Customer Reviews

Spanish for Reading: A Self-Instructional Course

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Reading is not a bad way to learn a romance language like Spanish. You can start by reading this book. Then you can hammer down what you've learned and build your vocabulary by reading Spanish-language books. (Amazon has numerous dual-language Spanish/English books.) Then you can go to Mexico to get practice speaking and listening.

The authors give thoughtful advice about how to use this book. Included in that advice is the recomendation that you spend eighty to one-hundred twenty hours mastering its contents. This advice proved useful to me. I was growing frustrated at one point. Then I reviewed my log of hours spent learning, and I discovered I was going way too fast. So I slowed down, reviewed carefully, and then I proceeded at a more realistic pace.

One thing. On page 109 there are two columns labeled "Indirect object" and "Direct object". These labels are reversed. You'd be able to figure that out on your own, but now you don't have to. (You're welcome.)

As a companion to this text, I used "Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses." Sometimes I needed a different perpective to understand a particular grammatical point. These two books articulate well. One gives you thoughtful, sophisticated readings and invites you to translate them into English; the other gives you English passages and invites you to translate them into Spanish. Practice makes Perfect goes into more detail on what it covers, but Spanish for Reading covers all the fundamental parts of speach, not just verbs (although of course verbs are eighty to eighty-five percent of learing Spanish).

For your eighty-to-one-hundred-twenty hours you get all the fundamental parts of speach for Spanish, plus about two thousand vocabulary words. The book contains numerous useful and interesting exercises. With the aid of a dictionary, you will be able to read right away after learning this book. When you have built up your vocabulary, you can throw away the dictionary.

This is a beautifully structured book for teaching yourself to read Spanish (not to write or speak it). I'd taken some Spanish in high school and a semester in college--fifteen years ago--and I needed to prepare for a language exam required by my doctoral program. A friend lent me his collection of books, CDs, and flash cards for learning Spanish but said that this book was the main thing I needed. It's all I really used (plus I did a few practice translations from books in my field), and I passed my exam. Now I've borrowed a copy of "French for Reading," also co-authored by Karl Sandberg, to prepare for my French exam.

This book will have you reading complex paragraphs in 15 minutes. If you need to learn Spanish to read, it is all you need to start with; if you need to learn Spanish to write or speak, it is still the best way to start. Uses programmed learning: incremental increases, instant feedback, and very logical approach. No drills, no looking up vocabulary, nothing but reading, at an interesting, intelligent level. Immediately builds confidence. Buy this book now if you're trying to learn Spanish!

I can only echo what the other reviewers have said. This book takes the reader step by step to proficiency in reading Spanish. The exercises are thoughtfully planned, and you feel like an experienced teacher is guiding you through the process. This is an excellent tutorial on learning to read Spanish. It's a great value for the price. Highly recommended.

The premise sounds good: each chapter concludes with a passage of "real" Spanish, several of them by noted authors, which the preceding material prepares you to read. But of course the authors can't avoid presenting the grammar in the usual orderly way, with a new tense today and a new set of pronouns tomorrow. The two approaches don't quite mesh, and to see why that might be, just imagine that you've been sent to the library in search of a single page of Jane Austen or John Steinbeck that illustrates the use of the subjunctive. I wish it weren't so, but I suspect that after all the best way to begin a language is the traditional suffering through a lot of synthetic sentences designed to emphasize the concept you are studying at the moment. And anyway, the readings here aren't all gems: the admirable but mind-numbingly dull sociological essay in chapter 12 left me longing for the sort of prose you find in a more traditional self-teaching book, about Juan and Maria and the muchas cosas interesantes they saw at the market.

Another remarkable thing about this book is how little the authors have to say. They're hardly there at all; a few brief tips and you're off into the exercises. Academic readers used to solving their own puzzles won't mind this so much, but that doesn't make it a virtue. I'm also not convinced that those learning a language for academic purposes need a special pedagogic approach, not at the introductory level. In fact if I were you, I'd get a copy of Madrigal's Magic Key To Spanish, and tear the cover off if you're afraid someone will see the title. In contrast to Spanish For Reading, that book has a time-tested organization, a dumbed-down affability which you can learn to live with, even an occasional faint hint of humor. Weirdly enough, at the end of the day I think it also contains a more complete and thorough immersion in Spanish grammar.

