3 exams which are good checkpoints for your progress. On top of this, it introduces the student to plenty (1000?) new words, covering everyday life. It is for serious students, not for someone that needs a quick intro before the next week trip to Cancun.

This book is good in that it explains areas of Spanish well (nouns, verbs, adjectives, the time, etc.) If you want to learn Spanish, and you are a novice, this is the book for you. It talks about what the word is for different countries if they are different (it talks about "vos" being the word for "tú" in Argentina, and it talks about different words for different countries.) It talks about what Mexicans say "Qué horas son" instead of "Qué hora es". This book has few mistakes (which other books do to, at least the one my teacher is using), but you can catch them because it is taught and then sometimes there are mistakes (for example, in the book there is this place where the Spanish says "doce", but it should be "dos".) (Not the part where they teach it.) This has lots of practice problems in it. And, this book has a short section in the beginning about how to pronounce the letters of the Spanish alphabet, and contains how different countries pronounce different letters.

My teacher is teaching me Spanish, and she uses the book Basic Spanish Grammar along with this book. You might perfer Basic Spanish Grammar over this book, or this book over Basic Spanish Grammar. You decide!

If you are an advanced Spanish speaker wanting to learn more about Spanish, I would suggest going with Marcial Prado's book called Advanced Spanish Grammar.

¡Libro bueno! (Good book!)

This book was an excellent overview of the basic Spanish grammar. In the past years I have tried more than 10 different language books on different languages and this book was the best for me. It seems that the author knows the nitty-gritty of language teaching. The exercises help to practice the new material and the exams help to measure the progress. The explanations are concisely written and easy to understand.

This book is excellent for the beginner spanish student who wants to improve his/her basic grammar knowledge through exercises or the intermediate student who wants to review basic principles. I found it a helpful supplement to my beginner spanish course.

I have dozens of Spanish books for self-learners and the Practical Spanish Grammar and Advanced Spanish grammar are clearly the best. Each chapter begins with a comprehensive, relevant (to that chapter) list of vocabulary words. The vocabulary list is annotated with footnotes to differetiate how the meanings of some words may vary from Latin America to Spain, etc. Following the vocabulary are grammar rules. After that are self-correcting exercises using the vocabulary and grammar the student has just studied. The book is organized for the student to learn as efficiently as possible.

The book proves that it is posible to benefit from a highly practical course without leaving the house or paying for classes. The topics reflect subjects students usually ask for: hotel, restaurant, airport. Grammar is presented clearly and in the context, it's like having class with a native speaker. I strongly recomend Practical Spanish Grammar.