Customer Reviews

Spanish: Lonely Planet Phrasebook

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm studying spanish in college as a prospective major, and am traveling to spain in less than a month. This book has tons of sayings that are very useful. Most of them are everyday expresions that native english speakers would not say very colloquially. It's divided up into different sections for easy access to a certain aspect of conversation. It is aimed at European(Spain)spanish and includes a few pages on Basque, Catalan, and Galician sayings. Great for a quick reference.

I bought this book on a whim before traveling to Spain for a summer study abroad trip. It turned out to be one of the most important things I brought with me! Particularly helpful was the food dictionary, which was frequently passed around the table during lunch and dinner (it may save you from ordering baby squids! Unless you're into that sort of thing). It is really a time saver to be able to quickly look up a phrase such as " Do you sell stamps?" instead of studying your spanish dictionary for 20 minutes. I highly recommend that anyone traveling to Spain who is not fluent in spanish take this book with them!

Bought the book before a vacation in Madrid. It was very useful and well organized. When I needed to look up a phrase, I found the book very easy to use. It gave more information that I needed!

I bought this book only because it is sold for Kindle and (I thought) featured audio. Too late I read: "Kindle Edition with Audio/Video Audio/Video content only available for iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touch devices. " I am disappointed....

This guide is small enough to fit in a purse or pocket and full of lots of helpful information. I especially liked the foods section. It was easy to discretely pull it out while we were at the tapas bars and restaurants and figure out what was on the menu. My husband who knew no Spanish before our trip, used the helpful phrases verbatim, whereas I found the short dictionary in the back useful when a I couldn't remember certain words - they were almost always in there. There is even a Catalan and Basque phrase section. Highly recommended if you don't speak fluent Spanish.

My girlfriend and I knew zero Spanish before travelling to Spain. Thanks to this guidebook we were able to get by in all the situations that we encountered. This book is absolutely essential for those who don't know the language, since Spaniards will warm up to you a lot more if you try to speak in their language. My only regret is that there wasn't enough on Catalan, but that is to be expected. Great product.

I just returned from South America (Bolivia and Chile). This book was great to have with me over the past month. There are many instances where it came in handy. It is easy to pack and to carry. I recommend it to anyone traveling abroad to a Spanish speaking country.

This book is everything you'd expect from Lonely Planet. Clear, concise, and easy to comprehend. It gives you all the phrases you'd need when visiting Spain, and then some. I wouldn't be anywhere in Barcelona, Valencia, or Madrid without it.

The Audio CD is a bit pointless other then listening to the Spanish lisp, not to mention, annoying to navigate. Also, one section of the dictionary was upside down (lol), nothing I couldn't figure out though. I was too lazy to exchange it. :P

But yea, no worries in buying this book, and I'm sure all your pages will be right side up. Haha.

Language books are new to me in that now they talk back. When I was young, language books seemed boring, all reading, and no audio capability, but Lonely Planet's new audio Phrasebook with 3500 words in a two-way dictionary and 630 spoken phrases, so you can enter words in Spanish or English, knowing what they mean, so you won't utter something offensive.

The book is well organized, starts with Tools chapters are for reference that I return to, my second favorite area was the Practical area for it covered everyday occurrences, like booking a hotel, asking where the bathroom is, etc. It moves onto it's Social section that teaches with conversational phrases, one's that make sense in English, and work in Spanish, be it to express an opinion on something, but with the idea of these will assist in getting to know people. I liked that intuitive ability, the way the book set up with a goal that worked. And then there is the Food section helped even us vegetarians or gourmet hopefuls. Safety is there too. And since this version I reviewed is an eBook, it has hyperlinks in the table of contents to get where I wanted to go quickly.

I liked the cultural aspects and history given too, for I hadn't remembered where Spanish started. Maps there too. The bookmark feature was useful, for all I had to do was click and then I could easily return where I was. All in all, a useful book. And you don't need an internet connection at all, it's all there, as I use it on my iPhone or iPad.

Audio CD was not helpful to me. I felt that I could not listen to audio CD in a car while driving unless I could follow along with the book. I expected the audio CD to be more helpful while driving. The audio CD should have translated each Spanish phrase to English.