In addition to previous reviews.

Very well thought-out course. Inventive cognitive tasks. Awakens Spanish intuition (and in this aspect is similar to children's way of learning a language). Concise, down-to-earth, no-nonsense coursebook for independent study.

In addition to this book you still need a dictionary, a grammar reference and maybe a conversational course/practice. But it's a must-have for anyone who needs to jump-start their perception of Spanish sentence structures!

Reading passages progress from geographical/cultural notes (with maps) to excerpts from Spanish literature.

Grammar topics do not correspond to what's found in regular grammar courses and this sets you thinking.

The book takes a "cognates" approach which presents you words similar to their English equivalents first. Looking at words you can recognise you may guess the meaning of the rest in a given sentence.

Illustrations are mostly random images of the Spanish world, however their cultural span may entice you to look up certain landmarks or places.

Absolutely recommended to absolute beginners!

It's been less than two weeks since I bought this book. I'm about halfway through it. (I will update this review when I'm finished!) IT REALLY WORKS. First, I probably should share my back story:

I have tried to learn Spanish for quite a few years now. It's mostly been a slap-dash self-taught effort, with the help of instructional books and dictionaries. No formal training except for a few barely-remembered semesters of Spanish in high school. I mostly have tried to *read* in Spanish (though writing/speaking are future goals). About 5 years ago I put more work into working on reading, and was getting decent comprehension, though at times it was like looking through a dirty window--you get the basic idea of what's going on, but some of the color and detail are lost. After a while, real life intervened and I had to drop my progress with Spanish reading. Now just recently I've decided to try again, and was fortunate to discover this book, which is JUST what I'm looking for.

Okay, so buried in the recesses of my mind are a lot of the words I learned 5 years ago (and before), but just prior to getting this book, reading Spanish was frustrating because I wasn't "connecting the dots" consistently.

Now, less than two weeks after starting this book (and currently in the middle of Chapter 7--halfway through this 15 chapter book), it's like a light switch has been turned on. I honestly feel like my understanding of Spanish is "clearer" and more fluid than it was 5 years ago (though don't get me wrong, I still have a ways to go!) and in large part that is due to being taught the "right" way this time around--being introduced to tenses and turns of phrase and many other good things that I didn't properly familiarize myself with in the past. (Too impatient, I guess.)

I have been studying about 2 or more hours a night. I break the study sessions into shorter 30 minute intervals, like the book suggests. I also do some periodic backtracking and "reviewing" of previous chapters to keep everything fresh in my mind.

At this pace, I might complete the book in another two or three weeks, but it might be longer than that. But in any case, since the book says it can be completed in 80-120 hours (and this is for people who are assumed to have no background in Spanish) then I can expect to finish the book within a few weeks, assuming that I continue to do 2 hours a night.

One thing I am trying very hard to avoid is getting too impatient. There is no use in rushing through the book and then finding yourself lost when it comes to reading the real thing. But even with careful review, and going over areas that I feel need more review, it's progressing fairly quickly, which is very gratifying indeed! (A caveat, I am a fairly fast reader, so this might help a *little* in speeding things up for me, but with this kind of study, I don't think it's making that huge of a difference.)

If you have previous Spanish experience, even from High School (which is as we all know, usually pretty inadequate) then you may find that all that dormant Spanish education will pop back into your mind as you follow along with this book. Be patient with yourself and faithfully follow along, and you'll find that it really does work!

If you have no prior experience with Spanish, I am confident that you'll get equally good results as long as you put in the required time and are patient with yourself.

