Customer Reviews

Spanish Phrases for Landscaping Professionals

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

 

 

I've been in the landscaping business in Colorado for twelve years, and I wish I'd had this book before now. We have many Spanish speaking workers in Colorado, and this book comes in handy every day. It has especially helped facilitate the process of hiring and training new employees. The phonetics and the layout are easy to understand and read. I am finally able to communicate more effectively with my workforce. This book has proved to be an invaluable resource.

Great book!

It's separated into different chapters based on different kinds of landscaping work (papaerwork, masonry, laying sod), and provides complete sentences, with pronunciation guide and English translation, that you can turn to and use immediately. It also has a very useful vocabulary list in the back. It won't take the place of a series of night classes at the local technical college, but it will get you through the work week.

If you already speak a little spanish, this is a 5 star book.

Downside? There are some typos (misplaced or missing accent marks, wrong gender for noun) that will make the some-spanish speakers a little crazy, and make the non-spanish speakers look like fools to their hispanic workers.

Still, I take this book to work with me every day.

This is a great book for those working in the landscape industry. It is not a good fit for regular homeowners dealing with a landscaper/gardner. This book will help in giving complex instructions (how to put fuel into lawnmowers, how long the workday will be, how not to get injured, how to install a sprinkler system). It will not help with asking the lawn to be mowed or checking an individual sprinkler head or cutting back growth or all the small things a homeowner usually has done around the yard.

In an industry with an increasing percent of Spanish Speaking employees, this book helps a manager with a basic understanding of the pronunciation of Spanish to communicate key work-related information.

It is apparent as I reference this manual that the direct limitation is in how limited the phrases are as it applies to usage in settings other than the landscape industry. Granted, there are other useful phrases that have enabled me to communicate better than I have prior to owning this manual. However, the gap present, and, by no fault of the authors, is one that does not present langauge that allows me to effectively direct in the nursery/greenhouse environment. Regardless, Holben & Arbini are to be commended for taking that all too important first step in assisting those of us deficent in the language arts. I'm pleased with the purchase. It supports me greatly in it's own way.