Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses [Paperback]

Dorothy Richmond (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0844273341 | ISBN-13: 978-0844273341 | Publication Date: January 11, 1996 | Edition: 1

A workbook to help you master Spanish tenses

Some things just take a lot of practice to learn, and verb tenses are one of them! Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses goes beyond the scope of many other books that deal with verbs. Typical verb books often present little more than charts of conjugations with perhaps some mechanical exercises that do little to help you really master when and why a particular verb tense should be used.

Spanish Verb Tenses fills this void by offering clear, concise, and at times, humorous explanations that pinpoint why a certain tense works in a given situation. The hundreds of varied exercises offer the added plus of allowing for lots of practice.

The book is divided into three main parts: Part I deals exclusively with the present tense-including the conjugation of regular verbs, formation of questions, essential differences between ser and estar, use of the personal a, reflexive verbs, and the present progressive mood.
Part II covers the other six tenses of the indicative mood: preterite, imperfect, future, conditional, present perfect, and past perfect.
Part III presents the imperative and the subjunctive, as well as the future perfect, conditional perfect, and the passive voice.

Two appendices complete the text-one lists verb conjugations, and the other highlights certain verbs and their corresponding prepositions. There are also two bilingual glossaries that define vocabulary introduced in the exercises.

As a companion to a basic text, as a review workbook, or as a reference source, Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses is an indispensable tool for all those who want to practice and perfect their use of Spanish verbs.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dorothy Richmond is an experienced teacher of Spanish and successful author of Spanish language-learning grammars.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (January 11, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0844273341
• ISBN-13: 978-0844273341
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (154 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #181,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #27 in Books > Education & Reference > Education > Workbooks

More About the Author

Dorothy Richmond is an experienced teacher of Spanish and the bestselling author of Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

161 of 163 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is so great!, October 18, 2000

By 

Oddzilla - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses (Paperback)

This book and the other Practice-Makes-Perfect workbook by Dorothy Richmond ("Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions") are the best Spanish books I've ever used. I just got back from 2 years in the Peace Corps in Honduras and I studied these books every day. They REALLY helped me learn more Spanish! In addition to the concise, easy-to-understand instruction sections, there's tons of exercises to do (with the correct answers in the back of the book) and as I did the exercises, I picked up all kinds of things that I'd been wondering how to say. I also liked the verb workbook a lot because it went way beyond the present tense, all the way to the subjunctive uses of "haber" and other more advanced things I really wanted to know. (This book is especially great if you already know some Spanish because you need some vocabulary to do the exercises, unless you don't mind looking up lots of words in the dictionary.) I highly recommend this book!

138 of 141 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A course in itself on Spanish verbs- a great resource!, April 23, 2002

By 

Marianopolita2005 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses (Paperback)

This is the only textbook/workbook available on the market so far that is thorough in its objective which is to study, analyze and understand Spanish verb tenses and moods. I deem this workbook as a course in itself on Spanish verbs and the various rules and usage due to the completeness and extensive coverage provided in every chapter. The book provides a summary of the topic to be covered, examples of the verb concept in a phrase, practice exercises and amazingly enough a practice translation which encompass all the verb concepts taught in the chapter and concepts taught progressively throughout the book. The practice exercises allows for immediate application of the concept being reviewed and the answer key at the back allows you correct your exercises and realize your strengths and weaknesses during the learning process.I recommend this book to intermediate and advance level Spanish students as well as native speakers who wish to clarify and perfectionize specific verb concepts that prove to be difficult in Spanish. I have used this book with my students and also for personal clarification of doubts from time to time. This book will definitely prove to be beneficial and can be studied as a course in Spanish verbs. If you follow the lessons chapter by chapter you will realize the correlation from one chapter to the another and therefore progress in your understanding of the concepts being reviewed. You can't go wrong with this purchase as it is educational, economical and an eternal verb resource material. High recommendation given.

98 of 102 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Critique of Spanish Verb Tenses, October 10, 2003

By 

Dan Sehnal (Barcelona, Spain) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses (Paperback)

Verbs are the heart of any language. If you want to become knowledgable and facil at not only conjugting verbs but understanding the contextual usage and rules governing the uses of the verbs, then this is the book for you. I think that anyone interested in studying Spanish, especially if they want to study it on their own, should have this workbook as part of their repertoire. I have found it invaluable. I recommend it highly. (I have also purchased and studied Richmond's Pronouns and Preposition workbook and the reviews are similar.)

I have given the book a 4 star rating rather than five for the following reasons:

1. Lack of an index: (The same is true of the Pronouns and Preposition workbook.) I find it hard to comprehend how a contemporary academic book can be published without an index. There is a tremendous amount of valuable information contained in this book but being limited to the Table of Contents or to ones memory of where a specific item can be found is debilitating. This is a terrible ommission.

2. After studying the book thoroughly twice, my workbook is riddled with tabs and annotations in search of clarifications. A bit of addtional clarification and some additional examples before the author goes off into the exercises would potentially eliminate a considerable amount of confusion. The sections on Ser and Estar are a good example. It appears that sufficient explanaions are provided in the book (in the section on Ser for exaple) until one delves into further exercises in subsequent chapters of the book. There, knowledge of the full use of "Ser" is assumed, but referencing back to the original chapeter on "Ser" leaves one empty handed (in some but not all cases) as to why "Ser" was used rather than "Estar." This might seem picayune until one looks back on the total number of questions raised throughout the book. It is understandable that the author cannot anticipate all possible questions and points of confusion, but a bit more explanation and the use of additional examples would greatly amplify and clarify the grammatical content.

3. The student would also benefit greatly by having additional exercises in the book that mix and match what is learned in previous chapters (This is done is a few limited cases.) It is all too easy as an exercise to answer questions and translate text that directly follows the material being presented, for it is customed tailored to the points being made in that exercise. Addtional end of chapter exercise combining all that has been learned would be a valued addition. With that said, let me also add that the translation paragraphs at the end of each section (as humorous and as enjoyable as they are to translate) somewhat satisfy this contention, but not fully.