After this book, my next goal is to improve my Spanish writing and speaking, which is not something this book is claiming to cover. (But I know it will definitely help!) I plan on studying some of the "Practice Makes Perfect" workbooks to improve writing/speaking. But at the moment I am focusing on *reading* because I do believe that being an avid and active reader in whatever language you are trying to learn makes everything else (writing, grammar, spelling) come easier down the road.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Just keep in mind, follow the recommendations of half-hour study sessions, and don't rush! You don't need to, because before you know it you'll be reading Spanish!

UPDATE March 14, 2010: Well, I am finishing up the last chapter, so am about a day or two away from being "done." It took longer than I expected to finish, because I got caught up in reading other Spanish books! Just last night I finished reading a novel in Spanish. (I read it side-by-side with the English version, which aided me in learning.) I wouldn't have wanted to read the Spanish version as a standalone book just *yet*, the fact is that I got much of what it was about before double-checking with the English version, which is quite encouraging. What is required now is more time and practice, and building up my vocabulary more.

This book really does work, but I'm finding that I struggled with the verb tenses. I'm going to review this book to strengthen my understanding of verbs, and I'll get a "Practice Makes Perfect" book on Spanish verbs. Also I'll continue with other Spanish books on writing and grammar, so I can continue in my learning of this language.

I have also purchased an electronic dictionary application for my computer, which helps me look up works when I'm reading Spanish articles online. This particular application also has a "flash cards" feature, so I'm building up a collection of flash cards of words I should know. This is also really helping.

I love this book for many reasons. It is well thought out and the stories carefully chosen for both pedagogical and cultural purposes. It makes learning fun and includes enough repetition that you assimilate a lot of vocabulary almost effortlessly. The same can be said for learning grammar and good sentence construction.

I am one of those people who have a lot of difficulty learning a language and find an audio approach tedious. This book gave me the conceptual framework and confidence to pursue more traditional methods of learning a language.

While this book won't build much conversational skill, it will certainly support and reinforce such methods. For those who have only pursued conversational Spanish, it will serve as a fun way to review and to enjoy what you have learned when there is no one to talk to in Spanish.

This book is entirely appropriate for beginners and advanced beginners. It is progressive and the pace was just right for me. I wasn't frustrated at all going through the progression and it was just challenging enough to stay interesting without being overwhelming.

I can't say enough about this book... I'll probably say too much.

First, this book teaches you to READ Spanish. You aren't going to learn speaking, listening comprehension, or writing. Other reviewers who seem a bit disappointed with the book, should...well, they might start off by reading the cover! It delivers exactly what it promises.

I do want to learn to speak and understand Spanish, but I also want to read Spanish periodicals. Typical conversation discourse (Formulaic greetings, utilitarian language such as asking directions, etc.) is different from written text (essays, articles, poetry, fiction.) Also, typically, literate adults can advance much faster with the passive skill of reading, than they can with active skills such as speaking and writing.

One reviewer said this book is not for beginners. I don't understand this. Any fairly literate could probably comprehend much of the essay material by simply by recognizing the Latinate cognates. However, if your first language is non-Western, yes, this book would be too difficult.

The unique feature of this book is the preparation for reading an extended passage. Other beginning readers have some kind of vocabulary feed in the form of a list. The lists are either in an inconvenient place that requires flipping back and forth, or, if it is on the same page as the text, you're in effect getting a simultaneous translation, not acquiring the vocabulary. Spanish for Reading introduces the vocabulary and grammar points you'll encounter step-by-step in contextualized sentences.

As another reviewer mentioned, the book does require time and work. You can't be completely passive. The book ensures you aren't. You are required to check your understanding as you proceed. By the time you reach the chapter essay, you've acquired the necessary language to read it with fluency. A vocabulary list shouldn't be necessary if you've done the work.

If you want to learn to read Spanish, this is the book to start with. It would also be an excellent supplement to any Spanish course that teaches all skills.

I had to take a written translation test and found this very useful. Most materials are designed to help you speak - you spend a lot of time trying to *recall* spanish. If you only need to *recognize* spanish, don't waste your time with the other stuff - use this book.