Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Past-Tense Verbs Up Close (Practice Makes Perfect Series) [Paperback]

Eric Vogt (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0071492267 | ISBN-13: 978-0071492263 | Publication Date: September 17, 2008 | Edition: 1

Get up close and master Spanish past-tense verbs

As you study Spanish you may view past-tense verbs as obstacles to your full understanding of the language. Learning past-tense verbs can be one of the most frustrating aspects of studying Spanish grammar, but it is also one of the most important for being understood and following what others say. By adding Spanish past-tense verbs to your range of language skills, you will open up a whole new world of communication.

With plenty of opportunities for practice, practice, practice, Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Past-Tense Verbs Up Close helps you better understand the nuances of this tricky grammar element and develop your skills and confidence as a Spanish speaker with:

• Easy-to-absorb explanatory materials, examples, and exercises
• Authoritative guidance on the different verb forms and when to use them
• A comprehensive answer key that not only gives you the correct solutions to the exercises but explains the why behind them

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Eric Vogt, Ph.D., teaches Spanish at Seattle Pacific University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (September 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071492267
• ISBN-13: 978-0071492263
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #123,144 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Eric W. Vogt was born September 15, 1955 in Williamsburg, Virginia. An interesting beginning for one who would go on to become a professor of Golden Age Spanish literature. His passion for the literature of the two centuries of Spain's world empire has driven him to take original manuscripts from the period to produce several critical volumes of drama, poetry and music. He also loves the Spanish language for its own elegance and is passionate about teaching it and making it more teachable.

He is unusual for a Ph.D. because he left academia to create and administer The American National Red Cross Biomedical Translation Bureau for three years. When he returned to academic life in the mid 1990s, he almost immediately published a critical edition and his own translation of St. Teresa of Avila's Complete Poetry -- with a foreword by His Eminence Jaime Cardinal L. Sin of the Republic of the Philippines.

Dr. Vogt enjoys the freedom and opportunities for diffusing knowledge that the internet creates. In very real ways, it is a world that many Renaissance thinkers envisioned.

He has taught international business communications as a member of the faculty of Thunderbird, The American Graduate School of International Management, including some time in Guadalajara, Jalisco. He also teaches privately, online, to specialists in various fields as well as courses to teach translation at www.spanishfacetoface.com.

He keeps busy teaching classes on translation and reviewing books about translation. He frequently writes about language learning and translation on his blog: www.languagelearningtranslation.blogspot.com.

However, his main passion of late has been writing books to help students and teachers of Spanish. He has published three books with McGraw-Hill dealing with aspects of Spanish grammar that are problematic for English speakers: the subjunctive, the pronoun system and the past tenses. He has also published a phrase book for tourists bound for Mexico.

Stay tuned, too, because McGraw Hill has just asked him to write another to address the problem of irregular verbs!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent primer on Spanish Past-Tense Verbs, October 3, 2008

By 

Sumac "Sumac" (Bainbridge Island, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Past-Tense Verbs Up Close (Practice Makes Perfect Series) (Paperback)

Thank Heaven for this little book! I met the author on my bus ride home one day earlier this year. He noticed me plodding through my huge Spanish practice book and correctly noted that I was trying to learn. I now have a copy of this book, and in the first few pages, it cleared up something that I've been trying to figure out since I started studying Spanish in the late 80s--when to use the preterite versus the imperfect! That issue has literally been driving me crazy.

The author gets right to the point and gives you simple, easy-to-remember explanations of how to use the preterite and the imperfect tenses. Within 5 minutes, I felt I had the confidence to finally figure it out. The exercises help you seal in that knowledge and practice, practice, practice!

This book is highly recommended -- get it and learn how to speak the past-tense properly. You won't regret it!

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book on Spanish Past Tenses, September 24, 2008

By 

Brandon Simpson "Small Town Press" - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Past-Tense Verbs Up Close (Practice Makes Perfect Series) (Paperback)

I got this book at a very good time since I'm about to teach my Spanish class the difference between the imperfect and the preterit. I will probably use some of the exercises in this book to help my students understand the past tenses.

Table of Contents

1. The Imperfect: Description and Background
2. The Preterit: Narration, or what happened?
3. The imperfect and the preterit together: Narrating and describing the past
4. The present perfect: What have you done for me lately?
5. The pluperfect: What happened before something else
6. The conditional: What would be and the future of the past
7. The conditional perfect: What would have been
8. The sequence of tenses: Observations on the indicative and the subjunctive

The section on the present perfect is very interesting. The author has noticed that students have been using the English present perfect less and less recently. I have noticed that several of my Spanish-speaking friends use the Spanish present perfect less than I had learned.

Brandon Simpson

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Preterite, imperfect, etc. and I'm feeling so good, July 28, 2009

By 

Marie Anne A. "Mary" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Past-Tense Verbs Up Close (Practice Makes Perfect Series) (Paperback)

What a fantastic, easy review of past tense verbs. It wasn't at all confusing this time. (I've said it before and I'll say it again, some of the Practice Makes Perfect books need to be used in high school foreign language classes.) I had a blast revewing my past tense verbs. I liked that there was Spanish-to-English translation and vice versa. Also nice were the activities where you had to explain why you used a specific tense. The last chapter reviewed tense ordered and had 50 fill-in-the-blank exercises of verb conjugation. The key for this exercise was especially helpful, b/c it told you why you had to use the specific tense.

I enjoyed this book so much that I pulled out my 501 Spanish Verbs to continue reviewing the tenses. I'm not intimidated anymore! :D

Highly recommended!