Customer Reviews

The Ultimate Spanish Verb Review and Practice (UItimate Review & Reference Series)

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I want to be the first to review this extraordinary book as I am already a happy (and frequent) user of The Ultimate Spanish Review and Practice: Mastering Spanish Grammar for Confident Communication, a book by the same authors Gordon and Stillman that made it possible for me to learn Spanish to speak, read and write for business. I reviewed that book 12-26-99, "Spanish Learning Made Easy". I am now using The Ultimate Spanish Verb Review and Practice: Mastering Verbs and Sentence Building for Confident Communication to further my study of Spanish. I find the book particularly helpful for many reasons. First, the comprehensive number of verbs and the organization of verb lists in structural and semantic groupings provides an easy way to expand my vocabulary and a good reference tool. Second, the grammar explanations of verbs and tenses are extremely clear. Third, each of the 15 chapters presents one or more tenses or type of verb, followed by a section called Building Sentences in which the verbs and tenses studied are expanded into meaningful sentences. Fourth, the book has loads of exercises of all types, and much useful current vocabulary, such as computer and technology verbs. Fifth, I like the language boxes that give interesting information about the Spanish language. Sixth, because the chapters can be used in any order, I can personalize my Spanish language education and focus on key areas for me in a quick and efficient manner. Seventh, the book is so well-organized and user-friendly that I can work through a tense or irregular verb on a short flight. This smart and unique book was written for advanced beginning through advanced learners of Spanish, and I have already recommended it to friends and business associates who are at different levels. The authors' method really works for me as I am confidently and successfully using Spanish in my professional and personal lives.

I have been using The Ultimate Spanish Review and Practice: Mastering Spanish Grammar for Confident Communication as a review and reference book. It has seen me through Spanish language exams, travel to Spanish-speaking countries, business meetings where I had to speak Spanish, and even social situations. I read Spanish language newspapers and magazines and even some history and literature and watch Mexican telenovelas with a high level of comprehension.

I've been seeking a good follow-up review text and at last I found it: The Ultimate SPANISH VERB Review and Practice: Mastering Verbs and Sentence Building for Confident Communication. This amazing book is taking me through verb forms in all the tenses. The explanations are crystal clear and there are loads of exercises for practice. I love the Building Sentences section in each chapter because from the simple conjugated verb I learn how to build sentences by adding the verb + infinitive construction, or create sentences with double object pronouns; I learn how to express probability, how to focus on a certain element in the sentence, etc. I can say all the things I've wanted to say about "if something happens" or "if something were to happen" or "if something had happened" (possible conditions or contrary-to-fact conditions).

I like the presentation of Spanish grammar contrasted with English grammar. I'm a native English speaker but never really thought about English grammar until I used The Ultimate books. I find this very helpful, and I'm learning a lot about English, too!

Spanish has a lot of tenses and a lot of irregular verbs. The Ultimate SPANISH VERB Review and Practice is helping me to learn and practice them in context. I really like that the book allows me to go out of order which means if I need more practice on the present subjunctive (which I do!), I can jump right to Chapter 11. This book makes learning Spanish so logical and even enjoyable.

I think the Language Boxes are great because I'm learning interesting facts about Spanish. I didn't know that about 4,000 Spanish words, such as ojalá, el café, el alcohol, and hasta, were borrowed from Arabic. I am also learning many words that Spanish borrows from English to describe computer terms, such as crashear, linkear, and cliquear.

The Ultimate SPANISH VERB Review and Practice is the gold standard of language teaching books.

I began reading this book and doing the exercises after a very basic beginner's class which sparked my interest in learning the language more thoroughly. While I would say this book can be a stretch for beginning students of Spanish, it's perfect for intermediate and advanced learners. I read this book two years ago and once I had completed it, I took a placement exam for the University of Costa Rica's "Spanish for foreigners" class. I was able to qualify for the advanced level! Since then I have purchased more than sixty books which cover all aspects of the Spanish language. This book is, by far, the one I consider most useful and still use as a review. The explanations of the grammar are straightforward and easy to understand (even the dreaded subjunctive!) There are plenty of very useful exercises with an answer-key in the back of the book. Chapters often build on previous information and is best to work through this book sequentially. I can't say enough good things about this book!

