Customer Reviews

The Red-Hot Book of Spanish Slang: 5,000 Expressions to Spice Up Your Spainsh

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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!

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.

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.

Spanish is an exceptionally rich and diverse language! It is the daily tongue of about two dozen countries across North America, Central America, South America, Europe, and Africa, and frequently spoken in many other lands... including by some 40 million people in the USA.

While a decent knowledge of the "textbook" core language will allow you to function in each of these places, knowing the "local flavor" is essential if you really want to communicate effectively (and avoid potentially embarrassing slips of the tongue). With both Spanish-English and English-Spanish sections, this book is an excellent reference that will help endear you to audiences that will appreciate your taking the effort to better understand them, as well as keep you out of trouble with those who might take offense at a phrase that is perfectly acceptable in a neighboring region.

If you're looking to tweak your Spanish remarks with just the right added zing, you can be secure in knowing that the authors have done a thorough country-by-country review of the appropriateness (or lack thereof) of these expressions.

I was planning a two week long trip to Spain, and in my search for translation books I came across this gem.

One of the best aspects of this book is that it denotes which country the phrase is from, thus, preventing you from uttering certain phrases which may be innaprioriate for the country which you are visiting. :-)

This book alone has created some of the funniest memories from my trip in Spain... On an 11 hour train ride across the country, I met many other friendly travelers in the dining car. Having met some locals, and talking with them to the best of my ability in Spanish (and met those limits rather quicky, lol) I decided to go back to my seat and grab this book. I as well as the other Spaniards in the dining car browsed through this book and when we came across funny phrases, we acted them out like pictionary, and used body language to convey our thoughts. The whole thing was hilarious, and it made the 11 hour train ride go by very pleasantly. I also learned what the word "besos" meant, which was promptly demonstrated to me via a sneak attack by a very cute Spaniard. :-)

[See also the review for Dictionary Of Spanish Slang and Colloquial Expression by Michael Mahler]

This volume uses different expressions than the above-mentioned, which is also recommended, but where some words are shared, e.g, desconojarse, to laugh one's a** off, this volume can be more polite, due to (possibly) women translating these expressions, as opposed to men [not to be sexist]. Still, as mentioned in the Mahler review, Calo, or Gutter Spanish [out of print] is the most direct [and it's a much thinner book]. Like with the Mahler book, it could do with a pronunciation guide, otherwise, a fine book. [This is the "real" Spanish most of us weren't taught in school, much like with German and any other foreign language.]

A fun book and very easy to navigate both from the spanish side and the english. Lots of idiomatic expressions that are actually used on the streets today. If you're an intermediate to advanced learner of Spanish and want to move to the next level in conversing with real native speakers, then I recommend this book and Advanced Spanish Grammar: A Self-Teaching Guide (Wiley Self-Teaching Guides) and you will be on your way to fluency!

This book is such fun, you can pick it up & surf its pages at random, learning all kinds of useful expressions. On the spanish side, they give a literal translation of the words in parenthesis .. which often are hilarious) and then what it would equate to in idiomatic english. Example: to window shop = echar un taco de ojo which literally means 'to throw a taco of the eye'. This can also be used by guys or gals checking out the opposite sex.

In short, loads of fun & useful everyday expressions. Definitely recommended.

If you are looking for phrases with strong language then this book won't help much. It is the most comprehensive that I've looked at but several phrases that I tried to find were missing and, while it does have some "adult" phrases, it falls short of what you might hear if you make someone particularly angry.

This book is an excellent addition for anyone trying to advance their Spanish skills. Particularly helpful are the word-for-word
translations of most of the expressions, which improves your vocabulary while teaching idiomatic expressions. And learning
common expressions is fun and practical.

Your book arrived safely and in excellent condition. I'm really enjoying it and have recommended it to my college friends. Two of them have already bought their own copies and are having as much fun as I am with Red Hot Spanish Slang.