32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The hottest, comprehensive book on Spanish slang ever!, November 6, 2006
This review is from: The Red-Hot Book of Spanish Slang: 5,000 Expressions to Spice Up Your Spainsh (Paperback)
Of all the books I have read on Spanish slang and idioms, this is by far the best I have ever seen. It's quite comprehensive and well documented by country and region, easily accessible by Spanish to English, English to Spanish entries. One of the great pluses of this edition is that native readers from several Spanish-speaking countries contributed in developing the final manuscript. Thus, regional variations are clearly delineated, which makes this book so highly valuable. You can easily dispense with the authors's previously published book, especially the popular Street Spanish series, and make this your "bible" on Spanish slang. First rate! Indispensable!
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must have resource-, March 3, 2007
This review is from: The Red-Hot Book of Spanish Slang: 5,000 Expressions to Spice Up Your Spainsh (Paperback)
This new release of Spanish idioms and slang is without a doubt an invaluable resource for anyone who speaks Spanish or is learning the language. A difficult aspect of language learning is mastering idioms and slang as well as knowing how to use them correctly. Since Spanish has a vast diversity of lexicon and idiomatic expressions a book like this is a must have and it also makes for interesting reading. Compiled by native speakers of all the Spanish-speaking countries you can enjoy exploring a very important aspect of the Spanish language via a well-compiled and organized resource.
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Review of The Red-Hot Book of Spanish Slang, September 6, 2009
This review is from: The Red-Hot Book of Spanish Slang: 5,000 Expressions to Spice Up Your Spainsh (Paperback)
This is James from James Spanish (the learning Spanish blog). Learning Spanish from academic courses is great, but if you want to travel, work or live in a Spanish speaking country you will need a bit of help to avoid looking stupid from time to time. Every language has its own slang expressions that can catch out even the most fluent of Spanish students. This great book covers a huge range of phrases, expressions, and idioms to help you understand Spanish slang.
The book introduces common colloquial or slang terms from many different Spanish speaking countries around the world, highlighting different expressions used in different regions to give you a strong understanding of the local language. What is harmless in one country may be considered shocking in another, so be sure to pay attention to the geography of each expression before you travel.
The book isn't afraid to show you some of the more rude or vulgar slang. This will not only help you to identify when someone is being offensive, but can also help you to avoid an accidental slip of the tongue. (Some words are dangerously similar and changing a single letter can change the whole meaning.)
Spanish is an extremely expressive language, and some might argue that it has many more slang expressions than English. Certainly the expressions are much stranger, with origins so well hidden that they seem obscure. This book sheds some light on seemingly bizarre phrases, and also gives you a more interesting vocabulary to use in conversations.
While you wouldn't want to rely solely on this book to provide you with your Spanish vocabulary it is a great addition to your reference library, adding plenty of fun to your learning.
Many of the expressions in the book are what give extra life to a conversation, and are useful to know if you want to express strong emotions or reactions, as well as engage in a more informal tone with people that you meet.
Speaking a second language in a crowd of native speakers can often leave you feeling like the outsider, as you miss an `in joke' and can only express yourself in the stuffy language that you have learned from courses and tutors. This book will help you to join in and be more expressive.
This book is highly popular with Spanish students really seeking to converse while abroad, and it's not hard to see why.
In closing my review of this product, I'd like to share with you the three Amazon products that I have found most helpful in my pursuit to learn Spanish. If you are truly serious about achieving fluency, I'd recommend getting all 3 of them if you can afford it.
1.
Lights, Camera, Spanish (Book + DVD): Learn Conversational Spanish by Watching a Romantic Adventure This is actually a 90 minute movie for Spanish-language learners. It gives the option to watch the movie with subtitles but I'd recommend not using them to improve your Spanish. This "movie" also includes a workbook so that you can reinforce the Spanish vocabulary words and phrases from the film. The workbook also has lots of exercises to keep you engaged in the film. But be prepared to hear Chilean accents. Although pleasent to the ear, the accents from Chile are very different from most Latin American accents.
2.
Verbarrator Version 1.1 (Windows Version) This software replaces the traditional verb conjugation books and makes learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs an interactive and fun activity. This should be a required resource for anyone who wants to improve their ability to conjugate Spanish verbs. Especially anyone who is challenged by the drudgery of learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs and who is looking for a new way to make learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs an easy and fun activity
3.
Diccionario esencial de la lengua espanola de la Real Academia Espanola (Spanish Edition) If you are really serious about speaking the language fluently, then at some point you will need to replace your Spanish-English dictionary and get a pure Spanish dictionary with both the vocabulary words and the definitions entirely in Spanish. I use this one only because it was highly-recommended by a friend from Spain who teaches Spanish.
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