I think even if you've already gone through another really good verb review book like Dorothy Richmond's, this one is also worth getting. There are some things one book goes over that the other doesn't. (goes both ways..) One thing I remember off the top of my head that is shown very clearly in this book that I don't remember from PMP is the way you use the "passive voice": How to say things like :

"The food was prepared" vs. "The food was prepared by the chef"
(When it isn't specifically stated that someone is doing the action, you would use `estaba' for the word `was', and when you include who did the action, you would use `fue'), so,
"La comida estaba preparada." vs. "La comida fue preparada por el cocinero".

What both books have in common though is that there are LOTS of exercises and really good, clear explanations on all the tenses as well as an answer key in the back.

Both Practice Makes Perfect: Verb Tenses and The Ultimate Spanish Verb Review and Practice are about $10 each on amazon.com. And in my opinion, everyone serious about learning Spanish should get both. It really is a good value for what you learn!

It's true. It doesn't look all that great on the K2, but you can still use it. Now, as for the DX, that's a totally different story. It looks great! Both French and Spanish. The formatting fits perfectly with the screen and the words are crisp.

This book is better than most at explaining the complex rules of Spanish, but also some of the interesting background behind the rules. Not for beginners, but definitely a great book for year 2 Spanish learners.

As the book claims, it will certainly help you master the building blocks of Spanish-language fluency. After finishing more than half of this book, I noticed that I have gained more confidence and increased my skills in speaking Spanish. You will begin with very simple phrases in the present tense and work your way up to compound sentences and conditional sentences. Some of the topics that you will find covered in this book are:

The Present Tense of Regular Verbs
Stem-Changing Verbs
Irregular Verbs Part 1rt
Irregular Verbs Part 2
Ser vs. Estar
The Preterit
The Imperfect and The Imperfect vs. The Preterit
The Past Participle, The Present Perfect, The Pluperfect

One of the most interesting topics that I found in this book is how to use the "personal a" in the Spanish language. Before reading this book I was somewhat confused about when it is necessary to use the "personal a" in Spanish. This Ultimate Spanish Verb Review and Practice really helped me get a better understanding of this topic.

The author also uses a very effective method of contrasting Spanish and English verb tenses and sentence structures. Although not a book for complete beginners, this is one of the best books that you will find for intermediate through advanced students who wish to master Spanish verbs. If you are a complete beginner you may prefer Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses, Second Edition (Practice Makes Perfect Series).

Besides Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses and this book, the other resource that I recommend for mastering Spanish verbs is Verbarrator Version 1.1 (Windows Version) The Verbarrator software replaces the traditional verb conjugation books and makes learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs an interactive and fun activity. What I found most effective about the Verbarrator is that it allows you to customize your own verb drills and zero in on the verbs or verb tenses that you are having the most trouble with.

Another Spanish learning resource that I enjoyed which by the way has nothing to do with conjugating Spanish verbs is 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.

I really wanted to buy this book for my Kindle. Unfortunately I learned from reading the sample that lists of very important verbs are presented in a table format in very small print - print so small I would need to use a magnifying glass to read it. Most of the text is fine and can be re-sized to any of the Kindle's six font sizes, but tables are pictures that cannot be made larger. Please get rid of the tables and if necessary simply list the verbs and their translations in a list or find some way to make the print of the tables larger. If the publisher fixes this problem, I will be first in line to purchase the book.

This product has been made for Kindle and I bought it. What a disappointment! Does ANYBODY look at these things before they are released? The exercises are so tiny as to be unreadable on Kindle, and the font size option does not work with them. Of course, the exercises are the most valuable part of the book. I would really like to have this book, but it is unusable in its current Kindle form.

Question: Doesn't anybody at the publishing house test these things on Kindle before they release them on an unsuspecting world? The fact that a thing is available for Kindle would suggest to the normal mind that it is formatted for Kindle and works for Kindle, particularly something from a professional publisher. For Kindle users this is a trap. AVOID!

If they clean this thing up, I will buy it, since it is a very good book otherwise.

The printed 8x11 edition of this book is great, but the current Kindle edition is a flop. Almost all the Spanish is presented in tiny fixed size 5 point type and cannot be enlarged with the Kindle's zoom feature. The editors simply took the workbook layout, which was probably 11 point type, and shrunk it down until it fit the 3.5 inch wide Kindle screen.

Amazon: you need a feedback path to publishers. The problem with this ebook could be easily fixed with a couple of hours of editing.