foreign languages

I have familiarity with several languages but just started studying Spanish about 6 months ago. This was the first book I bought. I agree that this is not sufficient by itself. It has a lot of good side bar information as well as dialogues and highlights of important words. However, I found that it also has a lot of items that are inappropriate for the level that is being taught. A simple example is the first verb taught is "trabajar"- to work. A much simpler one could be used when you are learning pronunciation/conjugation. Also dialogues used past and future tenses which are not even taught in this book (they are listed with the verb conjugations). Now that I have more knowledge, I am going back and reading it again and am getting a lot more out of it. I would pick a simpler book for my first one were I to do it again-- but not a phrase book. Another aspect of this book is that it has a lot of sections like "at the marketplace". Those are words less well known and not really that helpful or essential at this stage of my progression. There are a lot more valuable words to be learned first. I have also studied tapes like Pimsleur at the same time and it was excellent on continuous building one block at a time. I also found that often when I tried to look up a word in the included dictionary, it wasn't there, so a separate one is really required.

I like this book. A lot. It's one of my favorites for learning and reviewing bite sized pieces of Spanish.

I agree with the reviewer who said that it should not be used alone. Actually, what I am finding after trying to learn Spanish for business for about a year, is that there is NO single resource that can be used alone.

I travel a lot on business to various Spanish speaking countries and this is the book that I take along most often. It deserves a place in your Spanish-learning library.

My experience has been that to learn Spanish on your own, you need books, tapes, dictionaries, videos, Spanish TV, newspapers, PLUS you have to practice, practice, practice with native speakers. Every type of resource you can think of. If you want to learn quickly, move to a Spanish speaking country for a year and devote the year to learning Spanish. Otherwise, it will require persistence and patience.

I never took spanish classes and wanted to learn on my own as I have a boring job but with lots of spanish speaking customers. I looked in the ... and...bookstore near us through all their books and this one was the best for my learning abilities. The #1 reason is that throughout the book it breaks down the pronounciation of each new and old word it gives you, without having to keep refering to rules in the beginning of the book. #2 it seems to have a logical lesson plan that I can follow easily, and not just touristy type lessons as I don't really plan on just asking where the hotel is, but need a practical more rounded learning experience.