Spanish for Dummies
by and the Language Experts at Berlitz
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Book Reviews of Spanish for Dummies
Book Review: The World of Spanish!
Summary: 4 Stars
At the very beginning of the text Ms Wald infers that Spanish for Dummies is as much a cultural introduction to the Spanish speaking Americas as it is a premier in the fundamentals of the language itself. That she loves her subject is evident in her writing content and style.
She makes very clear that this book alone will probably not make one fluent. It's not a rehearsal of grammar in depth nor is it a textbook. But if one is willing to supplement the study of its basic ingredients with immersion in the language, one should do well. My suggestions include adding the complimentary volume (Intermediate Spanish for Dummies), the SfD Phrase Book, additional high-quality texts, popular magazines in Spanish, Univision and Telemundo television if available, an assortment of beginning dual-language books, a New International Version dual-language New Testament or Bible (or other form of Spiritual Works or Scriptures as available), and an E-News source or two of choice. Add to this mix a few generous colleagues, friends and neighbors who speak the language.
SfD is well organized. It's clear, intuitive, informative, uncluttered and humorous throughout. The cartoons are great! Previous criticism regarding misprints and typos are valid and such lack of attention to detail makes me crazy. I tend to see more and more of this in print and on-line the past decade or so. Certainly the author is ultimately responsible but perhaps this also is commentary on the quality of proofreading and editing these days. I've marked certain corrections and clarifications in my copy but wager I didn't catch them all.
The accompanying single CD is helpful with the rudiments of diction and pronunciation. Expect a number of canned conversational phrases directed toward the novice - nothing extra. More substantive audio recordings and programs are to be had through Berlitz and Rosetta Stone.
Spanish for Dummies has done what I expected it to do and I'm pleased to have it on my language-studies shelf.
My Four Stars would have been Five expect for the several printing errors as mentioned.
Russell de Ville
1 January 2010
Book Review: My first Spanish book
Summary: 3 Stars
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.Book Review: The 'dummies' are not the readers....
Summary: 1 Stars
The referenced 'dummies' are not the readers or the poor consumers who fall for the hype. The 'dummies' are the compilers, editors, and general production personnel behind this giant turn-off to any language study.
I don't know whether to begin with the confusing layouts, jumble of type and eye-distracting arrows & boxes and symbols, or just the general pedestrian tone. A 10-year-old would be insulted by the language, and the ridiculous supposedly 'chatty' references, asides, and extraneous observations.
I sincerely wish I had returned the product but it was a few days before I actually analyzed the content. The only saving grace is not paying full retail price - thank you Amazon for saving me some $$.
I recommend that anyone even remotely interested in this book consider carefully its poorly crafted style, its non-linear approach to any language learning process, and its lack of interest. It seems written for a consumer who might want to order a drink in their local spanish eatery. Please go to a local bookstore and flip though a copy before investing time and $$ in a wasteful pile of paper.
Ashamed of myself for falling prey to the gimmick and not doing more homework before the Review: Great introductory but in no way takes the place of any class
Summary: 3 Stars The book is broken up into chapters mainly based on different social situations you might encounter. In this respect, the book gives gives useful vocabulary and conversational illustrations.
The first chapter is devoted to to pronunciation and the 2nd to grammer. Even with this chapter on grammer, I thought the book fell short of explaining the needed grammatical rules and in addressing verb conjugations in an productive manner. They jump right in to present, past, and future verb tenses and never quite explain why the words are ordered the way they are in various sentences. I was left to wonder what various words were in and why they were at the front, in the back, or attached to the end of a verb.
I did like that they have little boxes explaining the differences between the spanish spoken in different countries since I was planning to use my spanish in Argentina.
Overall a good book if you're travelling and just want to be able to use the language in limited social situations without really understanding the why and how of the language.
Book Review: Too Much Stuffing and not enough Spanish
Summary: 2 Stars
Thank God I didn't have to pay for this book. It's overloaded with information that I didn't find helpful in actually learning to speak Spanish. Even a retired person, such as myself, began to grow impatient with the abundance of information that was not directly related to speaking Spanish. If you really want to get to the "meat" of Spanish vocabulary and grammar, you would do much better by purchasing "Spanish Grammar for Indepedent Learners." It is expensive but I think it's much better than Spanish for Dummies.
But even with Spanish Grammar for Indenpendent Learners, you will still need private lessons or a good Spanish course. If you like learning on your own, Pimsleur is excellent. It's my favorite because the Spanish is very formal, you'd have to go to Spain if you wanted to learn Spanish more formal. If you don't like the formal Spanish and just want to learn Spanish for communicating with employees, customers, co-workers, or for dating, then you may prefer Learning Spanish Like Crazy.