Customer Reviews

Rick Steves' Spanish Phrase Book and Dictionary

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This phrase book was a great resource. My Spanish is okay, but not stellar, and this book gave me the extra that I needed to feel comfortable with my spoken Spanish. When I needed to know how to say something, I was always able to either find it, or piece it together from this book. The organization of the book made sense to me, making it easy to find what I was looking for as quickly as possible.

Just enough information and just the right size for taking along wherever you go in Spain. It got me out of a jam on a number of occasions by providing just the right phase at just the right time. Don't leave home without it.

It's actually quite a nice introduction to Spain.

Funny in parts!

Here's a sample of how good it is: it lists a bunch of words that are the same in English as they are in Spanish. What a great idea! Right there, I basically learned a bunch of Spanish.

Ooh, and in the inside covers are "Survival Phrases". My wife and I are learning one per day. I figure, even with just these, I'm SO much better off than the average tourist.

What I know cold:

Lo siento = I'm sorry
Por favor = Please
Gracas = Thank you
Hi! Do you speak English? = Hola! Habla usted Ingles?

I'll keep working on the rest.


A+

This little book contains very essential phrases that you need to know. Also i liked that the book is small enough to carry around in my travels to South American & Mexico.

I bought this book for a trip to Argentina. I know different countries speak variations on the same language - the English we speak isn't identical to what you hear in the UK, for example - but I didn't know how relatively useless this book would be there.

I found some words and phrases I needed, and the content at the beginning, the numbers, days of the week, months, and so on, were useful, especially the counting, because numbers are always the hardest to grasp in another language. The dictionary, greatly truncated as these usually are, has lots of helpful words, in both Spanish-English and English-Spanish.

I also thought the tear-out cheat sheet, printed on heavier paper, was handy, and appreciated the sly funny stuff Steves has slipped into the book - the handy phrases for picking up women, or for imploring the speed-demon taxi driver to slow down. The situational phrase section, covering what you need to know to travel, eat out, get medical care, and so on, were also useful, for the most part.

My complaint is that there is no acknowledgment of linguistic differences between Spain and the rest of the Spanish-speaking world. So I couldn't use much of the dining-out section, for example, because cuts of meat have different names in Argentina than they do in Spain. (I can't speak for Venezuela and Bolivia and Uruguay and Colombia and..., although I asume that they also have their own variations on the language.) And I didn't find some of the phrases I needed translated from Spanish to English, because the Argentines don't always use the "standard" Spanish words.

So while I'm sure this book is excellent for travel in Spain, I think the title is misleading - it should be retitled "Spanish Phrase Book and Dictionary FOR TRAVELERS TO SPAIN."

It's only marginally useful in other countries.

Excellent small word-and-phrase book to carry. You can look up how to say "Don't serve me anything with eyeballs". And it's small enough to carry in a day bag our your hip pocket.

My husband and I used this over and over again during our recent trip to Spain. I like how the section names are written on the edge of each page, it made it easy to just "flip-book" the pages quickly and find the section we needed. We successfully translated menu items (though it was missing some things), ordered food, asked for the food to be warmed up, asked the gas station attendant to fill the tank, spoke to the information agent at the bus station and got several items from the pharmacy when I got a cold. Small enough to fit easily in my day bag, it was very, very helpful.

All of Rick Steves Books are so easy to use and helpful. I have had language books by other companies and Rick Steves is the easiest to use. I used his German book when my son and I went to Germany last year and it was so helpful. I just bought Spanish and French Phrase Book and Dictionary. His guide books are the best too.

Thank goodness for Rick Steves, I'd have been lost in Spain without his guide book and this phrase book. This was a really good buy!

I have access to the Rosetta stone spanish software, the "Learn to speak" spanish software and this little book. I like the fact that this little book takes me straight into everyday sayings and that phrases are grouped by where you'll use them, e.g. Counting, Eating, Traveling, asking for Help. It's small so I carry it around in my purse. Although the speech recognition of Rosetta stone and software like it is awesome, you can't easily use it when you're at a cafe or out hiking in the wilderness. This book may not be able to correct my pronunciation, but it is a heck of a lot cheaper and easy to use.